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The Bodyguard 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.

It’s time to look at a 90’s action film. You can definitely rest assured that there is a good amount of action here. The film’s a bit on the long side which isn’t really an issue but it did seem to challenge the writers a bit. In particular there is one plot that seems to go in circles more times than it should and I’ll go into more detail on that later. This is a solid film but one that could have been a whole lot better. Regardless, it’s a good way to spend 2 hours.

The film starts off with introducing us to Frank. He’s the best in the biz when it comes to being a bodyguard but he doesn’t do a lot of work anymore. That all changes when an old friend shows up and asks him to bodyguard a famous celebrity known as Rachel. Her plight is that someone has been sending her a ton of death threats and her life may be in danger. Frank doesn’t want to take the job when he sees how nobody is taking this seriously and Rachel is clearly not going to play ball. Ultimately he decides to take the gig though and it could be his toughest one yet.

There are a few things here that makes everyone look terrible. For starters, nobody actually told Rachel that she was in danger. Yes, all of the threats and such have been hidden from her, even the note left on her bed showing that the guy broke into her home. The agents figure this will just make her upset. Yeah, it’ll make her upset and that’s the point. She should know that someone is after her life. It makes her position of thinking that Frank is not necessary a bit more understandable at least in the beginning. I do think Frank also needs to take some blame here for not making sure she knew. Once he finds out he says that someone should tell her…so the guy in charge of hiding this from her claims he will do it. Naturally he does not.

Frank had no reason to trust this guy and should have told Rachel personally. My issue with Rachel though is how she acts after she knows about this. She takes it well at first until another threat comes in. Then she tells Frank that she will take it seriously and listen to him…until she doesn’t. They have a quick affair and then he pulls back thinking that this won’t be professional. To get back at him she decides to put her life in jeapordy on purpose with parties and vanishing for a few hours. She’s also putting her son in danger by doing stuff like this but doesn’t seem to notice. After more events happen she goes back to saying she will play ball…and then she rebels again in the final scenes.

Rachel’s probably got to be one of the most annoying characters I’ve seen in a while. If someone tries to murder you multiple times you’d think that you would take it very seriously at that point. Not doing so just doesn’t seem like something a reasonable person would do. I guess that’s the problem with Rachel, she doesn’t seem like a reasonable character. She’s very extreme throughout the film and while that may work in some settings, it certainly doesn’t here.

She’s surrounded by a bunch of sketchy characters as well although none of their lives are in danger so you get it a little more. Her agent in particular just loves being famous so he wants to put her life at risk as much as possible to get more records. The driver is a pretty good character. He gets with the program very quickly so I definitely appreciated that.

Rachel’s old bodyguard Tony is also reasonable. He really was doing a fine job of being a bouncer before Frank showed up so you can understand his apprehension. Also when Frank let his feelings get the best of him again and dashed off Tony was the only one to protect Rachel from someone trying to assault her. So he did step up when it counted and always did act in Rachel’s best interests. I would make the case that he may have even been a better character than Frank. I had my issues with Frank.

Before I dive into him, I have to say that Nicki’s also a pretty bad character. She seems very jealous and petty right off the bat and that only gets worse as the film goes on. It’s hard to have any real sympathy for her because of how far it all goes. Like Frank said, she should have just pursued a different career if this was going to make her jealousy levels go higher and higher. Working for the paparazzi isn’t for everyone. It’s a thankless job where you’ll be treated badly more often than not.

All right, now it’s time for Frank. He’s clearly great at his job and has a lot of skills so I won’t argue against that. What holds him back as a character is how he lets his emotions get the better of him all the time. Even starting the affair with Rachel was something he shouldn’t have done. He’s on a mission right now so that’s a clear conflict of interest and it makes him look unprofessional. Starting the affair and then suddenly cutting it off doesn’t make him look any better either. It makes him appear wishy washy. Then he takes out his frustration on innocent people like the random guy in the kitchen. Frank beats him down pretty thoroughly and you know it’s because of Rachel which makes the whole thing even worse.

Throw in the fact that he forgot to actually make sure Rachel knew the risks early on and his constant complaining and you have a lead who is not all that reliable. He can still fight so he does act as a solid bodyguard but he needs to keep a lid on those emotions. He’ll never be the next 007 or Ethan Hunt if he stays at this level. The ending of the film hopefully shows that he has some promise as he seems ready for the mission. You could probably make a pretty good sequel to this movie because the premise allows for many different stories.

All right, so for some positives now we have the fight scenes. Those are handled pretty well when they occur. Surprisingly we never get a true hand to hand fight with the villains though. Most of it is about dodging possible attempts on Rachel’s life or dealing with randoms. So it may be more accurate to say that the action scenes are good. The film is also pretty interesting which is important for a long title like this. You’ll be interested in what’s going on the whole time. There are also a few twists about the main villain which is neat. I think you’ll probably suspect something is up early with how they show the villain and how weak he seems to be, but it’s still a pretty solid twist anyway.

Overall, The Bodyguard delivers on the action and intensity. It’s a long film and does feel like a true blockbuster. The character cast is pretty weak though. Rachel really doesn’t co-operate as much as she should and Frank is way too emotional to be an agent. One more scene to show why he wasn’t cut out at this is when at night he decides to “subtly” play Rachel’s music on max volume in his home theater. Now he can’t hear anything going outside and neither can any of the security guards. Considering he was doing this on the sneak it didn’t really make a lot of sense and if the villain had been around that would have ended really badly. Don’t hire this guy as your bodyguard.

