"Alice returns to where the nightmare began: The Hive in Raccoon City, where the Umbrella Corporation is gathering its forces for a final strike against the only remaining survivors of the apocalypse."
There's no point writing any kind of in-depth review of "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter". It's just as disappointing and "samey" as all of the "Resident Evil" movies, and it's even more boring than playing one of the linear computer games that it's based on.
With lots of overly dramatic music, big bangs and explosions, crowds of zombies, close-up hand-to-hand combat, surprise T-virus mutated-zombie jump scares, and too much reliance on timers to create tension (which nearly always falls flat), you will rightly wonder who exactly this movie is intended for other than diehard fans. It certainly wasn't intended for me or anyone looking for characters with any depth or a story that can't be summarised in more than three sentences.
The only character to stand out even a little bit is Isaacs (played by Iain Glen, otherwise known as Ser Friendzoned from "Game of Thrones") who goes through various incarnations of being either a clone or the real Isaacs until you don't care which is which. Various other characters from the previous movies return as little more than cameos. Wesker, the Red Queen, and Claire whatever-her-name-is (played by Ali Larter) all get dressed up to play pretend for hardly any reason.
The rest is just a mess of running around and fighting in the dark with CGI everywhere and computery things popping up to remind you that this is all based on the Capcom console game which nobody has played since the late 1990s. It's not difficult to follow what little story there is, but it's not worth paying too much attention to it either.
There's a bit of anti-Christian nuttery to make it appeal to the Lefties, but since the motivation of the bad guys and subtext is blatantly more akin to the the rise of the SJW religion/virus and the rioting zombies who subscribe to that ideology, it comes across as a pathetic and hilarious misfire.
Sadly, the once uber hot Milla Jovovich really looks her age now (and more so, once you get the in-joke that I've just made), so I'm glad this is "The Final Chapter". Any more would be as embarrassing as middle-aged James Bond.
"A spacecraft travelling to a distant colony planet and transporting thousands of people has a malfunction in its sleep chambers. As a result, two passengers are awakened 90 years early."
Yes, I'm sure you've already heard the rumours, "Passengers" is just a "chick flick" set in space. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll hurl... or something like that. Probably more of the latter than the former, regardless of which gender (from the thousands of fictitious ones) you might claim to be.
It looks good, has great effects, and has much better acting than the story deserves. It'll also hold your interest, as it did mine, right to the end. But then you'll think, "Damn, fooled again!" There's nothing here which you haven't seen done a hundred times before but in more terrestrial locations.
For the most part, I enjoyed "Passengers". Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence make a likeable but ill-matched couple, and Michael Sheen is a little bit too perfect as the robot barman. Even the spaceship is quite cool. The trouble is that the plot outline was probably written on the back of a stamp by someone who watched "Wall-E" (and possibly a very small part of "Silent Running") as a child.
With nothing of any substance here, "Passengers" is ultimately an easily consumed and instantly forgettable January movie, and to make matters worse, it's filled with nauseating self-sacrifice propaganda.
"When mysterious spacecraft touch down across the globe, an elite team - led by expert linguist Louise Banks - is brought together to investigate. As mankind teeters on the verge of global war, Banks and the team race against time for answers - and to find them, she will take a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity."
So, I watched 2 hours or more (trust me, it felt longer) of this utter shite based on a novel about alien octopusses which look like the Cloverfield monster, and I can now safely say that it was boring as shit and didn't make any fucking sense whatsoever.
I'm not some fucking thickie who can't decipher movies, but "The Arrival" is such a fucking artsy-fartsy, tangled mess that there's no explanation possible for what it's supposed to be about without drifting into some obscure philosophical bollocks which nobody normal knows about or has ever read anyway. No moral, no message, none of the most obvious questions answered, nothing memorable, just piss poor storytelling. It doesn't even have Charlie Sheen in it!
Here come loads of spoilers because fuck this movie.
She looks about as happy as I did watching this horseshit.
Basically, some ovaloid spaceships appear all over the world, and the aliens inside look like scary octopusses, or walking hands, or spiders. Take your pick, they are all nasty. The ugly motherfuckers walk like disembodied hands and squirt ink. Whatever the fuck they are, you wouldn't want one swimming up your arse.
A woman linguist (played by Amy Adams) with no make-up (because she's a scientist and clever, yawn!) and a bunch of other nondescript scientists go aboard one of the ships and attempt to communicate with the octopusses, but because the military are involved, someone (predictably) sets a bomb off during one of their missions, and the story starts again, and again, and again. Not like "Groundhog Day", but like someone fucked up editing it all together.
There's a little girl involved and a baby who may be the same person, and both are the linguist's daughter or the linguist herself. Both or all of them are destined to die of some horrible incurable disease which probably came from the octopusses. I'm fucked if I know. By this point, I'd developed a serious case of Forest Whitaker eye (yeah, he's in it too) and didn't care about anything. No action, no ray guns, no boobs, no blood, no cats. Why does something like this even exist? Oh yeah, because nerds and cucks like sci-fi.
After a scene more of less straight out of "The Abyss" (another slow movie which is also boring as shit), the aliens communicate with subtitles then leave. The linguist phones a Chinese scientist guy to tell him what his dead wife's last words were, and we're back to the linguist, and the little girl, and the baby again. Apparently she's married to the Jeremy Renner scientist guy now too, because that isn't predictable at all.
And none of it makes any fucking sense!!!!
Why are they here? Fucked if I know.
8.4 on the IMDb? Give me a fucking break. It's not even worth 1 out of 10. This is complete and utter shit from beginning to end. Allegedly, it rips-off Samuel R. Delany's "Babel 17" too.
I can't wait to see how badly director Denis Villeneuve fucks up the "Blade Runner" sequel with more style over substance now. Actually, I'm not. I won't be watching it.
"After getting in a car accident, a woman is held in a shelter with two men, who claim the outside world is affected by a widespread chemical attack."
We all know how trendy it is for the jealous never-will-bes to bash J.J. Abrams (or any of the other successful producers/directors such as Michael Bay, Zack Snyder, Alex Proyas, or Neill Blomkamp) with their cowardly passive-aggressive tweets and boring podcasts which nobody but their equally slimy friends listens to, so don't think for a moment that I'm going to pander to any of their kind of audience with my review. This movie was directed by a new addition to the Bad Robot team, Dan Trachtenberg, rather than Abrams himself anyway.
