Category: Movie Reviews

Shock & Terror? More like Shits & Turds, amitrite?

Well, I tried…

Continue reading “MOVIE REVIEW – Birdemic: Shock & Terror (2010)”

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.

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.

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.

Continue reading “MOVIE REVIEW: Suburban Knights (Channel Awesome, 2011)”

The first live-action feature film adaptation of the Street Fighter II arcade game (the one with Belgian star Jean-Claude Van-Damme playing the role of American soldier Guile) was a rather significant departure from the humble narrative of the source material. While a number of SF fans tend to dislike the movie because of its straying from its roots, I actually enjoyed the old Street Fighter flick. Was it a great movie? Not necessarily, but it was still a fun little action movie with a moderate dose of camp and cheese. At the very least, if nothing else, a number of the characters at least resemble their video game counterparts in some form or another.

But with 2009’s Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li… this is something else entirely.

The Legend of Chun-Li is a basic, cookie-cutter martial arts action movie with a pretty typical plot (girl fights off drug syndicate in order to avenge her father’s… kidnapping – weak.) and your usual cookie-cutter action sequences common with kung-fu flicks these days. This is barely a Street Fighter movie – if you were to have changed the title, I probably would have thought it to be nothing more than another wire-fu movie that seems to be the norm with most Asian folks these days, but even at its most bare-bones level, it still manages to be lacking in many different things.

On a sidenote, some of the visual settings featured in the flick are, honestly, quite nice and gives you a nice feel of the cityscape. Sadly, most of the important stuff takes place at night, which really kills the beauty and splendor of many settings.

As a generic action movie, it’s a worthwhile moment if you simply turn your brain off. But as a movie based on a popular video game series, it’s severely lacking. Practically none of the characters taken from the game remotely resemble the source material and what personalities they do have seems very wooden and not the least bit awe-inspiring. Say what you will about the Van-Damme flick and the liberties it takes with the characters, but they at least attempted to do the characters justice, even if the results are hit and miss. Balrog the cameraman did have a boxing background, unlike the brute thug with a bazooka carrying the Balrog name… well, at least, you won’t have to change his name overseas because it’s not the boxer, it’s just some big guy.

Just about the only character they did manage to get right was Vega… and he only appears for a sliver of the movie and is easily defeated. Weak.

And most of all, there’s hardly any Street Fighter-esque fights involved – say what you will about the Van-Damme flick, but at least they were able to translate some moves to live-action celluiod – albeit poorly translated, but hey, they tried. Here, you only get a faintly-subtle Spinning Bird Kick and a fireball. The rest of the fights are generic wire-fu stuff that has been overdone to death. Weak.

Overall, this just seems like a disappointment for what is supposed to be a reboot of the Street Fighter movie franchise. It makes you wonder why they were bothering to make a movie based on the video game if it’s going to have nothing to do with the video game. If you really need your fix of live-action Street Fighter, I suggest tracking down the Van-Damme movie from the nineties instead… or even better, just go online and watch the Street Fighter: Later Years online show. Even that’s a better product than this.

AVOID.

Highlander: The Source is a piece of shit.

What’s that? You want me to tell you how I really feel? Okay, how about this?

I fucking HATE this movie.

How’s that? Better? Good.

I could end it right there because this movie genuinely hurts my soul. It hurts that I actually forked over REAL MONEY to buy a retail DVD copy of this piece of shit. It hurts that the box is sitting on my shelf among all the other DVDs that I’ve collected over the years. It hurts that THIS EXISTS. And let me tell you people something; in all the years that I have been on this earth, having seen countless movies from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows, not one time have I ever come across a movie that made me genuinely, physically ill as much as The Source. This may have been the movie that gave me Crohn’s disease. That’s how much I hate this film.

But you’re not here to read the baring of my soul… you’re here to read a review of this thing… and I will do my best to provide you with one… but seriously… all you need to know is that if you’re a diehard fan of Highlander, the movies, the series, the lore, and all that stuff, you owe it to yourself and your clansmen NOT to watch this filth. This deplorable load shits on everything you ever knew about the Highlander series. Every character that they bring back into the fold is violated in ways that even Endgame wouldn’t stoop so low to doing. I am telling you – both as someone who enjoy the Highlander series in earnest as well as someone who enjoys their share of schlock – this thing posing as a movie is not worth your time and effort. After watching this thing, you may want to dig out your own broadsword, head down to your garage or basement, and in a fit of depression, cut off your own head.

Please… don’t do that. Don’t watch this film… But anyway, here’s the review… for whatever that’s worth.

Released in 2007 as a Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie – good lord, that tells you everything right off the bat, doesn’t it? So it’s another dystopian future, things are looking bleak, and the few remaining Immortals have decided that rather than fight for the Prize – which has been the key thing in all these fucking Highlander movies and shows – they’re going to band together and find “the Source.” But they’ll have to deal with the Guardian of the source, who can kill immortals and break all the rules. Not only that, but as they get closer to the source, these immortals lose their mortality and what the fuck am I watching?