Overall 6/10

The Transporter Review

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It’s time to look at an action film from back in the day. I definitely know the title to this film pretty well because of the most recent installment where I saw the trailer to it a while back. It always looked pretty fun and I would say that this one is pretty solid as well. It does have some issues but ultimately it’s a very good film with a lot of hype action scenes. When you’ve got great hand to hand fight scenes like this you just can’t really go wrong.

The film starts off by introducing us to Frank. He’s a villain who goes around transporting things for the criminal underworld and gets compensated for his troubles. His 3 rules are that he never looks inside the package, he always sicks to the deal, and no names. This has worked out pretty well for him in the past but that’s all about to change. This time he decides to look in the package only to find a lady inside. He ignores this and delivers as promised, but the villains double cross him and blow up Frank’s car. Now he wants revenge and that gets him involved a lot deeper in this case than he had wanted.

One big difference compared to most other leads like this is that Frank never really turns good. Even after he finds out about the girl being tied up in the package he really doesn’t care. The whole time you are expecting him to break in and try to save her but that doesn’t happen at all. I’ll give the film props for being unexpected because I didn’t see that coming at all. Ultimately Lai has to do all of the work to save herself for most of the film including breaking into the villain’s car so Frank unknowingly drives her out of there. She then seduces him into helping her cause so the film makes it clear that Frank is a villain the entire time. If anything he looks pretty terrible with all the lengths it takes Lai to convince him to help her.

The romance if you could call it that for most of the film is pretty weak. After the opening trick from Lai they do end up actually getting together but there is really no development here. It just happens and there’s no real need for the romance in this film. If you cut it out then nothing really changes which is always the sign that the romance wasn’t really needed here from the start. It could have been worse, but it still feels pretty forced into the film.

The soundtrack in the movie is definitely really good. You’ve got a lot of fast paced themes that really go well with the fight scenes and this movie has quite a lot of those so a stellar theme is very much appreciated. The action scenes are also choreographed very well. There are a lot of pretty interesting combos here. Frank is portrayed as a guy with pretty advanced martial arts and I could see the movies delving into his backstory a little more in the sequels. Some of the sidekicks are particularly impressive and the combo attacks are different from what you may be used to seeing. It’s a very unorthodox fighting style. I was also glad that the villains could fight here.

A lot of times in movies the boss can’t actually fight so he lets the minions do all of the work. That’s not the case with Bettencourt. This guy was actually beating Frank in their initial encounter which takes a good amount of skill for sure considering how good the lead looked earlier. Bettencourt’s big mistake was leaving Frank to 20 of his goons and just walking away. Had he just finished Frank right then and there then things could have been very different. I liked this guy as an antagonist though. He always had a good quip ready and seemed like a practical business man. His plan was also pretty reasonable for bumping Frank off.

Then you’ve got the cop who is always after Frank. He’s a pretty nice guy who always seems to know that something is up but doesn’t have the heart to actually go after Frank. He just wants to help people and thinks that Frank is a nice guy overall. He is crucial in helping Frank out towards the end of the film and is a charismatic side character. The thing is, his faith in Frank is actually pretty misguided. Let’s quickly go over the facts here. Frank would absolutely not have helped Lai (the girl) out if not for being forced into the situation by being targeted. He’s not as nice a guy as Tarconi seems to think.

That’s one problem with the film as well. Frank is definitely portrayed as a villain the whole time, but the film seems to try to say that he’s actually not such a bad guy. He used to be military and has hit a low in his life because he thinks his efforts were all wasted. That’s why he turned to a life of crime. That’s all fine, but once he decided to not only ignore Lai but actually deliver her to the villains and allow her to die, that’s going another step into the extreme. I really thought he was going to go back and save her so I was surprised. He’s a reasonably hype villain, but I feel like the film forgot that he was a villain at times. I’m sure now he’ll be a more heroic character for the sequel but I definitely wouldn’t trust him.

Finally you have Lai whose story is shrouded in mystery for most of the film. She doesn’t seem to trust people all that much based on how she was lying to Frank even towards the end. She manipulates people to get to the goal which is effective but by hiding some parts from Frank she did put the heroes in a pretty bad spot. If she had told a better story then things would have gone over a whole lot better. She’s not bad though because I do appreciate the fact that Lai is a pro-active character. She contributes quite a lot when finding out about the villains and also knows how to use a gun. The scenes with her and Frank are still too fast, but ignoring that they made for a good team here.

She’s not written all that realistically at times though. The scene that really comes to mind is when she is first let into Frank’s house and he goes to sleep for a while. Not only is he being way too trusting here because she can just murder him, but she seems to feel no fear either as she breaks into his boxes and spills everything while looking through his past. Fortunately Frank is an extremely heavy sleeper, but it seems like all of this was an excuse to find out more about his past but it didn’t make any sense from a narrative point of view. They have no reason to trust each other just yet. As far as Lai knows Frank was trying to deliver her to the villains and murder her a short time ago and from Frank’s point of view Lai may want revenge so why leave her alone in the kitchen with all of his knives that he proudly showed off while he goes to sleep? The film seems to go on auto pilot with the logic once in a while.

Overall, Transporter has a pretty quick pace throughout so it’s engaging from start to finish. There’s always a fight scene happening or some good chase scene. Surprisingly we don’t get to see Frank doing a whole lot of actual transporting though which I thought was ironic. After the opening scene and the delivery of Lai, Frank does no more transporting. The title can be a bit misleading in that respect but the movie did a good job of introducing us to all of the characters in the meantime. We do learn a lot about Frank even in these brief moments. There are definitely moments where you have to suspend some disbelief or where the writing is a bit weak but on the whole this is a solid film and one that I would recommend.