Although it's no secret that I absolutely hated "Cloverfield" (2008) when it came out, and think that "Gwoemul" (2006) is far superior in every way, there were some bits of it I liked. I would have liked those bits even more if "Cloverfield" hadn't been filmed in the motion-sickness inducing faux "found footage" style. Thus, the fact that "10 Cloverfield Lane" (a sequel in not much more than name only, since it started life as a standalone story called "The Cellar") wasn't filmed with shakycams makes it a whole lot better than I expected without having to do anything else.
I used to have a piss bucket this size too.
"10 Cloverfield Lane" is more or less a triple-hander featuring John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (from "The Thing" remake), and John Gallagher Jr. (who I've never seen or heard of before). There are a couple of other cast members who appear briefly, and a few voices on the radio, but the bulk of the story is really about the interactions of the aforementioned leads, how they cope with their confinement, their suspicions of each other, and all that kind of thing. There's a hint of romance too, but not much. There's no sex or nudity, barely any "bad language" (oh, so edgy!), and not much of anything scary either. I think you can guess the certification.
As a psychological thriller, "10 Cloverfield Lane" is as full of clichés and formulas as most modern movies. If you haven't seen many movies, you'll probably think it's pretty good, but those of us who are older and have seen just about everything the genre has to offer will find it all very predictable and somewhat irritating. Let's face it, we aren't the target audience for products like this anyway, so it's likely to make us even grumpier than usual.
Despite this, the cast does a great job with what is essentially a ripoff of at least one famous episode of "The Twilight Zone", and John Goodman plays the "evil all along" trope in much the same way as Chuck Connors in "Tourist Trap" (1979). All Howard (John Goodman) needs is a limp, some creepy dolls, and telekinetic powers, and "10 Cloverfield Lane" would almost be the same movie. So yeah, it's really not the same at all, but you'll see what I mean.
It's a 550 piece jigsaw puzzle called "Catfish". That is all.
Once again, there were no cats in this movie. I'm obviously not on the right blog to make a big deal out of that at the moment, but at least Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.) and Michelle (Mary Elizabth Winstead) spend some quality screentime putting together a puzzle of a surreal snorkelling cat.
Apart from bonding the two younger characters, does the puzzle have any significance other than being a puzzle? Who knows? I'm sure there are a few theories floating around the nerd sites, but I couldn't care less about any of them. Looking for subtext in a throwaway movie like this (or any movie for that matter) is absolutely pointless unless you are one of those stooges on the "big name" sites (and in magazines) who are desperate to publish absolutely anything to vainly stay relevant, spoil other people's hobbies, and get money out of their sheep.
For that reason, I don't really have anything else to say about "10 Cloverfield Lane" except that it's better than the first "Cloverfield", it's not "groundbreaking", and it certainly isn't very original. It's entertaining, the production values are way above average, and John Goodman is awesome, and you can read what you like into what I haven't written about or said in this sentence.
Clever graphics, but the bunker isn't really that far underground.
Minor Spoiler
Do we really need yet another "final girl" trope? Puh-lease! Just fuck off with this trendy "progressive" shit. We get it! Women, just like all human beings, can do stuff. Now all the SJWs can clap their manginas with glee. Oh yay, she's a "strong woman". You go, girl! Bahahahaha! Jannicke in "Cold Prey" (2006) is still much better than all of them. And Sarah Connor is pretty fantastic too. Well, when she was played by Lena Headey anyway. End of Spoiler
I suppose, given the fact that there's nothing any better to watch right now, I have to concede that I enjoyed "10 Cloverfield Lane" more than I thought I would or ever should. There's no lag, the story plays out quite nicely until the extremely annoying ending, and it's not quite as shit as most American or Canadian movies.
If you're looking for a psychological thriller rather than a pure horror or sci-fi movie, "10 Cloverfield Lane" is okay. Just don't expect it to be as great as something like "How I Ended This Summer" (2010) though.
"Jacki, a scientist involved in genetic research, meets Tom, a young modern dancer who is suffering from a degenerative nerve disease. Jacki experiments with using genetic material taken from a cat to cure him, but the cure has side effects, and Tom begins to take on feline characteristics that may turn him into a monster. The situation is further complicated by Tom's attachment to Imogen—and Jacki's growing jealousy as she fears the loss of her patient and lover."
Since there's very little information about "Tomcat: Dangerous Desires" online, and only a few short reviews which I could find, I decided that it was about time for me to redress the balance by rewatching and reviewing this "guilty pleasure" movie myself.
Although I have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about when I watch any erotic-thriller, especially one with a "CatMan" (to quote the German VHS title) and former Bond-girl Maryam d'Abo nude in it, I have to preface my review by saying that this is not entirely typical of the movies which I normally watch, but it's close enough to provide an example of things to come.
Having said that, I'll probably never watch "Tomcat: Dangerous Desires" again unless I have a very good reason to share it, but once I've finished telling you about it, I'm certain that you'll want to see this for yourself.
"I want to talk to you up close."
"Tomcat: Dangerous Desires" is a typical '90s straight-to-video product which contains all the elements that the hipsters and SyFy channel viewers now only enjoy ironically. There's mostly bad acting, horrible cheesy dialogue, and lots of softcore sex scenes involving very hot actresses.
Richard Greico's outstanding feline performance is kind of great, because he suits the role perfectly, but the ladies will be sad to learn that he only gets semi-nude. You do get to see him shirtless several times, and he shows his bottom, but you're not going to see Richard's other Richard.
Offscreen kills and nothing particularly gruesome apart from some cruelty to insects, plus an anaesthetised cat with tubes coming out of it head in grainy video-footage of the important operation, mean that the R-rating is only for the nudity and occasional swearing which doesn't get any harder than the word "Fuck!"
At the heart of "Tomcat: Dangerous Desires" is a fairly tame Frankenstein-genre plot with so many moments of humour that you can't believe the serious performances which surround them. How can this not be a comedy when the first things to give you a hint that Tom is half-cat are the types of food and bottles of milk in Tom's fridge?
"What a loser. No fucking beer!"
As a cat caregiver myself, those contents aren't much different to the ones in my fridge, give or take a couple of dozen cans of Monster, but we already have the title of the movie in our minds, and it's pretty obvious that Tom doesn't have a pet.
Because the story starts in medias res, the secret of why Tom is a little bit odd and has superhuman powers is the next thing revealed. We find out that sexy Dr. Jacki (Maryam d'Abo), who is now Tom's girlfriend (for lack of a better term at this point), has performed an unethical experiment.