Everything about The Source is shit. The storyline is shit. The settings are shit. The fight scenes are horrifically bad and that’s even before you slap on the utterly craptastic special effects that is worth of the now-defunct Sci-Fi Channel. The acting is absolutely subpar. Guys like Adrian Paul, Peter Wingfield and Jim Burns – the cast from the Highlander show – were mostly winging it and probably doing this for the paycheck. I’ve only seen a handful of episodes from that show and I know they’ve done better than this. Even Endgame was a better showing for Duncan MacLeod and friends than this tripe and I even said as much in that review.

The new characters they got for this movie are shit… and then there’s the Guardian, a guy in a goofy costume with goofy dialogue and a goofy voice. For someone who is supposed to be the ultimate big bad, he comes across as a total fucking geek and makes me long for the days of Michael Ironside as General Katana. And I offer my deepest apologies to Mr. Ironside for even indirectly associating his name with this tripe.

Highlander: The Source is a wretched film. At least with Highlander II, there was stuff I could laugh at. The Source doesn’t even that much going for it. Instead, it was such a lousy movie that I had gone to the garage in a fit of depression and anxiously looked for a sword so I could cut off my own head, much like that Fasil person in the first movie.

A disservice to both the films that came before and the television series from where these characters came from.

They haven’t made another Highlander film since this one. Thank fuck for that. Let the series rest in peace. I don’t want another sequel, prequel, reboot, remake, or whatever that’s going to suck worse than what came before. I’ve got the original film, I’ve got the TV show… I can give or take the previous films… yes, even Endgame. Just let this be the last one.

Happy New Year. Fuck this movie.

So I recently got to see the new Bond flick last night… and I liked it.

As a direct sequel to Casino Royale, the story pretty much picks up where that one left off, with Bond wanting revenge for the death of that chick who betrayed him… um yeah, that makes sense. Didn’t he say “the bitch is dead” in the last flick? Um, never mind. Logic aside, the movie has Bond going around the world killing leads all the while trying to get a clue as to who the organization is… or something. You know what, who cares? It’s a movie with some explosions, some action, some seducing ladies to bed, and a lady drowned in oil… because apparently Goldfinger isn’t available to supply gold paint… or whatever.

Despite my snarky comments, I really enjoyed the flick as a sequel. Is it as good as Casino? Probably not… I thought there were a couple of problems with the movie that kept it down a notch. For one thing, the final moments of the film pass by so quickly that you’re left somewhat unsatisfied… and there’re still some unanswered questions that they most likely will resolve in the next film… I know, it’s shameful.

Overall, it’s a good movie and I recommend it.

Recently got to see this one yesterday, which is surprising to me because I didn’t even know they made another Bean movie until my mother told me about it. Anyway, in this movie, Mr. Bean wins a train trip to Cannes and through his various acts, trouble comes a-brewing.

Not being a big fan of Bean and having seen a few episodes as well as that first flick ten years ago, my expectations weren’t all that high. This is pretty much the same Bean you’ve seen on the show and the first movie and that seems to be enough, as it’s still a pretty funny flick. Even ten years removed from the movie when he lasted played the role, that Rowan guy can still pull it off. Of course, there were some dragging moments, but that’s to be expected with a lot of movies.

If you’re a fan of Bean, you’ll want to watch this movie. If you’re not, this is still a funny, well-done film, although I’d advise you to pick up the movie and some TV episodes if you want to get Bean at his best.

About a year ago, the hype machine was started off by a bunch of random Internet users over a film called Snakes on a Plane. Despite not knowing much of anything about the movie, it sounded like a cool movie… and hey, it was gonna have Samuel L. Jackson in it, so it has to be good. Of course, the movie bombed when it came out despite the buzz it had going for it. Those that did see it either loved it or hated it. I didn’t get to see it until recently; a full year after the buzz has died down.

If you’re looking for something deep in plot and characterization, then what the hell are you doing reading a review about a movie called “Snakes on a Plane?” The movie has one of the most absurd plots ever conceived (so absurd that the title says it all) and yet it’s awesome. It’s not a good movie and it doesn’t intend on being a good movie. The reason it’s an awesome movie is because it’s an absolutely terrible movie with a ridiculous plot, a cast of characters so one-dimensional and transparent you really don’t care when they get killed off by the poisonous snakes, and the dialogue. Most bad films end up being enjoyable because of certain aspects and you’d have to turn off your brain to enjoy it and this is one of them. It’s not the best popcorn flick out there, but it’s certainly a better bad-movie than some other crappy bad-movies featuring a popular actor and concept *cough* Catwoman *cough*.

Snakes on a Plane is a good bad-movie and if you enjoy a good bad-movie, then check this flick out. Jackson shines in this flick. Let’s hope that despite the bomb, it gets a sequel.