Overall 7/10

The Magnificent Seven (2016) Review

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It’s time to delve into the world of the Wild West once more. While the film is definitely way better than how the first series ended it doesn’t even come close to matching the original. On the whole it’s not a bad movie as most of the scenes are fairly sound but there’s a very questionable scene near the middle and the ending also falls flat with a very sudden backstory. This film tries really hard but just isn’t able to capture what made the original so fun.

The movie starts Bartholomew taking over a town and deciding that he will get rich this way. The townspeople don’t end up fighting even though they all have guns until it is far too late and they have absolutely no chance of victory. It’s always interesting to see this go down when everyone is armed because then there is seriously no excuse not to at least do something. Ah well. Emma then decides to find some gunmen so they can avenge her husband and save the town. She runs into Sam and he agrees to help after rounding up a posse. It ends up being 7 people total and they prepare to deal out some justice.

One thing the film does do right this time around is give time to introduce all of the characters. They all get a few scenes to make us aware of who they are and their personalities. Unfortunately I wouldn’t say that they are all very likable. First off, the main character isn’t bad. Sam is a reasonable main character who does his best to keep a level head as they approach the villains. He really only panics at the end when the film decides to get gritty for no reason with his motives for why he took the mission in the first place.

Then you’ve got Joshua who definitely has the most fun out of the characters. He actually enjoys being a gunman and is always messing around with everyone. He also seems to be the most skilled fighter of the group if you ask me. I’d have liked him to have been the main character because he was easily the most enjoyable to have on screen. Then you have Goodnight who is traumatized and can’t fight very well. I wasn’t particularly a big fan of this guy. He isn’t nearly as bad as the character he was based off of in the older films but that doesn’t mean a whole lot.

His partner Billy was a lot better. That guy had real skills both with a knife and with a gun. He was one of the most talented fighters in the film and you could always count on him to take down his opponent. Then you have Jack who is the worst member. He seems pretty crazy from the start and the guy doesn’t even use a gun much. I struggle to see why he was included in the film and if anything he just waters the group down by association. There’s nothing exceptional or magnificent about him in the slightest. It almost takes you out of the film when he is taking people down with an axe while they have guns. That doesn’t make any kind of sense.

Vasquez’s initial scene immediately makes him pretty unlikable here. The guy’s motives certainly aren’t the best. He has skills but that doesn’t automatically make him a quality character in the slightest. Finally you have Red Harvest whose opening scene throws him out of the picture immediately. We see him destroy an animal and then eat it which is such a pointless an unnecessary scene to have in the film. I was shaking my head the whole time. We really didn’t need this and in a way it delivered one of the final blows to the film. It was hard to come back from that.

The writing in general can’t keep up with the originals. There is a lot of friction between the characters but rather than it be because they all have big egos and a lot of confidence it’s more because they’re all portrayed as jerks. They tend to make insensitive comments to each other and flat out bully each other in other scenes. The scene of Joshua stealing the guy’s whiskey comes to mind. Then you have the fact that these 7 characters aren’t as great as they act. The main villain does a good job of taking them down for a while and they miss the shots that count. Joshua gets a great ending but most of the gunmen go down pretty easily otherwise.

Emma was a good heroine though and I was glad that she was able to fire off a gun. It’s always good to see people helping out at least a little because it’s your town so you should be defending it. If you just stand around then you’re not helping anyone except the villains for slowing things down. She should have been the one to get the original hero theme but it doesn’t really appear here. There is one scene where I feel like it was meant to be a bit of a homage but the music is very soft and it’s hard to say for sure. Either way I wouldn’t say it’s handled all that well. The main villain is given a reasonable role though. Bartholomew was pretty solid so I have no qualms with him.

The movie has a lot of little tributes to the various past films so that’s nice for fans I suppose. Since I watched them all recently it was a lot easier to pick up on them. Homages are nice to see but they don’t help to hide the flaws of this one. I’ve already talked about those so for a positive I’d say that the gun fights are pretty solid. There’s not a whole lot you can do with a gun fight after a while but they’re still pretty entertaining so the movie did a good job with those.

Overall, The Magnificent Seven remake is not a film that I would particularly recommend. It makes enough mistakes where I just can’t put it in the higher ranks. There’s no reason to watch this one over the original. It could have been worse for sure I guess so it’s not a terrible movie either. If you want to watch a modern wild west then this is probably better than a lot of the alternatives I suppose.

Overall 5/10

Battle at Big Rock Review

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It’s time to look at a very quick live action movie that came out a while back. It’s always nice to see franchises push out a little something like this to expand the universe. It gives you something to look at while waiting another 4-5 years for the next big film after all. The plot is pretty self explanatory. A family is enjoying a nice BBQ when a few dinosaurs show up and start to fight. The main characters have to try and be really quiet but the baby is constantly crying so it won’t be easy. Can the humans escape with their lives intact or are they doomed here?

I do have a question on this though. The heroes clearly know about the dinosaurs from how nonchalantly they talk about seeing one and they reference the radio as well. This takes place after the last film so dinosaurs are everywhere. Why would you possibly have a BBQ outside during such a time? The main guy mentions that bears are around so they get the food in pretty quick but you should be more afraid of the dinosaurs. His wife mentions that the dinosaurs aren’t supposed to be this close yet but I don’t think you should be taking any chances.