Tom initially went to Dr. Jacki suffering from a terminal hereditary illness, and just as any good Canadian NHS doctor might do, she cured his genetic problem by replacing his damaged human cells with cat brain cells. Purrfect! Nothing could possible go wrong!
"You're not killing the cat!"
Here's where things start getting a bit more involved. Tom is prone to going out at night, staying out, and coming back in the morning... just like a cat. And what do tomcats need to go out for at night? Yeah, you guessed it. He's not the most faithful fella in the world.
Suffice it to say that Tom and his sexy dancing partner Imogen (Natalie Radford) start getting jiggy with it after what can only be described as the worst version of "Swan Lake" ever performed. There's wirework and flying through the air in this shit!
Not blue Bart Simpson.
Just to make sure that we still understand that Tom is a bit catty now, a playful splash of water scares him and causes him to take off his shirt (revealing a panther tattoo!), which is followed by some very astute observations and accusations about Tom's behaviour from Jacki. She's suspicious, a bit jealous, and she knows but can't prove that there's something wrong.
It isn't long before the affair becomes more obvious. Without giving too much away, Jacki catches Tom and Imogen kissing at a nightclub called "Feline Sex Club". I shit you not, that's its name. Feline. Sex. Club. Nothing naughty could ever happen there!
It's not what it looks like. She's inflatable.
Lest I ruin the rest of the movie with spoilers, it's enough for you to know that Jacki and Tom break up in a bad way, a VHS tape of Jacki's experiment on Tom falls into the wrong hands a couple of times with deadly consequences, Tom becomes more unstable and unfaithful, and Imogen has a boyfriend who also becomes a problem.
"I'm King of the World... I mean King of 21 Jump Street!"
For anyone who suffers from vertigo, as Tom used to before he went all catified and found that he preferred high places, I'll just warn you that a torturous scene with Imogen might give you the heebies. It's not as bad as the one in "The Devil's Advocate" (1997) though.
"Do you like scary movies?"
Possibly the most awkward scene involves Imogen selfishly and tantalisingly having phone sex with Tom while he is on his cellphone in a public area of a hotel, but it's undeniably hot too! If watching this part of "Tomcat: Dangerous Desires" makes you want to see more of Natalie Radford, you won't need to go to another movie because she's not shy! Trust me, you'll see everything you need to eventually.
The big question, however, which I'm sure you're asking, is "Are there any cats in this movie?" I'm delighted to tell you that, yes, there are.
There's a Persian cat during the opening credits, a Tabby cat involved in the experiment, and Imogen and her boyfriend Dale (Sean Orr) share a Siamese cat. Two black and white moggies (from what appears to be stock footage which is flipped horizontally at one point) also hang out and watch Tom and Imogen run around a lumber mill near the end.
Written and directed by Paul Donovan who (according to the IMDb) also directed "Def-Con 4" (1985) and 12 episodes of the "Lexx" TV show (1997-2002), neither of which I've seen, "Tomcat: Dangerous Desires" isn't a great horror movie, but it's far from being a terrible one. It's better than 99.9% of today's progressive-liberal tainted rubbish anyway.
It may look like a TV movie, and it's more about a very weird romance than it is about horror or sci-fi, but "Tomcat: Dangerous Desires" is nicely filmed on location in Vancouver (with real cameras and tripods and stuff rather than handheld shakycams in someone's backyard), and it's an amusing little product of its time.
There's nothing to get too upset about with this movie unless you're looking for a hardcore porno or some extreme bloody violence, because it isn't one of those. It's not that "Tomcat: Dangerous Desires" doesn't have any violence at all or some absolutely beautiful and thoroughly refreshing politically incorrect moments, but it's not meant for horror purists, and it certainly isn't scary.
Yes, it really is called "CatMan" in Germany, and they replaced Maryam d'Abo with Natalie Radford on the VHS artwork. Meh. It could be worse.
Unlike the mean-spirited and humourless twonks who rated "Tomcat: Dangerous Desires" as 3.6 on the IMDb, I'm giving this highly entertaining movie 6 out of 10 because it wasn't slow, boring, or preachy, and I liked it.
"John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to protect Sarah Connor, but when he arrives in 1984, nothing is as he expected it to be."
I watched "Terminator Genisys" on Friday afternoon, but I'm writing my critique during the small hours of a Sunday morning and will backdate it to Saturday night. Why? Because time travel, that's why. If any of that confuses you, you probably shouldn't watch this movie, but you can still consider my introductory sentence to be a segue into yet another half-arsed review of a PG-13 Summer sci-fi/action movie which I don't really care about.
Yes, to cut a very long and convoluted story short, "Terminator Genisys" is pretty bad apart from all the 3D gimmicks, big bangs, and explosive action scenes. Fans of "The Terminator" will not be disappointed because, let's face it, if you are a true fan of this genre of craptacular spectacle then nothing anybody says will (or should) prevent you from liking it if you want to. Moviegoers who are used to such subtle things as sympathetic characterisation or a narrative which makes any bloody sense whatsoever should look elsewhere for entertainment.
The nostalgia brigade will undoubtedly be marvelling at the CGI which makes Arnold young again and then be lamenting at how old he looks in reality. The line, "Old but not obsolete!" gets repeated a number of times to make all the infantalised middle-aged men who are watching a movie meant for children feel better about their hero and themselves. I picked up on it too and thought it was sad.
Terminator Genipiss in 3D! That's not gimmicky at all!
On the plus side, the recreation of scenes from previous Terminator movies (particularly the first one) seem spot-on to me without being able to physically compare them side-by-side. Apart from Arnie, the other actors are completely different, but as continuity has never been an important factor in the Terminator series, criticism of this aspect is redundant. "Terminator Genisys" still looks the part and feels like a real Terminator movie, and it's much better action-wise than "Terminator 2: Judgment Day". I'd rather rewatch "Trancers" or "Timecop" than that kiddified shit ever again.
The action scenes and all the clever CGI nonsense in "Terminator Genisys" are actually pretty great, and there's hardly any lag in what really only amounts to a "chase movie" overall. Among the numerous tropes, the "Which one is the real one?" gag also gets played out just to remind those of us of a certain age of how many times "The Six Million Dollar Man", "The Bionic Woman", and even "The Gemini Man" TV shows pulled the same thing back in the day. Lazy writing, clearly, but this is only another typical Summer cash-grab after all. "Iron-Man 3" was much worse, so bite me (to coin a phrase).
