firstruleofmethclub Reviews

3 Women (1977)

Not as advertised.

[5/10 · 19 May 2020]

"An awkward young teen working at a spa becomes overly attached to her fellow worker, a lonely outcast. They hang out at a bar owned by a strange pregnant artist and her has-been cowboy husband. Amid emotional crises, the three women steal and trade one another's personalities." - Do they? Do they though? With less than ten minutes remaining the 3rd of these 3 women gets her first line. And some of those minutes was credits.

Now a poorly written logline is unlikely to be the fault of the movie itself, but it does kind of make me question why the movie's even called 3 Women. Decent chance I'm just not bright enough to understand it, let alone the movie itself for that matter, but I can only bring you a review from how I experienced it, and from that perspective I can say: It's alright. A lot of the style choices did aggravate me, most notably the music (I've suffered through much worse for far less with this subject, but it was still a negative to me). But the two lead performances are what the movie is predominantly hinged on, and both are pretty good. Not incredible, but pretty good. I know not adoring this puts me in the minority, but I feel like a lot of people nowadays tend to overvalue a film for no other reason than the fact that it was made before... like... 1987. That's never been a factor for me, and 3 Women honestly didn't do a lot for me.

Final rating: 5/10 - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn't quite work as a whole.

The Curse of Halloween Jack (2019)

It's been done, and it might have never been done worse.

[2/10 · 18 December 2019]

The titular Halloween Jack's motivation may've gotten away from him a bit in the first film, but in this one, he just straight up doesn't have one. The first two places Jack Cain strikes are the home of the man responsible for banning Halloween, followed by the house where the only Halloween party in town is taking place. As an aside, at said party, when Halloween Jack comes in and starts boldfaced killing everybody out in the open, about twenty kids start running back and forth in front of the camera about a foot away from the murderer, while another half a dozen sort off look at him apathetically and wait for their turn to die. It is genuinely one of the stupidest scenes I've ever seen in a movie. And I watch a lot of crappy horror movies. What I'm saying is guys, these movies are bad. I get the impulse - it's Halloween, and these are horror movies that literally have "Halloween" in the title, but I'd rather another go around on every single one of the terrible Michael Myers sequels that came out than ever revisit either one of the Halloween Jack movies.

Final rating:1 star - Of no value. Avoid at all costs.

Rocketman (I) (2019)

Truth/fantasy mis-mesh

[6/10 · 11 September 2019]

Rocketman tries to walk a line between the paint-by-numbers musician biopic bog standard, and epic musical fantasy. A lot of the time when a movie tries to be a blend of two things, it ends up being neither. Rocketman, conversely, ends up being both, just never at the same time. It's basically two movies, and that epic musical fantasy movie I was talking about that's in there, that's a great movie. Unfortunately, the other one, is not so much. I'm still gonna come away giving it a recommendation, because there is enough in there to mean that I enjoyed it, especially in the core casting, all of which is great, not least Egerton. But I was little disappointed, not because my expectations were too high going in or anything, but because every time Rocketman began to slip into a euphoric high, it was moments later wrenched back to, well... Reality, I guess. Albeit a reality we only see on a movie screen. And we see on every movie screen when it's a musician biopic. I mean, this is Elton John we're talking about, if there was ever a moment to reject the mundane and fully embrace the over-the-top flamboyant fantasy it was here. But Rocketman just kind of Awkward Christian Camp Side Hugs the over-the-top flamboyant fantasy.

Final rating: 6/10 - I liked it. Would personally recommend you give it a go.

Blade: Trinity (2004)

(Originally written in 2011)

[4/10 · 25 August 2019]

Blade: Trinity completes the Blade trilogy in cinematic grandeur, and brings about Dracula, an inevitable source in almost every Vampire franchise ever conceived of.

It was refreshing to have the "Elder" ruling-class/vampire-nation-lord/shadow-council thing dropped, since they were in both Blade and Blade II, and in both movies they were completely killed off, and ignored the existence of each other. Instead we have a group of happy-go-lucky vamps, who have one way or another made a mark in the world. You never find out how they managed to buy a skyscraper and a museum's worth of ancient art, but I'd imagine they had quite a lot of time to get their finances in order.

Anyway, deal is these vamps, right? Danica Talos (Posey "Queen of the Indies" Parker; Scream 3, A Mighty Wind), her brother Asher Talos (Callum Keith Rennie; Case 39, The X-Files: I Want To Believe), Jarko Grimwood (wrestler Paul "Triple H" Levesque), and their offsider vampires go to Syria in order to dig up the slumbering Dracula (Dominic Purcell; Straw Dogs, Blood Creek)... Or Drake... Or Dagon... They keep changing their mind. Anyway, after Dracula kills a bunch of them, he eventually agrees to join the team after he hears about the defender of humanity Blade (Wesley Snipes; New Jack City, Chaos) whom he believes may be a worthy adversary. Blade in turn gets together with the vampire hunting cell called "Nightstalkers", led by Abigail Whistler (Jessica Biel; the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Cellular) and Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds; Waiting..., Buried) and together they continue the war for humankind.