There aren’t a lot of safe spots elsewhere either though. The film gives us a lot of meanwhile scenes where we see Dinosaurs around every corner sizing people up and destroying the food chain. The film fortunately handles this as well as possible with no explicit animal deaths. They all die but it doesn’t get gritty or graphic. Even the main dinosaur battle is interrupted before either of them can get seriously hurt which is good. It still does hold this back from being a higher score but it doesn’t make it bad either.

There isn’t enough time for the film to really go all that up or down. It just goes by in a flash and reviewing something this short is also pretty tricky for those same reasons. As far as I’m concerned it’s basically middle of the road. It has enough going for it where it’s not bad but there’s not enough here for me to give it a pretty good score or anything. The dinosaurs look great and this could be a scene in a real theatrical film. That’s definitely for sure.

Overall, if you’re a big fan or Jurassic Park or just want to see some dinosaurs in action then you should enjoy this. It’s only about 8-10 minutes so you’ll be done with it very quickly. It doesn’t take much time to watch and it’s solid enough where you should check it out. The humans aren’t too annoying either although I didn’t like the kids or the baby but it’s hard to develop them into likable characters in such a short time span. This special does show why a whole film about surviving in the age of dinosaurs will be pretty interesting. It’s a very dangerous premise so it’ll be hard for a whole film to get out unscathed but it’s worth the attempt.

Overall 5/10

Try and Get Me Review

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It’s time for an old noir film that serves as a cautionary tale for why you don’t want to mix with the wrong crowd. Once you start committing crimes it is very hard to get out of them. A lot of people like to think that they can get out as soon as they want to, but it’s easier said than done. It’s a pretty good film that definitely has a bit of a dark ending. It’s all handled pretty well and the film even has more acts than I expected. It manages the pacing and run time very well.

Howard is pretty low on money and has a hard time landing a job. There just aren’t many openings right now and he gave his last coin to his kid so he wouldn’t feel left out when everyone else went out to the local game. Howard ends up meeting an eccentric man named Jerry who offers him a job. Howard finds out that it is for an illegal operation so he half heartedly says no but after double thinking it, Howard agrees to help. He is the getaway driver for Jerry’s various crimes. Things heat up one day when Jerry murders someone. Now Howard is really on the hot seat and reporter Gil is determined to nail him.

The film really has two main plots here. First up is Howard’s plot with Jerry as they go around robbing people. Then you’ve got the secondary plot with Gil where he doesn’t take the crimes seriously at first. Eventually he figures out that this is the real deal and decides to run some hard hitting pieces meant to ruin Howard’s life. Gil has no sympathy for murderers and the town is in full agreement on this. The mayor warns Gil that he is riling up the people a little too much but the reporter doesn’t see any harm in this.

Howard is a character that is hard to sympathize with because he had a few easy outs. When he initially says no Jerry starts to get sarcastic and even tosses Howard a 10 dollar bill. Howard should have taken it and left. Instead he decided to stay and get rich in part because he saw what a life Jerry led. That was Howard’s big mistake. Then there’s also the brief affair with one of Jerry’s friends. Jerry had them go on a double date to fool the authorities and while Howard initially just went along with the ruse he ended up getting drunk and making a fool of himself. There’s just no real sympathy to be had for Howard by the end. He was really annoying and talked a good game, but always backed off when the chips were down. He’s not the kind of guy that you want to have in your corner because you won’t have him there for long. He’ll be gone by the next time you turn around.

Then you have Jerry who is the main villain of the film. He’s definitely used to this kind of life and has been a criminal for a long time. You’re not even supposed to feel any sympathy for him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has murdered a lot of other people over the years since I doubt his crimes always go well. He’s likely slipped up before and every time he slips up someone ultimately pays the price. He does a better job of handling the prison riot at the end though as he at least tries to put up a brief fight. Realistically you aren’t going to be able to do anything when attacked by a whole mob though. The only outcome there is death.

Finally we have Gil. His sub plot appears a bit at the beginning but doesn’t really appear again until the end when Howard is already captured. I was impressed at how the film maintained the two plots. The moral for his plot was a bit mixed though. Basically the film tried saying that her should have held back in his reportings and then the mob wouldn’t have murdered the two murderers. Sure, he wrote his pieces pretty hard but it’s not like he lied about any of it. Not everyone can handle listening to the news on a daily basis because of how graphic and intense it can be at times. It’s just how it is.

Gil’s doing his job in reporting and I think the characters were rather hard on him for that. If anything based on how unhinged the mob was it may have happened anyway. The guy Jerry murdered to which Howard was an accomplice on was clearly a very liked and respected figure. It’s not a crime that people would have a lot of sympathy on. It’s similar to how based on what kind of crime you land in jail for odds are that you wouldn’t survive back in the day. People would make sure you didn’t return. The law system can also seem a bit iffy at times with how sentences are dealt out. One of Gil’s papers was warning people that Howard may plead temporary insanity and then he’d be let go without a jail sentence. It’s something that people actually do try. Then you have others who are in jail for murder and when released they go right back to it.

The law’s not perfect, but nobody should be skipping due process to play vigilante. That being said, I just didn’t really see a problem with what Gil was saying. He didn’t beat around the bushes with his takes but he wasn’t using hyperbole or being too over the top either. It is what it is I suppose. Once the mob lined up there really wasn’t anything the cops could do. It would definitely be a scary situation to be in though for all parties involved. You’re effectively locked in with a few hundred crazy people and no escape. Even if you aren’t their target you have to be careful that you aren’t attacked in the mix up.