It's not worth trying to get your head around how the alternative timeline doesn't match up to anything already known, negates the majority of the other sequels, and won't ever provide an answer to the paradoxes about how and why John Connor can be conceived by a couple who are in the wrong time for him to reach the right age to be a leader in the future war with Cyberdyne or Skynet (or whatever the hell it is), but then again, maybe he's no longer meant to exist. I can't work it out, and I really don't care that much to try to. It's all a load of horseshit anyway.
One ironic quirk is that Matt Smith from "Doctor Who" turns up in a small but important role which made me almost chuckle. I absolutely loathe the "Doctor Who" episodes which he starred in (not only because I'm a David Tennant fan), and in my opinion, none of them make any sense either. It's not Matt Smith's fault but the writers, of course, yet it provides an unfortunate in-joke for those of us in agreement about the matter.
Nerdy computer users waiting for Microsoft's much anticipated Windows 10 on July 29th will also grin at how the Genisys operating system is worked into the storyline, but all I could think of was how "Genesis" is spelled wrong and has nothing to do with the Sega Megadrive. Didn't get the last part? It's a Brit thing, don't worry about it.
Yes, she gets nude again. No, you don't see anything.
Ultimately, the best thing which "Terminator Genisys" has going for it is the chance to see Daenerys Targaryen from "Game of Thrones" as a brunette. Emilia Clarke is a worthy new Sarah Connor in that she's much better than Linda Hamilton but not quite as strong as Lena Headey. Yes, I really liked "The Sarah Connor Chronicles", and I'm still pissed off that it was cancelled.
Emilia's acting abilities aside, she reminds me a lot of Danielle Harris from certain angles but much sexier. She kind of gets nude too, but you don't see anything because this is a PG-13. Boo! Mind you, I'm sure there'll be a porn parody. "Sperminator Genitalpiss" anyone?
But that's quite enough of that. You can watch "Terminator Genisys" in 3D or 2D theatrically if you want, or save your money for the Blu-ray or DVD later in the year. You won't miss anything important by waiting.
"Terminator Genisys" is a polished turd, but it's still a turd like every other theatrical release so far this year. It makes me glad that I'm not reviewing movies anymore.
"Twenty-two years after the events of Jurassic Park, Isla Nublar now features a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, Jurassic World, as originally envisioned by John Hammond. After 10 years of operation and visitor rates declining, in order to fulfill a corporate mandate, a new attraction is created to re-spark visitor's interest, which backfires horribly."
I remember way back in the far distant past of 1993 that I was sixth in a queue of eager moviegoers over a mile long which ran all the way down the street from the cinema, past a park, and over a bridge. The original "Jurassic Park" was so hyped that the world went a little bit crazy that opening weekend for dinosaurs, and I'm proud to admit that I was part of the insanity. I may have been too old for it, but I still bought the action figures, books, and anything else labelled with the "Jurassic Park" brand.
Twenty-two years later, nothing seems to have changed apart from the age of the original audience. With box office takings of over $551 million so far, "Jurassic World" has become an unprecedented success for a third sequel, but it's not only due to my generation's nostalgia.
Dinosaurs have and always will be one of the biggest draws for audiences of all ages. Everyone loves dinosaurs! Stick a dinosaur in a movie and it's almost guaranteed money in the bank. A couple of dud sequels in the "Jurassic Park" series have done nothing to diminish the yearning to see more of the same.
Velociraptors and motorcycles are cool.
Since I'm trying to be not my seemingly negative and jaded self, let me just interject the obvious fact that "Jurassic World" is a PG-13 Summer movie meant for little kids and family audiences. As such, it's no better or worse than any other movie released to get asses on seats for money this year, and it's full of all the spectacle that you would imagine.
Unfortunately, "Jurassic World" is overlong at 124 minutes, and it often suffers both from lag and unsympathetic characters. In fact, the action doesn't even get going until around an hour in, so if you haven't seen it yet, you can arrive late and not miss anything very important. Apart from a load of exposition and crowd scenes of visitors to the new Jurassic theme park, the CGI dinosaurs mostly mill around aimlessly and aren't nearly as impressive or groundbreaking as in the original.
Chris Pratt plays an ex-marine who has semi-trained a bunch of velociraptors in one of many "Chekhov's Gun" tropes which predictably play out later on in the story. As the most charismatic actor in "Jurassic World", he tends to steal the show, especially from the younger actors who are more or less forgetten during the second-half.
Bryce Dallas Howard provides some corporate eye-candy with a heart, but minor characters and the other co-stars tend to remain minor and one-dimensional with no surprises or chemistry whatsoever. Having none of the original "Jurassic Park" cast members even in cameos, "Jurassic World" appears to have thrown the baby out with the bathwater for the sake of making everything "new".
And now for some SPOILERS. Stop reading here if you don't want to know!
Imodium Rex will scare the shit out of you.
SPOILERS
The best part of "Jurassic World" is undoubtedly a death scene at the 80 minute mark which almost rivals the opening sequence of "Jaws" (1975) in terms of excitement. Yes, it's the one with the aquatic Mosasaurus which is heavily featured in the marketing. Being CGI and rated PG-13, all the deaths are quite bloodless, but this one is rather good despite those limitations.
All the predictable fights ensue, and the Pterodactyls or Pteranodons which are a big part of Michael Crichton's novel are nicely used. Fans of flying reptiles will be pleased.
Obviously, the biggest thing in "Jurassic World" is the much touted super-dinosaur which is called Imodium Rex or something similar made-up for the sake of it. There's no great educational exploration of dinosaurs or any apparent scientific accuracy here, but the story works as a fantasy-adventure for the intended audience.
END OF SPOILERS
Overall, there's nothing really to hate in "Jurassic World", but there's not a lot that most people haven't already seen before, either in the previous "Jurassic Park" movies or clones. A few "in-jokes" and homages don't detract from the considerable retreading of the same ground as "Jurassic Park", but they don't add anything new or memorable either.
If you just want to relax, switch off most of your analytical brain functions, and enjoy a kids' movie (or have a family to take with you), you won't go wrong by choosing "Jurassic World" over the other theatrical offerings this month.
Including nods to similar scenes at the end of "Jurassic Park", this love letter to the fans (both young and old) is a worthy finale, but it will cause déjà vu.
"In a stark desert landscape where humanity is broken, two rebels just might be able to restore order: Max, a man of action and of few words, and Furiosa, a woman of action who is looking to make it back to her childhood homeland."
