Category: Movie Reviews

The Last Jedi… Meh.

My thoughts on the latest Star Wars film are going to be brief because going into too much detail might be dipping deep into spoiler territory and I’d like to give people who have seen the movie a chance to go in with a clean slate rather than be, well, spoiled.

With that having been said, the only thing that I can say about The Last Jedi is that nothing of note happens and it’s back to business as usual. And even that might be a bit too spoiler-y without being too spoiler-y, but for what is supposed to be the big, major Star Wars entry – the big middle chapter in the trilogy – it just felt like a filler episode of a television series rather than anything of great significance.

Don’t get me wrong; I liked the movie enough that there were brief bits to enjoy. The space battle at the beginning of the movie was pretty good, the battle on the salt planet wasn’t too bad, I enjoyed the brief character interactions between Rey and Luke, the cast in general does the best they could with the material given and almost makes me believe in it, and then there was seeing Luke Skywalker in action for the briefest of moments.

But for the most part, I was largely underwhelmed. Questions that have been set up in the previous episode are either brushed aside or given rather underwhelming resolutions, there are plenty of uninteresting characters that I absolutely don’t care about, some of the character motivations are pretty goddamn stupid, the humor (with some exceptions) was overbearing to the point of obnoxiousness and almost makes me wonder if Episode IX is going to feature a crossover with the Guardians of the Galaxy, and as far as the direction of one Master Skywalker… well, I can see why Mark Hamill would fundamentally disagree with that sort of thing.

All of this would’ve been forgiven if the story was worth a damn and unfortunately, that isn’t the case here. Say what you will about The Force Awakens, but that had a sense of scope and opened the door to many new possibilities and interesting takes. It’s a pity that The Last Jedi chooses to ignore or even discard these new things and just bring things back to business as usual. I daresay that the movie is more interested giving us random characters who only exist to check items off the diversity checklist that the media likes so much, rather than give audiences a story that’s worth a damn.

Contrary to the supposed rallying cry that a lot of people are going for – at least if you were to follow the plethora of user reviews on the IMDB, this didn’t kill Star Wars for me. But I can safely say with absolute certainty that this is the first time since Attack of the Clones where I came out of a Star Wars movie completely underwhelmed and just disappointed by the lack of vision.

For what it’s worth, it’s an alright movie… but the best since Empire Strikes Back? Not a chance.

That would be last year’s Rogue One.

Random Thoughts On… Suicide Squad

So let me be upfront about this… I am not the biggest fan of the recent crop of DC films to come out of that camp. I’m talking about the Zack Snyder helmed stuff like Man Of Steel and Yawn Of Justice. Even going further back, I’ve also fallen a bit numb on what some would laughingly call the “holy” Dark Knight trilogy, of which only one of the films (The Dark Knight) holds up to any real degree. I’m not saying that I hate the films… well, Yawn Of Justice comes close… I just don’t think they’re all that good.

That having been said, watching the few trailers for this Suicide Squad film left me with some semblance of cautious optimism that this might be interesting at most and not completely worthless at worse. I was looking forward to this one; mostly to see how bad this might turn out.

Having just seen it and giving some deep thought, I can say with a clear conscious that Suicide Squad is perfectly average fare… and that probably makes it the best DC Film yet. Shocking, I’m sure.

Seriously, I actually enjoyed this one. It was simple, straightforward, no nonsense, no world building crap, just a bunch of bad guys doing bad things to even badder people. There was some decent gunfights, there was a couple laughs to be had at times, the mood was appropriately grim at times, and there was some attempt at making you care about these not-heroes, which is more than what I got out of the other flicks. In a strange way, Suicide Squad almost accomplishes the Iron Man affect; taking relatively lesser known characters and making people care about them in some form or another.