Overall, Try and Get Me is a pretty solid film. It can be rather tense at times and quite a lot of things happen during the film’s length of time. If you’re up for a good suspense film then this is a nice one to check out. We’ll see what you think on the matter with Gil. The ending is definitely intense and ends on a pretty somber note. The writing is solid and I don’t really have any negatives to report here. It’s just a pretty good movie that has mostly flown under the radar over time.

Overall 7/10

The Hug Review

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It’s time to look at a quick special known as The Hug. This was a pretty recent horror short from 2018 and it borrows from the 5 Nights at Freddy’s concept. What if there was an evil pizza place where the mascot goes around murdering people? In less than 5 minutes there is only so much that this special can do to show off the premise so you have to fill in the gaps yourself. There are definitely a lot of implications here not just for the worker but for the store in general.

The short has a kid celebrating his birthday party at a local pizza place. He finally won some ticket on one of the machines so he wants to have a shot performed for him by the animal robot. The store owner says the robot is out to lunch so the kid has to wait. The kid doesn’t listen and opens the curtain. The machine asks for a hug and it turns out to be a fatal one as the machine eats the kid. The pizza owner tries to investigate but gets scared off by the machine’s true face. That is ultimately how the special ends.

So…did the pizza owner know that the machine was evil? It’s pretty sketchy that they continue to power on the robot every day if that is the case. It also makes the owner a true accomplice. The owner’s phrasing here is also key as he said that the machine was eating. Machines don’t eat so that means the owner was feeding him something. We can only hope that he feeds it a steady diet of veggies and pizza but is that really the case? The owner was my favorite character on the surface as he seemed concerned and at least did try to help. It’s just that the more you think about it, the more likely it is that he is completely responsible for what happened. In that case it’s hard to like the guy.

The film makes the kid was unlikable as possible before he gets eaten. He disobeys the rules and just isn’t a very nice guy in general. It’s still pretty dark for the kid to get eaten like that though. Since the short ends so suddenly you can try to make the case that they got the kid out of it afterwards. I’m not sure how much weight that theory holds but the guests do outnumber the robot so perhaps they would be able to pull something like that off.

Overall, The Hug is definitely a fun little horror title. It reminds me of the classic Goosebumps adventures where the hero wouldn’t always win in the end. The film doesn’t last quite long enough for things to get too overly dark so it works out well enough. If you’re a big horror fan then I’m sure you’ll enjoy this one. It shows that you can do quite a lot in 4 minutes. The special introduces the characters, gives us some tension in the scenes, and even brings in a villain who has a very unique design. Be warned, it’s not for the faint of heart!

Overall 6/10

The Magnificent Seven Ride Review

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I’ve never seen a movie series hit rock bottom quicker than this one. In general I’ve never seen such a big drop because typically if your first movie is pretty good then the sequels will at least stay in the same realm. The first film in this series was a very solid 8 so I really thought that the whole thing was safe. The second film was a drop to a 5 but the third went back up to a 6. This one literally hits rock bottom…..so lets take a look at why that is.

The movie starts off by introducing us to Chris and his new life situation. He is now married and the sheriff of a little town. Chris runs a pretty tight ship and has been doing pretty well for himself. He locks people up and ships them out to the big jails. The latest one he arrested was a guy who has been robbing stores and wasting all of the money. His wife and the guy’s mother tell Chris that it won’t happen again and so he goes against his better judgment and releases the guy. This crook promptly murders his wife and escapes town. Chris is determined to avenge her but the guy has made friends with a powerful tribe of bandits. Chris is forced to round up 6 allies once again to set things right.

His team of 7 is tied together in more of a reluctant sense this time. Most of Chris’ allies are guys he locked up personally so they all want to end his life. Chris has to keep coercing them into helping his cause by using every trick in the book. It’s a bit of a stretch at times since they could end him many different times before his plan comes together but it is what it is. It’s lucky for Chris that this is the case because otherwise taking on the villains would be difficult. The villains have no real character though so that is similar to the second film. The main villain only appears at the very end and the guy who murdered Chris’ wife at the beginning dies early on off screen as well so the villains really got the shaft here.

What really hurts the film here is how needlessly dark it is. The movie goes out of its way to be as edgy as possible without adding anything to the film. There’s quite a bit of rape here to the various supporting characters and Chris’ wife. This doesn’t add anything to the story and even if the film were to try and use that as an integral part of the film I can guarantee it would still be getting a sinking score. That’s not an element you ever need to put in a film. It just makes you wait for the ending to come that much sooner.

A huge part of the film’s focus is Chris on his mission of revenge. This is a cheap tool to get you to root for Chris to murder everyone and continue on the cycle of violence. The movie seems to forget this though because when Chris gets to the village he quickly gets a romantic subplot with one of the women there. For context, his wife just died in a very brutal way. There’s no way he should be moving on to a new girl so quickly. The plot is in terrible taste and makes no sense. It further illustrates how bad the writing was in this movie. Chris is also really quick to give up on the village before being guilt tripped into helping out. It’s even hinted he would have totally left them if not for the fact that his target got murdered anyway.

There’s not much to say about Chris’ band of followers because they’re all basically the same one note characters who all want vengeance and dislike Chris. None of them can really think of anything other than trying to murder the guy. The best one is probably the ex commander who is used to being the boss. At least he got a little character and seems to have some dignity. The others I can’t really say the same for. For added edge all of these guys were tortured a bunch in prison so their mental states aren’t as sound as they usually would be.

The movie is just filled with cringe scenes that have no awareness. One such moment is when Chris tells his members to each pick various ladies as partners for the upcoming fight. It should obviously be the other way around given what just happened in the village and all the mental scars that are still in place. You just don’t know what the film is thinking half the time. All of these choices just make you scratch your head and it’s why the film is no fun to watch. There’s never a sense of joy or adventure like you had in the previous films.