Aw, fuck. Like many people, I was going to boycott "Mad Max: Fury Road" due to Mel Gibson not being in it, but curiosity got the better of me. And we all know what curiosity did to the cat, right?
Yeah, "Mad Mad: Fury Road" sucks and blows in so many ways that I can't even be bothered to type one of those "insightful" (the most overused word of the last two years on the internet, preceded by "egregious", and to a slightly lesser extent by "visceral") movie reviews which nobody expects from me anyway. I'm all about the bottom line, and so all I really have to say is that this movie lacks the most important aspect of any dramatic production—pathos.
What's the point of any movie where you don't care about any of the characters or what happens to them? There's absolutely none. For all of its spectacle, stunts, and explosive effects, "Mad Max Fury Road" doesn't have much of a story to tell and the characters are, ironically in a 3D movie, as flat as can be. It's so bad that I couldn't tell you any of their names, not that of the main bad guy or any of the good guys. If any of the "brides" in the movie actually have names, I don't remember hearing them mentioned. Even "Max" only says his name aloud once, presumably so we know that this is a real Mad Max movie rather than a clone.
Briefly, what we have here is a movie which looks the part of all the other Mad Max films but is ultimately a poor imitation of one. With so many years between "Mad Max Fury Road" and the previous sequel, it's not surprising. It's disappointing but definitely not surprising that this mess turned out the way it has. Yeah, it's like having your childhood shat on from a great height again, isn't it? It's not as bad as George Lucas taking a dump on "Indiana Jones" and "Star Wars", of course, nor is it as terrible as the plethora of lacklustre remakes which still keep happening, but this "revisiting" of Mad Max is certainly up there for people hellbent on wallowing in their own cesspit of rose-tinted nostalgia.
Without giving away too many spoilers (as if anyone cares), the story involves the new and even more laconic Max getting hooked up with a woman trying to take the leader of the bad guys' harem to a better "green place", only to discover that the place doesn't exist anymore and turn back again. Races, chases, guns, explosions, and PG-13 level violence, death, and blood abounds.
Faux Mel Gibson and some skinhead woman with a bionic arm made of Meccano.
"Mad Max Fury Road" is a very soft R-rated movie considering what might have been quite controversial subject matter, but punches are pulled in the usual ways, particularly in the confusing fight scenes where it's hard to tell who is doing what to who and there are never any satisfying pay-offs. Other than those scenes, the camerawork isn't bad at all, but as the stunts are the most important aspect, it's worth mentioning that the focus of the stunts is often lost amongst the "guzzoline punk" mayhem. In fairness, this is typical and stylistically equivalent to the classic Mad Max trilogy, except that the first movie only pulled its punches because of the budget.
Tom Hardy replacing Mel Gibson doesn't actually matter in the slightest when the movie is more focussed on as many automotive action sequences as can be crammed in than having a charismatic lead. Sparse as that role is, Mel would undoubtedly have made things a hundred times better and been a bigger name to sell the movie, but it's too late now. Added to this, Charlize Theron tends to steal what little show is on offer as Furiosa (whose character name I had to look up) by being yet another one of these "strong women" which I'm sure we'll keep on getting subjected to as long as filmmakers are swayed by the loudest whiners on the internet.
Let's be real here though, Tina Turner was a much stronger and more iconic character as Aunti Entity in "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" (1985), and whatever Furiosa is meant to embody (or "empower") is instantly forgettable. She's certainly no Ripley from the Alien movies. Oh, but Furiosa only has one arm, so let's get all the "ableist" arguments going to, shall we? Let's not. It's not worth it. "Mad Max Fury Road" is a big budget heap of nothing which simply isn't worth getting upset about one way or another.
I will just mention one thing to please the progressive-liberals and SJWs. I did notice that there weren't any black characters, unless I blinked and missed them. There are hordes of ultra white and sickly-looking "war boys" (who seem to have escaped from Derek Jarman's "Sebastiane"), however, but as I'm supposedly a "privileged white male" (or whatever the fuck that bullshit label is meant to mean for someone as poor as me with no welfare benefits available), I don't care about them either. Tina Turner was the best part of "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", so shut the fuck up!
Since "Mad Max Fury Road" was written and directed by George Miller, I suppose I'll have to live with the fact that it really is a legitimate continuation of the Mad Max story whether I liked it or not. Having said that, I'll certainly never buy it on Blu-ray or ever watch it again. Right now, I wish I hadn't watched it in the first place.
"A young programmer is selected to participate in a breakthrough experiment in artificial intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a breathtaking female A.I."
If you are looking for a really talky but R-rated version of Steven Spielberg's "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" (2001), or just want to see Kike Maíllo's far superior "Eva" (2011) rehashed with a couple of different twists, "Ex Machina" is for you.
It's not that "Ex Machina" is a bad movie per se, since the camerawork is great, the sets and effects are perfect, and the acting is totally convincing. It's just that there isn't really a lot to this extremely slow-moving sci-fi, and there isn't enough of anything apart from some brief nudity and a nifty disco-dancing routine to make it memorable. It's definitely more of a drama than anything else, and like "Maggie", it makes you wonder if the story and its tropes couldn't have been played out on a purely human level without any gimmicks.
Why make the robot a beautiful girl? Why make her sexual? All that is explained in the dialogue at some length, and it's important to the plot, but I'm sure that the fauxminists will still bitch and whine about this aspect to get pageviews. Good luck to them. Nobody cares. It's only another movie with no deep and meaningful political agenda unless someone wants to make more out of it than they should. And sadly, with over 300 external reviews of "Ex Machina" currently posted on the IMDb, I know that at least one person already has done. Pathetic.
Obviously, Alicia Vikander almost steals the show as the beautiful robot Ava, but it's fair to say that Domhnall Gleeson (as Caleb) and Oscar Isaac (as Nathan) hold up well against her. In fact, the double-twist makes the whole ménage à trois (albeit with some minor characters) worthwhile. It's very predictable in the the way that you kind of expect what happens to happen but not in the way it does, and most people probably won't see the ending coming. In that respect, the story is very well played indeed.
Directed and written by Alex Garland (of "28 Days Later" and "Dredd" fame), what "Ex Machina" lacks in originality, it makes up for in uncluttered calmness and downplayed spectacle. There's even a bit of sexual tension here and there but not too much. Kids could watch this. They won't understand most of it, of course, but an R-rating seems unnecessarily harsh. Oh wait, it's America, so healthy nudity is the most heinous evil ever and violent death is perfectly acceptable. I get it now.