With me so far? No? Well you should be, because this plot is about as run of the mill as they get. While I'm on that, it's worth pointing out that where Blade's saving grace was this awesome mythos and story, and totally failed at character-ing, Blade: Trinity had fantastically written characters, in a sort of non-event storyline. Where Blade II blended them, making it the best in the series. Trinity was okay, but it lacked a lot of the engaging elements from the previous two films.

I think in part this is because the film is meant to sort of cater to the cinema audience. After the success of Blade II, it's like they knew that people were going to go to the theatre for Trinity so they tailored the film accordingly. You know, just little things, cheesy lines come across in a way more badass way on the big screen. Montages can get tedious on the computer, but can often blow you away in theatres. Explosions and action and CG backflips always translate better in cinema than on DVD. Unfortunately, I own the DVD, not a cinema. Maybe the goddamn vampire pomeranian they threw in would've seemed less ridiculous if I'd seen Trinity when it came out in theatres, but I doubt it.

I'd like to bring up the issue of names. Not that people have unbelievably crazy names in these films, it's the' Super Hero genre after all, of course they've got stupid names! I love it! But the Blade series seems to be populated entirely by characters with the "Saying Names" fetish. It's all "Hannibal King! Die", "Blade! There you are", "Whistler! Come save us." "Drake! It's him" and gets pretty unbelievably dramatic rather swiftly.

It'll be interesting to see how Ryan Reynolds fairs. This Marvel film came out quite a while ago, since then he's played Wade Wilson in Origins: Wolverine, Green Lantern for DC Films, he was the protagonist in R.I.P.D. He's set to return to the X-Men universe for Deadpool. I suppose if Chris Evans can get away with playing The Human Torch in Fantastic 4 and Rise of the Silver Surfer then move on to playing Captain America in The First Avenger I don't see why Reynolds can't pull it off. Hannibal was great, Ryan Reynolds is great but I'd be fine to see this be the end of it all here.

-Gimly

Blade (1998)

If you backtrack superhero movies from where they are now, eventually it all comes back to here

[7/10 · 25 August 2019]

First released in 1998, Blade brought commercial success back to Super Hero films, after the woeful distribution of films like Batman & Robin and Steel stopped the genre in its tracks.

Starring Wesley Snipes as the eponymous Half-Vampire/Half-Human hybrid come Super Hero/Vampire Hunter, Blade works with Dr. Karen Jensen and Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) in order to defeat vampires Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) and Quinn (Donal Logue) and their host of undead soldiers before they can kill Gitano Dragonetti (Udo Kier) and the other vampire Elders in a ritual that will transform Deacon Frost into La Magra, the vampire Blood God.

With me so far? No? That figures. The script's interesting, but it's not terribly sense-making. What I mean to say, is, the script's rubbish, but the *story* is great. The whole film is really rather story and effects driven, but the characters are pretty lacking. Quinn is sort of fun, and Deacon's... well... he's attractive, but not a lot else. Still, there's more to him than most of the characters, including the titular Blade.

Straight up, just putting out there, I think goth-culture is attractive, so, my aesthetics may go quite a way to influencing my decision in the final score, if you disagree with me, you might want to keep that in mind, seeing as most vampires have at least a little bit of that going on. All that aside though, the opening of Blade is one of the strongest ways a film can start off that I've ever seen. It has basically everything you could want for a modern vampire tale. Including the Blood Rave song, Confusion (Pump Panel Remix) by New Order.

The cinematography was another cool point, lots of ins and outs in a non-nauseating way. Although the fight choreography suffered from a serious case of "Only-One-Guy-Attacks-At- A-Time" Syndrome. Come on guys, this ain't Tekken. When there's an army to fight, fight an army. Maybe not all at once, I know that could get a tad pointless, but it really didn't transfer well in this film.

To end with, there's one plot-hole I'd like to bring up, I don't think I'll be spoiling anything too badly, but if you want to go in completely fresh, stop reading. There's one point when Frost says he needs to kill the 12 Elder vamps in a big underground ritual in order to complete his ascendancy into the Blood God (Khorne?), but he kills the leader earlier, on a beach. Okay, so maybe he wasn't counted, and he was actually number 13. But, Frost's lady-friend Mercury kills another with Blade's sword, before the ritual gets started, and nobody seems to care... I am dubious- faced.

After all that though, Blade is a vampire film that's not slow like Nosferatu, and not indescribably awful like Twilight, so for people with tastes like mine, it's certainly worth a geez.

66%

-Gimly

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

The MCU starts its biggest year yet with a very strong start

[8/10 · 12 May 2017]

Logan, 2017's first Marvel offering, was a movie I loved because of just how little it relied on its comic book origins, completely forgoing the superhero tropes and going in its own unique and totally enthralling direction.

Guardians 2 however, is a movie I loved because of just how intensely it embraced its comic book origins. The Kirby-isms shine through brilliantly and every couple of minutes I found myself grinning like an idiot at some new reference or stylistic choice.