That’s why the soundtrack is so odd. As always the movie chooses to keep on re-using the same happy hero theme constantly. In the older films it at least made sense sometimes because the films were generally upbeat. This one is never upbeat yet you have the happy theme showing up constantly. After Chris shoots two of the accomplices and heads back out on the trail the theme plays but we just got through some of the darkest scenes in the film so there is nothing to cheer about. It’s like the sound director just made sure to put the music on every time the heroes are travelling on horseback without looking at the context for why they are travelling. The whole movie feels like it was just slapped together.

Overall, The Magnificent Seven Ride is a terrible film and one that tries to destroy the series’ reputation with how bad this one is. There’s no redeemable qualities about the movie. The characters are all pretty unlikable and the movie is just very mean spirited throughout. There should always be a fine line between trying to make a dark film and one that is simply edgy. You can be serious without crossing the line and this film was not able to handle that nuance. It jumps straight from 0-10 and so it sunk all the way to the bottom. I highly recommend staying far away from this film and if anything maybe you should just stick to the original film. It was easily the best one in the series.

Overall 0/10

Guns of the Magnificent Seven Review

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It’s time for Chris to round up some more gunmen in this third installment in the series. The series actually seems to take the premise of Suicide Squad more seriously than that film did with how high the body count is in these titles. Chris’ friends almost always die in these so you can see why they are always so hesitant to join him. Sure, Chris will live but the rest of them are usually all out of luck before the day is gone. It doesn’t feel like a great balance to them when you put it like that. This one is definitely better than the second film but still a far cry under the first. At least the series is back on an upward trend.

The film starts off with the rebellion leader getting kidnapped by the villain forces. This time the enemies are actually the government as Mexican forces are trying to get these rebels to submit. They aim to break the captured leader and end this once and for all. Max is able to escape and finds Chris over in town who has just helped a thief get away from being hanged. He convinces Chris to help him in exchange for some money and Chris must now round up a few guys once again. He really never has a chance to relax in these days. With the 7 of them rounded up he heads over to the prison to free the rebel leader. Will he really be able to break into the base and take out a huge number of adversaries though?

Let’s look at the supporting cast here. First we’ve got Keno, who was actually guilty of stealing a horse as revenge. The guy is a pretty good shot and pretty reasonable. He seems like the new version of Vin although he’s not quite as solid as the man from the first film. I’d still put him as the best ally in this movie though and is fun enough. Then you’ve got Cassie who is definitely happy to come along since at his old job the boss was quite unpleasant and treated him like a slave. Cassie doesn’t put up with any nonsense so he’s a pretty solid character to have on the team. He also seems to be the strongest physically.

Then you have Slater who is pretty annoying. The guy only has one good arm now so he’s always upset. Having only one arm is very difficult when you’re a shooter but he insists on taking it out on everyone else which definitely isn’t a good idea. He gets Cassie upset a few times and it was really all Slater’s fault with the remark he made. Then he goes on a drunken rampage shooting left and right. Even the way he goes out is pretty terrible. This guy really never managed to become a quality character. P.J. is another character who wasn’t very good. In his case the issue is that he is so sickly. He really wasn’t ready for a gunfight like this. It’s great that he came along to help I suppose but he looks very unimpressive next to the other characters.

Finally you have Levi who is a nice guy. He’s pretty old so he can’t move around quite as well as the younger guys but his gun skills are the real deal so he does help out a fair bit. He also takes one of the kids under his wing. Levi was a fun addition to the cast. So on the whole most of the characters were good. Meanwhile Chris is solid as always. I do feel like his skills seem less and less impressive with each movie, but he still ultimately gets the job done which is what counts. He manages to take down the enemy captain which was crucial. That guy managed to take down quite a number on his own which made him a pretty imposing villain.

This movie went back to its roots in some respects which was good such as developing the characters before uniting the group. Each one actually got a full scene to himself this time as opposed to everyone just teaming up right from the jump. It’s important to set up all of the characters individually before they team up. It gives you more of an actual reason to root for them. The villain also gets more development this time around. He has some good back and forth discussions with Chris. The guy is definitely as ruthless as they come and makes for a pretty intense villain. He certainly isn’t messing around.

The oddest part about the film is probably the music selection though. While the next installment would take this to a whole new level, the music here just didn’t feel appropriate at times. You’d have the very happy hero theme playing even during a sad scene or a moment where nothing is going right for the heroes. It felt like the soundtrack was so limited that they had to keep on playing the theme. It’s played even more than the main Star Wars theme and you know how much the films like to use that one. I don’t think the music director did a good job here. It’s not enough to have a solid theme, you need to know when to play it.

As always the villagers look pretty bad for the most part. The leader of the main group of rebels was a drunk who wasn’t taking anything seriously. It’s easy to see why the group had absolutely no luck over the last few years with a guy like that in charge. You can’t hope to succeed if your leader isn’t taking things seriously and that was definitely the case here. By the end the rebels move on without him, but if they had showed up earlier then way less people had to die. It seems like the cavalry always comes way too late.

The action scenes are solid as always though. The gunfights are good and the heroes make good plans the whole time. The Magnificent Seven feel a little less invincible this time though. The main villain took out 2-3 of them by himself which would have been pretty much impossible in the first film. I suppose eventually Chris was bound to run out of the top brass sooner or later though. These guys would just have to do in the meantime.