In short, "Ex Machina" is another robot with artificial intelligence movie but is none the worse for that. The better robot movie is still "Eva", and "Bicentennial Man" (1999) is arguably the emotional best, but "Ex Machina" is a competent addition to the sci-fi genre.
"In the near future, crime is patrolled by a mechanised police force. When one police droid, Chappie, is stolen and given new programming, he becomes the first robot with the ability to think and feel for himself."
There's not much to say about this one. "Chappie" is little more than a mixture of half a dozen better movies including "Short Circuit" (1986) and "RoboCop" (1987) plus a huge dollop of the South African "Zef" group Die Antwoord.
None of that means that "Chappie" isn't enjoyable, highly watchable, or entertaining, but it does make any claim to originality null and void. Not that anyone ever claimed that this R-rated movie's storyline was anything original, as far as I know.
Having some touching scenes during the robot Chappie's development which are full of pathos, Yo-landi Visser proves that she can act better than most of the cast around her. Ninja, her partner from Die Antwoord, comes across less sympathetically and doesn't appear to be acting at all, although he seems much nicer to people online. Fans of Die Antwoord who understand the personas involved should have nothing to complain about.
Also notable is Hugh Jackman who for once plays against type. As an entrepreneurial weapons designer who ends up becoming the bad guy, when he gets his just desserts, the payoff is more than satisfying. Contrarily, a very small role for Sigourney Weaver isn't worth mentioning, and Dev Patel from "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008) doesn't even try to emulate his breakout performance.
Apart from that, there's no more to say about "Chappie" other than it looks good and has a story to tell which will keep most action/sci-fi fans engrossed for its duration. "Chappie" is a fun movie rather than a serious one, and it's arguably a lot of style over substance, but with such great visuals, there's nothing wrong with any of it.
Another winner from Neill Blomkamp. Highly recommended.
If you haven't heard of Die Antwoord before, please check out their official website or watch the video below.
"A medical engineer and an astronaut work together to survive after an accident leaves them adrift in space."
I don't know about you, but the thought of being stranded in space gives me the heebies. The mixture of claustrophobia, agoraphobia, and vertigo would drive most people insane, and let's not forget about the possibility of being captured and tortured by aliens! Unfortunately, "Gravity" doesn't go into those areas, so it's not very satisfying for horror or sci-fi fans.
"Gravity" is a disaster movie for science nerds who love movies such as "The Right Stuff" (1983) or "Apollo 13" (1995) and believe that there really are space labs orbiting Earth, Man landed on the moon, and all that other rubbish. It's not another "Event Horizon" (1997), "Mission to Mars" (2000), or even "Armageddon" (1998), except for some very superficial similarities and, of course, being set in space. Thus, if you're expecting something other than a potential Oscar winner, look elsewhere.
To say that I wasn't impressed by "Gravity" is the understatement of the year. I was, by turns, bored out of my mind, nauseated by the shocking waste of money that went into something which the BBC could have filmed for the price of a couple of bags of prawn cocktail crisps back in the days of "Blakes 7", and because it's hard to tell what's going on unless you have some kind of astronautical doctorate degree, I was even more confused by all the confusing things which Sandra Bullock was confused by. Basically, I hated it.
Maybe it's also because I read Ray Bradbury's short sci-fi story "Kaleidoscope"—which everyone claims isn't the inspiration for "Gravity" until they are blue in the face (even though it clearly is!)—when I was a teenager, and it stayed with me. Or maybe it's just because I can't abide movies about astronauts in the first place. Either way, I felt like I'd seen the best and worst parts of it before.
Here come the spoilers!
What a load of Bullocks!
I have no idea how much of "Gravity" is CGI or filmed against a green screen, nor do I care about the smoke and mirrors behind the scenes. The result is very clever, and with such great effects now available, I'm sure we'll get a fake Mars landing from NASA eventually. What I do know is that Sandra Bullock is hot for her age, and her 3D acrobatics look cool, but neither is enough to make any of this movie exciting.
Using the "running out of air" trope is the closest that "Gravity" gets to having any tension, and a couple of dead astronauts provide the only horror. If only Sandra Bullock could've been persuaded to strip completely like Barbarella rather than just down to her t-shirt and underpants like Ripley, it would have perked things up a bit. Alas, this is a PG-13, and she doesn't do anything particularly sexy apart from grunting, groaning and gasping. Okay, so she also barks and howls like a dog at one point, but you have your fetishes and I'll have mine.
What really pissed me off, however, was the lack of scientific accuracy about how things work in space. Not only does the whooshing and swooshing make no sense in a vacuum where sound doesn't carry, the biggest cock-up is that Sandra Bullock could have just given George Clooney a little tug (no, not THAT kind of little tug!), and there would have been no need for his predictable self-sacrifice. I've seen this cliché done to death (quite literally) in American movies so many times that it's guaranteed to make me cringe and grind my teeth in anger now. In this case, it's also a terrible waste of George Clooney!
"Look, Mom, look! A falling star!"
Frustratingly, George Clooney doesn't ever get to finish his Mardi Gras story about the "hairy guy", although I've got a feeling that the punchline would have involved some kind of monkey. I just thought I'd throw that in here because I'm sure everyone else with a normal brain felt cheated by the lack of closure too. I even Googled it to see if it was an old joke by a comedian who I've never heard of, but I couldn't find anything.
Nerds will probably love "Gravity" for the various spaceships with their big boards of switches and flashing lights, but I couldn't make head nor tail of which was which or how they are supposed to work. Apart from the Cyrillic in one and Kanji in another, everything looks the same to me. You also have to laugh at how years of training and millions of tax-payers' dollars are proven to be completely wasted when Sandra Bullock makes her "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" choices. I guess that NASA will be changing their astronaut training program accordingly, unless of course, that is their astronaut training program already. Mind you, it's not as if man (or woman) has ever managed to leave this planet in any way other than a coffin, so it's all bullshit.
My biggest complaint about this whole boring mess, however, is that there are no apes riding horses and catching humans in nets when Sandra Bullock finally gets back to Earth and crawls out of the lake. I'll never understand why they left out that very important detail, but hopefully, it'll be available as an extra on the DVD and Blu-ray later.
The alternative DVD ending.
As far as anything called "Gravity" goes, I still prefer Zlata Ognevich's sexy Eurovision video.