If there were any complaints to be had, I thought the drug-induced editing was a bit too much, what with all the “colorful” graphics and desperate attempt to infuse “livelihood” to a grim picture that was perfectly suited for the dark tone. The picture was dark to a point where it was difficult to see what was going on, The choice in music was absolutely dreadful, almost as if they just took whatever songs are or were popular and stuffed it in there without rhyme or reason in regards to tone (the actual score by Steven Price, on the other hand, is pretty good). And I’m particularly dismayed that they did very little with Katana (the one with the soul-stealing sword). Oh well.

Despite the quibbles, Suicide Squad was somewhat enjoyable and was completely terrible. Not a cinematic masterpiece nor a theatrical terror; just a perfectly average film that just happens to be the best film to come out of the DC Film Universe or whatever the fuck they’re calling it… and when “perfectly average” is the best you’re getting out of DC, it doesn’t paint a pretty picture.

Here’s hoping Wonder Woman doesn’t turn out to be a bust… sorry, poor choice of words.

Or is it?

MOVIE REVIEW – Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

So I had originally intended this to be an extended vlog – about fifty minutes or so, but due to a variety of technical issues including Vegas crapping out on me multiple times during the rendering process, I ended up having to do a much shorter vlog, which in hindsight, may have been for the best. However, someone wanted the full version and while the chances of that happening now is slim, I did have the original text (or script, as the kids call it) for what the intended vlog was supposed to be… and so here it is, with some minor fixes and edits to make it readable at most.

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Movie Review – Iron Man 3 (2013)

Recently went to see the new Iron Man flick last night… to keep a long story short, I liked the flick and thought it was pretty decent for a mindless summer flick. Brother, on the other hand, was disappointed in it. And giving it a bit of thought, I understood (and partly) agreed with some views. But for the most part, I enjoyed the flick and I thought that, as a movie that not only follows up on the previous Iron Man film, but also as an immediate follow-up to that Avengers flick, it was a rather sound and decent film that no longer has the baggage of its predecessors to build to some movie several years down the line. Is it as good as previous films? Not really due to a couple minor bits here and there that take the film down a notch in my mind, but I still thought it was decent fair.

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MOVIE REVIEW – DOA: Dead Or Alive (2006)

DOA: Dead Or Alive is a film that involves women in skimpy clothing or less. It’s funny because the Dead or Alive video game series that the film is based on is about the same thing. The difference between the two is that in the games, the women’s boobs bounced… whereas in the movie, the women’s boobs are way too small to do the game justice.

Now was the above statement a bit crude and degrading? Perhaps… but how the hell else am I going to start this review off? By talking about the movie itself? It would have been nice if I remembered a damn thing about the movie.

The games’ story involved a corporation holding tournaments to capture data on the participants… and on the side, the women play volleyball and… their boobs bounce. A pretty flaky and ultimately uninteresting storyline if there ever was one… think the movie would do any better? Not a chance… because the plot of the movie is just as paper-thin and uninteresting as the games. The only difference is the lack of bouncing boobs… but you do get quite a bit of skin… I guess… I suppose…

I’m sorry, but that’s all I’ve got. It’s probably not the most informative review out there, but the truth is that DOA: Dead Or Alive is a pretty forgettable film and quite honestly, there’s no real incentive to give this movie another viewing. The plot is dull, the characters are not all that interesting, and perhaps most depressing of all, the titilation sequences are pretty boring. When the sexual deviations puts a straight man to sleep, then something is seriously wrong.

Not even Kevin Nash could save this thing from mediocrity. Even if you’re a fan of the Dead Or Alive series, your time and money is best spent on something else.

Weak.

MOVIE REVIEW – Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (2009)

I hadn’t seen Revenge of the Fallen in theaters. I waited until it was on DVD.

And before watching the DVD, I watched the first Transformers flick for catch up. While the movie was lacking in depth and wasn’t really good, it did managed to keep me awake and it was a fun movie if nothing else. So despite all the bad reviews and word-of-mouth (which did nothing to prevent this movie from making a shitload of cash), I went into Fallen with the optimism that it’ll be somewhat shallow fun if nothing else.