Overall, Guns of the Magnificent Seven is a solid film. It’s not quite as good as the first one but it’s good enough to check out if you like the genre. The music is not always placed well as it seems like the guy in charge would just slap the main theme on whenever he felt like it, but it is a catchy theme. Some parts of the film can definitely get a little dark with the main characters not doing anything to save them. Naturally in such a position they would likely lose and then there would be even more casualties but I never like to see the heroes do nothing as people are getting murdered. This one is more of a standard wild west film, you won’t be disappointed if you go and give this one a look.

Overall 6/10

Return of the Seven Review

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It’s time to look at the sequel to the Magnificent Seven. After seeing how solid the first one was I was hoping that this one would at least be in the same league as the original. Unfortunately this wasn’t meant to be. I guess the first one just set the bar a little too high because the sequel ultimately couldn’t even come close to the first. It ended up trying to copy all of the ideas but executed them all in a less effective fashion. Sometimes it’s just not enough to try and copy success.

The film starts out with the village from the first film getting attacked yet again. While Chico tries to fight them off he goes down after beating only 3. All of the men are kidnapped except for one who manages to get over to the main characters and asks for help. Chris and Vin got reunited when Vin reveals that there is now a bounty on Chris’ head. Vin has arrived to help him stay alive during this time. Now with news of the village being attacked Chris is forced to become a hero once again. Since most of the gunmen from the last film were murdered Chris needs to assemble a new squad. With all of the best fighters already out of commission he will now have to grab some of the B listers and man does the film try to make them as unlikable as possible. Can this group of 7 manage to stop the villains?

Here’s the problem with the film. It’s exactly the same as the last one. Usually a sequel will try to at least disguise itself as being a little different by switching up the characters a bit or making the circumstances new and unique. This film doesn’t bother with any of that to even the slightest degree. The villains are almost the same number as the last group only they have significantly less character. Chris assembles a group of hot shots once again only these guys don’t get any big intros and they are all pretty terrible from the jump. The group is assembled within the first 15 minutes. This sequel feels like it’s going on turbo speed right from the start. It cuts out all of the development time we had in the first so we can skip straight to the fights in this one.

I think the film is shorter so they didn’t have as much time as in the first film but it still could have done a better job. In the first movie at least everyone was actually here to help out the village for positive reasons. That’s not the case in this film with one guy in particular who may as well be a villain himself. He causes crimes constantly and was in jail for good reason. It’s a lot harder to root for the heroes this time around. The movie also did Chico dirty by having him lose almost instantly. Remember how he got a huge character development arc in the first film? Well, neither does do the writers of this film so you’re okay on that front.

Chris is still a good character, but he’s a lot less mysterious than he was in the first. His skills also seem less extraordinary here. He may just be acting modest but he does seem a little more nervous of the new characters here in general which is never a good look. Vin also gets less to do here. He’s still a fun sidekick and there’s nothing particularly wrong with him. I don’t get why he was so bored that he had to look for Chris though. He seemed to have had a pretty good set of goals in the last film as a drifter. No sense in giving that up now.

From the new guys first off we have Colbee. He’s the worst character in the film. All he cares about is women and he always makes it a point to go after married ones which just makes him a deplorable character from the start. It’s hard to tolerate the guy and since he’s a main character that’s a problem. Then we have Manuel who participates in cockfights. I can’t just overlook that either. It’s a terribly inhumane sport which has no business being here and the scenes in general don’t do the film any favors. We’re already down two gunmen so that isn’t a good sign at all. He’s meant to be the new Chico but the guy was getting washed in his first fight without throwing a single counter. I don’t see how this guy could possibly help the group out at all.

Frank is reasonable. He talks tough throughout the film at least so there’s that. From the new characters he is probably the best by default. At least he seemed like a decent character. Then you have Luis who is okay I guess. He doesn’t have a ton of character but he is skilled which is the important thing. The group manages to hold their own against the villains pretty well all things considered. Without the dynamite they would have been doomed in the end though. Dynamite is always a game changer so it’s important to have that on your side. With it you know that you always have a chance in battle.

The gunfights are solid as always. The opening fight when the gunmen first make it to the village is pretty good as we see them all firing at once in a pose similar to the first Avengers film. They all just start blasting and manage to take out most of the villains in an instant. Of course it was just the advance scouts and more fights would come, but it was a good start. I definitely had no issue with the action.

The pacing isn’t bad. It’s extremely fast for sure and I do think more time to develop the characters would have been nice, but in principle it’s not a bad idea to have things happen very quickly. The issue is that the characters just weren’t very good. The writing is also not nearly as strong as in the first film. Nobody acts quite as cool and professional as they did in the first film. We also had fairly pointless scenes included like the bull chasing and the cockfighting. Both scenes really should have been cut and the film would have been better off for it.

Overall, While the first film was one of the best wild west films I’ve ever seen, this would be one of the weaker ones. The whole movie feels redundant as it’s just a carbon copy of the first movie with weaker characters. The villains don’t really get to do much and even their overall plan isn’t quite as intense as in the first one. At least there the guy was trying to feed his starving men. Here these villains are basically lackeys. If the first film didn’t exist this one may have fared a little better but at it stands I couldn’t really give it a thumbs up. If you really loved the first film and want to see the characters again then by all means you should check this one out. Otherwise I’d recommend giving it a pass and just watch the original again.

Overall 5/10

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Review

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It’s time to look at the long awaited sequel to the first Maleficent film. That one was definitely quite good and I remember being impressed because it actually did surpass my expectations. It showed that there are still new ways to adapt some of the old classics. Maleficent also made for a quality character. Unfortunately the sequel is quite the step down from the first one. It’s not a massive shift in terms of score as this is still a good movie but there are a lot of questionable moments of characters making terrible decisions and Aurora’s character was completely wrecked.