"Five friends who reunite in an attempt to top their epic pub crawl from 20 years earlier unwittingly become humankind's only hope for survival."
Since I've been discovering far too many good movies recently, rather than tempt fate to throw a load of bad ones my way, I decided to redress the balance with a day of more torture than one person should ever have to endure. There may be no power on Earth which could ever get me to rewatch "Shaun of the Dead" (2004), but I finally watched "Hot Fuzz" (2007) and followed it up with "The World's End". Such a heroic act has to keep karma quiet for a while, doesn't it?
Although I can freely admit that I enjoyed "Hot Fuzz" almost until the end, I only did so as it was a kind of half-way house between the greatness of "Men Behaving Badly" (the British version) and the smarmy creepiness of Mitchell and Webb's "Peep Show" to prepare me for worse to come. Laddish comedy is so '90s and over now that movies such as "The Cornetto Trilogy" (or whatever the Hell these are called) are little more than throwbacks. I liked Olivia Colman's character, was amazed at how realistic Simon Pegg was as a far too politically correct cop, but the running gag with the swan stole the show. Let's face it, "Hot Fuzz" is only a comedic homage to "The Wicker Man" with a couple of lovely gore scenes anyway. Adam Buxton wearing a piece of church as a head is memorable, but nothing else.
I don't know what it is about the combination of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (with Edgar Wright as the director) which irritates me so much. It's not as if any of them owe me money or something; I just have a completely irrational loathing of them based on their movies. Thus, as you can imagine, I really wasn't looking forward to "The World's End"—even the title gave away that it was going to be yet another pub-centric fiasco which isn't funny—but surprisingly, I wasn't dead set against it either. If anything, my pre-movie mood could be described as hesitantly curious.
The thing you have to remember is that I have absolutely no sense of humour. It just doesn't exist for me in any kind of "laughing out loud" way, so I tend to watch comedies as dramas and note the wit, stunts, or happy endings which would place the subject matter in the correct category. When it comes to comedy, I'm 100% objective because I have no physical way of being subjective about it. For that reason, I can say everything that I need to say about "The World's End" in a few quick paragraphs.
Stop reading now if you don't want spoilers!
"This is a pub! We are in a pub! What are we going to do now?"
"The World's End" is very good indeed for the first 40 minutes. It's nicely filmed, the backstory is well told as an introduction, the characterisation is decent, the location is perfectly British, and several recognisable TV faces make everything comfortable. The witty banter reveals that the former bad boy hero is now a bit of a dick, his friends are easily led, and they're all uncommonly stupid, but it's aimiable enough. Sadly, everything goes horribly wrong when the first robots (or "blanks") appear. The whole mood of the film is killed in one fell swoop and never recovers afterwards.
What would have been better as a straightforward comedy about the reunion of old schoolfriends who reveal their secrets and discover a few more during a pub crawl then turns into a stupid parody of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"! WTF? WTF indeed! It's a pity that "Shaun of the Dead" already covered zombies because aliens are too far-fetched and ridiculous to be entertaining for me. I don't believe in aliens, I'm not even sure that there's intelligent life left on this planet, let alone anywhere else in the universe, and if there's one thing which will make me switch the channel on the TV instantly, it's anything about aliens. Unfortunately, you can't do the same thing in a movie theatre, and walking out wastes $12.
After a few text-speak jokes, the second-half of "The World's End" is a bunch of repetitive fight scenes which become extremely tedious by the third or fourth time they happen. There are, after all, only so many robot arms and legs you can pull off or eggshell heads you can crush before the action scenes fall into the same trap as the running-joke about "Starbucking" and identical-looking pubs. Needless to say, the carefully crafted characters are lost among the spectacle of effects and explosions, some of them physically. What a shame.
As I'm not down with the kids, I don't know if Pierce Brosnan's cameo is meant to be a special secret or a selling point, but either way, you know about it now. His former "Die Another Day" Bond-girl Rosamund Pike is on the alternative posters, so you already know that she's in this and is just as easy on the eye 11 years later. She doesn't have a very big role either, but ironically, she's on screen more than Pierce Brosnan in this movie.
Maybe if I had been as drunk as the characters were supposed to be, "The World's End" might been more entertaining, but I didn't completely hate it. Despite easily being the second weakest of the three Pegg-Frost-Wright movies and ending with a half-arsed swipe at our de-humanising reliance on modern technology, I'm sure comedy fans would get something out of it. It's simply a film of two halves—and twelve pints—which, just like this review, isn't very well written. That shitty ending which I'm sure everyone thought would be so clever is still too rushed, disappointing and unsatisfying for everyone except the characters themselves though. Stupidly, I expected more.
Placing the three movies in order of merit, I can now rate "Shaun of the Dead" as the weakest with 1 out of 10, "The World's End" gets 3 out of 10, and "Hot Fuzz" is the best of a bad lot with 4 out of 10. Thank God, I will never have to watch any of them again.
"I know all about you - sex for dinner, death for breakfast"
"Set in the year 2154, where the very wealthy live on a man-made space station while the rest of the population resides on a ruined Earth, a man takes on a mission that could bring equality to the polarized worlds."
Using key plot elements from "Johnny Mnemonic" (1995) and "In Time" (2011) may not be enough for the general public to hate "Elysium", but the "critics" have certainly gone out of their way to bash this movie with those reasons already. Consequently, I have very little to add to their arguments except that I didn't like the predictable self-sacrifice ending either.
What? Have I just ruined the movie for you? Too bad. You've had over a month to watch it, and it's not playing in cinemas now anyway. On top of that, "Elysium" is just another generic sci-fi movie set in a dystopian future which looks good but you've seen dozens of times before. Admittedly, you probably haven't seen one with Jodie Foster's mouth movements out of sync with her words, but that's a dubious bonus which you can now avoid until the DVD is released.
Unlike the "critics" (even though I'm one of them), I'm not going to hate "Elysium" for being aesthetically similar to "District 9" (2009) since it's by the same director, but it's disappointing that poor people (and "prawns") living in scrapyards have become Neill Blomkamp's trademark. As a South African with a bee in his bonnet about apartheid, Blomkamp also seems destined to repeat the same "rich vs. poor" storyline—with the underdogs always representing good—for the rest of his career. Maybe things will change in his next big sci-fi movie "Chappie", but I doubt it.