Two and a half hours later, I suffered irreparable brain damage that may last a lifetime. That Ashens facepalm – taken from a brief “review” of the film that he posted around the time of the film’s release – perfectly sums up my mental state after watching this pile of shit.

This movie is an abomination; there is no cohesive story to follow, no interesting characters to care about, no fun moments to be had, and ultimately nothing of substance that could contribute to the enjoyment of this thing they call a motion picture. This is visual pollution in its most literal form, bombarding you with a powerful exposure in a long winding dose.

Cohesiveness and plotting are not the movie’s strong points. There wasn’t any one time through the movie where I wasn’t scratching my head in confusion, wondering what the fuck was going on. Yeah, I know that a popcorn flick isn’t supposed to be heavy on story, but then again, popcorn flicks are generally entertaining.

This movie lacked decent action sequences; they’re all really hard to follow and actually caused a bit of eye strain. It’s just a very unappealing movie to look at.

The acting in this movie isn’t the worst I’ve seen, but it certainly helps in not making me give a damn about any of these characters. They’re all seemingly impervious rag dolls that can walk and talk, yet can’t do either of them right. It’s almost a sign of epic failure when the most robotic thing in a movie about robots are the “human” characters.

Just about the only thing I could say good things about is the soundtrack; it’s actually not that bad. It’s a shame that I can’t hear enough of it amid all the loud, ugly explosions and piss-poor dialogue.

Bottom line, this movie sucks ass. It is perhaps one of the more putrid attempts at a motion picture that I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen a lot of really shitty movies. If you’re one of the few people who hasn’t seen Revenge of the Fallen, do yourself a favor and don’t watch it. You’re not missing a damn thing and quite frankly, you’re much better off.

MOVIE REVIEW: Suburban Knights (Channel Awesome, 2011)

So I had originally written the following piece of business as a script of sorts for a possible video review that is not going to come to fruition because… well, Channel Awesome fans are ravenous, spiteful people who will villify anyone who doesn’t treat their material as pure fucking genius… well, I assure you that I am more than to treat their “films” as pure fucking genius, as long as you understand that my use of the word “genius” does not necessarily mean the same thing that you would normally associate with the word.

Henceforth, I’ve decided to post the script here as is. Please excuse some of the typos and stuff; this wasn’t intended to be posted in text form, but since I’m not doing the video review (maybe some other substitute instead), might as well toss it on here. So enjoy.

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Kickassia Does Not Kick Ass

So for the past day or so, I’ve been leaving some comments on Asalieri’s YouTube channel. A good majority of these comments pertain to Kickassia, a six-part miniseries produced by website That Guy With The Glasses which serves as their second anniversary event. Anyway, I realized that as much as I was expressing my thoughts and reply to a couple comments, I was taking it a bit too far with my endless spamming of comments. While it engaged some replies, ultimately it isn’t fair to anyone and especially to Asalieri that I use his channel as a place to vent my disappointment on a video that he has nothing to do with.

As a matter of fact, I received a PM suggesting I do a video review of Kickassia as opposed to continually post endless ramblings. I don’t intend on doing that (I posted a perfectly simple five word review that says all), but I do want to make up for the trouble I might have caused. Therefore, I sent Asalieri a PM a short while ago apologizing for the recent behavior and told him that I won’t be beating the dead horse anymore. It’s just not worth the trouble.
(2023 Update: For the record, Asalieri had replied back and wondered what the fuss was all about since he was in agreement with my feelings that Kickassia wasn’t any good. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t bothered with an apology, since it was a complete waste of time and others have done much worse.)
Now that we got that out of the way… for anyone who absolutely needs to know my thoughts on the recent six-part borefest known as Kickassia, I present my thoughts on the project (hint: the title should give you a pretty good idea). I’m not going to call it a review because it’s more like a rambling, but I guess it could pass as one.

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