The movie starts out with Aurora deciding to finally get married to Phillip. She is a princess and he is a prince so this will be a good way to unite the two kingdoms so everyone can live in harmony and forget about the corruption of the world. Unfortunately that’s not the way it is to be. Phillip’s mother Ingrith is not pleased with this and decides that she will fool these suckers into letting their guard down. She invites Maleficent into the castle and frames her for the murder of the king. Maleficent leaves and gets sniped out of the sky like a rank amateur while Aurora loses all of her intelligence and obeys Ingrith’s every whim. Realizing that the humans are going to win at this rate, Borra convinces all of the demons to attack the kingdom. Can they stop the evil humans?

I’ve got several problems here and the graphics aren’t one of them. The film looks quite solid. I like the energy effects and the destruction scenes we have are very good. The soundtrack isn’t terribly memorable but it does work well for the dramatic scenes. There’s a good amount of technical effort that was put into this film. Additionally the script was solid and the pacing was on point. You won’t be bored during this movie and it is careful not to make any big mistakes. So far so good eh? Well, lets talk about some of the issues here because the writing was not up to the task this time.

First off is Aurora. I haven’t seen a character catch as many Ls as this princess in a very long time. She’s one of the more unlikable characters and is now my least favorite Disney princess. First off, she doesn’t believe Maleficent when the lead tells her that she didn’t murder the king. Instead Aurora chooses to passively believe the quite obviously evil queen. Then Ingrith convinces Aurora to turn her back on the dress that the fairies made for her in order to fit in. Aurora is very quick to ditch her heritage and even agree to live in Ingrith’s castle. Aurora has absolutely no agency in the film and sides with all of the worst people. She’s proven here that she is not ready to leave and completely betrays Maleficent’s trust. It’s too bad because Aurora used to be a good character but I think she let romance cloud her judgment and forgot that she has an equal stake in this.

Then you’ve got the gullible monsters who walked straight into the murder house. Why didn’t any of them suspect something when no humans were walking in to the church? They do know that the humans have despised them for a long time so as soon as they noticed that Aurora wasn’t there they should have left. You never walk straight into a villain base without a plan. Then as some of them started getting murdered by the smoke they all started panicking and running. Why didn’t the massive tree monsters try breaking one of the many windows in the castle? They also should have attacked the girl playing the trumpet a lot sooner since she had no real protection. The monsters just looked incredibly weak and I had an issue with that. The scene made no sense.

We also can’t forget how weak the demons were. They were a disgrace as the humans were actually beating them. Humans! You can’t lose to a human, it’s just not done. This only happens when the humans are evil, when they’re good guys then they suddenly can’t fight for beans. It was pretty annoying to see everyone get wiped out by Ingrith’s armies and when they finally start to make a comeback they are forced to stop fighting. The worst example of this was Borra. After watching most of his allies get murdered by one guy he flies in to avenge them but prince Phillip stops him and gives the other guy a full pardon. They’re back to being friends in the next scene. Really? This army guy just betrayed everyone and murdered tons of people but he gets a full pardon? I think a full rebellion is liable to break out in this kingdom over the next few days because that was just wild. I still don’t get how you can lose to humans but let us press on.

Prince Phillip is super oblivious to everything. Aurora should have been telling him what was going on sooner but he also should have kept himself in the loop a little more. He let Ingrith handle everything and that’s really not the case when you’re king. He also clearly did not visit his father in the hospital bed at all since he didn’t notice the obvious wound on him that would have proven that Maleficent was not to blame. He just trusted the report and had no real agency. That’s a big red flag for a character.

Ingrith makes for a good villain in part because she is the only intelligent character around. She actually makes a lot of good plans and takes down all of her opponents with ease. She comes close to murdering Maleficent twice and also takes down whole armies. While she is on the right side at least she is actually an effective ruler. Ingrith knows how to lead her armies and how to take down opposing armies. Something tells me that Aurora and Phillip will not be able to do the same.

Then we have Maleficent who is all bark and no bite in this film. She loses most of her hype with how she has to try and be nice to everyone while Ingrith doesn’t bother with such things. Maleficent loses every verbal debate they have quite badly. I was shocked at how one sided all of their discussions were to the point where I couldn’t really blame Maleficent for running away. I do blame her for getting sniped so easily though. Then in the final fight she should have taken more of the enemies down or at least beaten Ingrith. Losing to her 1 on 1 was the ultimate moment of sadness for her character.

When you boil down to the heart of things, my main issue with this film was the writing. The characters all just looked terrible and seemed to have the average IQ of a slasher film protagonist. They made it awful easy for the villain to do what she wanted to all of them. I would have preferred more of a balanced fight and for the humans to have actually taken some losses. They get away with literal murder in this film as it feels like an unconditional surrender for the fairy folk by the end. The humans now have complete reign over everything.

Overall, This sequel just couldn’t match the original. It’s a decent movie and one I could see again but it makes a whole lot of mistakes. Aurora is hard to watch with how terrible she is and the ending just doesn’t feel fair. Maleficent should have just wiped everyone out and moves somewhere else where she would have been better appreciated. I think that would have done quite a lot to balance things out. If you like the original then you should still check this one out. Logic aside the film is still pretty entertaining with only some slow parts to hold the pacing back. If we get a third film hopefully it embraces the action a little more with a better outcome to the fight. The rest of the demons also need a buff since they looked so weak.

Overall 6/10