"Elysium" isn't without some merits, however. It's nicely paced for one thing, and Matt Damon might not be everyone's cup of tea as Max, but he's not bad in the action scenes, even if those scenes are worse than the Bourne trilogy for making it impossible to tell who is doing what to who. He certainly looks the part once all the robotic enhancements have been done to him, although how he managed to get his dirty t-shirt back on afterwards is anyone's guess. I didn't dislike his character, but there's not enough there to feel anything for him either.
"Everything I found out, I wanna forget."
South African Sharlto Copley, on the other hand, steals the show as psycho-mercenary Kruger, albeit with Alice Braga coming a close second by providing splendid eyecandy as Max's former love interest. Both are far more interesting characters than the doomed Max despite being as stereotypically two-dimensional. William Fichtner (aka Sheriff Tom Underlay from the cancelled "Invasion" TV series) has a small, very important (and extremely typecast) role, but is the only other actor worth taking notice of. Everyone else is either just there playing dress-up or in bit parts which are instantly forgettable.
As a sci-fi "popcorn flick", it's not worth reading anything into "Elysium" apart than what's right in front of you. The lapses in logic are so obvious that there wouldn't be a story at all if they didn't exist, but if that's what some people want to waste their time arguing about on blogs and message boards, good luck to them. I must admit that I read a few of the oh-so-serious nerdy debates before writing this review and had a chuckle over them.
There's definitely entertainment to be had here for teenagers or anyone with low-intelligence and expectations who enjoyed "Oblivion" or "Pacific Rim", but having said that, I enjoyed a few of the gorier action scenes too. I'm not ashamed of leaving my brain outside the movie theatre occasionally, especially when I don't have that much interest in the sci-fi genre to begin with.
"A shy genius is employed by his former university to design robot software."
Although "Eva" is really sci-fi, I needed something for "Fantasy Friday", and it fits this category too. In fact, it's closer to being a "Frankenstein"-esque fairytale than anything else, and for those of you who've noticed a theme going on this month, yes, it's another beautiful Spanish movie. I've been watching more foreign movies recently than ever before due to the lack of decent English language titles, but that will change again next week because I haven't got many new ones left.
Not to be confused with Peter Dickinson's YA novel of the same name (which I know you've never heard of!), "Eva" is about robots rather than chimpanzees, but it still brings up the same questions about life, consciousness, and what makes us what we are. The subject matter is a staple of sci-fi books and movies, so it's not the most original story in the world, and there are similarities to "Bicentennial Man" (1999) and "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" (2001).
I'm not going to knock the big Hollywood robot movies which are obviously excellent, but I enjoyed "Eva" just as much as "Bicentennial Man" and more than "A.I. Artificial Intelligence". Apart from a twist which I didn't see coming (but should have done!), there's a cat robot in "Eva" which is outstanding, plus I'm kind of in lust with Marta Etura who plays Lana. If you don't know who she is, check out "Sleep Tight" (2011) and "Los Últimos Días" (2013).
Marta Etura and Claudia Vega.
Detractors may say that "Eva" is too slow, overuses long shots, and the characters don't have much depth, but I disagree. There are no pacing problems, and the cinematography is very good indeed. The characters could have been fleshed out a little bit more, especially in the case of Alex Garel (played by Daniel Brühl) who is a bit boring even for a scientist, but there's enough made of them to tell the story. Bearing in mind that a 20 minute prologue (which is included on the Spanish Blu-ray) was removed to give more emphasis to the twist, the characters weren't originally so flat.
As "Eva" isn't set that far ahead in the future, there aren't too many weird effects used except at the robot lab and every time Alex runs his computer program. Some people may find that disappointing, but I didn't. Less is more, as they say, and the snowy location covers a multitude of sins. There are plenty of robots if you look for them including little horses, dogs, more traditional machines, and, of course, the cute prototype 519. Channelling Robin Williams slightly, Lluís Homar undoubtedly steals the show as creepy servant-robot Max. His menace is a total red herring though and is completely unintentional. In this movie, it's the "free robots" that you have to be careful of.
Claudia Vega as Eva.
Horror fans will notice several similarities to "Splice" (2009) but without the incestuous implications. Claudia Vega who plays Eva isn't as sexualised as some reviewers suggest despite a couple of scenes which might make you wonder. If anything, she comes across like a nicer version of the little girl in "Sleep Tight", and her use of age-inappropriate dialogue is meant as a clue to her secret instead of turning her into another Esther from "Orphan" (2009). I can't say any more about that without spoiling the movie for you, but it doesn't take a genius to work it out.
According to a rumour on the IMDb, the Weinsteins will be distributing "Eva" in the USA later this year. In what format, I have no idea, but I expect there will be a dubbed version for the hard of understanding, and an inevitable Hollywood remake eventually. For now, I recommend importing the English subtitled Blu-ray from Amazon.
"Left for dead on a sun-scorched planet, Riddick finds himself up against an alien race of predators. Activating an emergency beacon alerts two ships: one carrying a new breed of mercenary, the other captained by a man from Riddick's past."
There's not much I need to tell you about "Riddick". As you can see from the trailer, it's virtually a remake of "Pitch Black" (2000) but with better-looking CGI creatures and some surprisingly effective gore.
To some people, "Riddick" might be nothing more than a sci-fi/action adventure with yet another laconic anti-hero and a second-half which borrows formulas from hundreds of "cabin in the woods" slashers, but at least it's R-rated and much better than "The Chronicles of Riddick" (2004). "The Chronicles of Riddick" was a PG-13 step in the wrong direction, and to this day, I still haven't made it through that movie without falling asleep.
Thus, "Riddick" is a welcome return to somewhat exciting sci-fi which you don't have to strain your brain to enjoy. It's a "popcorn flick" with no illusions about being anything more, and I appreciate the honesty of it. There are no moral messages, or any subtext to worry about, just a straightforward journey from A to B which hopefully will have a sequel.
As you might expect in a Vin Diesel movie, the supporting characters are all full of testosterone and the usual questionable butchness which isn't a patch on Vin Diesel's own. Hell, in "Riddick", it seems that the epitome of badassery can even turn a lesbian straight! I have no further comment to make on that except it's rather amusing.
I'm also not going to give any plot points away—the trailer already does a fine job in that respect—or post a load of screencaps for other bloggers to steal. An old school sci-fi/action movie like "Riddick" simply deserves an old school recommendation rather than a deconstruction.
Even if you're not a big fan of sci-fi, "Riddick" is about spectacle which you need to go and see for yourself on the big screen as soon as possible. You will not be disappointed.