Logan might be the super hero movie for people who don't like super hero movies. Guardians 2 is the super hero movie for people who have steeped themselves deeply in the lore of super heroes. But I absolutely adore them both for the same reason: How they made me feel.

Final rating:★★★★ - An all round good movie with a little something extra.

Warcraft (2016)

Could work for some

[5/10 · 12 July 2016]

Maybe it's just because my expectations going in were so low, but honestly I had a pretty good time in Warcraft. Now look, I'm not going to try and convince you that it's a "good" movie, but as a man who's been playing Warcraft since way back in the Orcs & Humans era of the mid-nineties, I did have a pretty good time. It's dumb, it doesn't make a lot of sense, and it feels like there are tonnes of connective tissue cut out from between scenes of "cool stuff". But there is a certain dedication to the format I admire, and the animation was (on occasion) pretty damned impressive. I don't know that this will be one for the movie going audience at large, but for fans of the video game, and for devotees of the Fantasy genre looking for some new blood, I can give Warcraft a soft recommendation as a not-bad-first-step.

Class of 1984 (1982)

Nostalgia-worthy exploitation

[6/10 · 13 October 2015]

Although the seventies was certainly more the era for revenge flicks, the eighties certainly had their fair share, and if I'm completely honest, Class of 1984 does not stand particularly high among them.

But I really did enjoy it. It's nice to go back to some classic R-rated cinema with low expectations and have those expectations met. It may not sound like much of a compliment but Hell, it's better than most can muster. Sure it suffers from that standard catchall where you chuck the villains some Nazi references to make sure nobody can sympathise with them (which actually particularly aggravated me, because the next day they throw you a curve-ball with the leader of the villains by making him actually a three dimensional character, but his gang never amount to more than utterly moronic skinheads-come-punks), but I found its merits outweighed its downfalls.

It was one of Michael J. Fox's first roles (simply "Michael Fox" at the time) and I'm told presents a vision of Detroit, L.A and Chicago schools that is horrifically accurate to this day (having never seen them myself, I can neither confirm nor deny this). Doesn't matter, because what's important is that this dated piece does hold up to this days gauge for entertainment-value. Or at least it does mine.

65%

-Gimly

Burying the Ex (2014)

Lacklustre, even for its target market

[4/10 · 25 August 2015]

More often than not, when I rate a film two or two and a half stars, I'm coming from a place of "Well it's not really for me, but I guess I could see why it might have appeal". Burying the Ex on the other hand comes from a place exactly opposite to that. It's like every five minutes there was something dropped precisely to cater to my interests, but there's no appeal at all. And no amount of goth bars I'd kill to have in my town, horror-themed ice cream parlours, Joe Dante directorial credits or Alexandra Daddario getting her kit off in a graveyard can make up for that.

It's not outright boring, which is certainly welcome, but it's horror that's not scary, comedy that's not funny, and bears not one but two life lessons that seem well learned until they're *both* dropped in the final scene.

I'm not going to make any "Should have stayed buried" digs, because it's really not *that* bad, but I'm not going to recommend it either.

Batman vs. Robin (2015 Video)

Better than DC's last animated outing "Throne of Atlantis" but that's not saying much.

[4/10 · 6 May 2015]

Batman VS Robin suffers from one of the most severe cases of the Law of Diminishing Ninjas I've seen since the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series finale. The film also (unsurprisingly) contains very little Batman versing Robin, and Batman also describes the odour of a ripoff Scarecrow gas that is then later said to be "odourless". But it's better than all but one of the past couple of entries into the DC Animated Film franchise, and has a wickedly creepy opening sequence. It's just a shame they couldn't keep it together for this whole Court of Owls re-imagining.

41%

-Gimly

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Arguably the weakest MCU movie

[6/10 · 17 April 2015]

Dubbed as a "re-quel", The Incredible Hulk was first released in 2008, and now, I'm here to review it in the line of Marvel films I'm getting through a the moment. I always like to think of films individually, but with the Marvel Cinematic Universe getting so big, that can be rather difficult to do. So though I may comment on films in relation to their sequels, remakes, prequels, spin-offs, parodies and the like, know that my final score out of ten is always based purely on the films merits, or lack thereof. It's pretty crazy seeing Edward Norton (American History X, Fight Club, Red Dragon) as a very scrawny Bruce Banner, considering that he turns into the giant, muscular Hulk. But to me it totally worked. As an interesting side-note, Norton co-wrote the script, which may or may not have contributed to his being ousted as Banner for any future films after the movie was released. Not because the script is particularly awful or anything, but because as a general rule production doesn't like actors "getting all up in dey grillz" half way through. Although it's not like Norton's never done this sort of thing before. Under-appreciated Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction) is also excellent (as far as I'm concerned) playing the role of Abomination/Emil Blonsky. Interesting side-note, no, he's not related to Eli Roth, who's also a friend and actor of Quentin Tarantino and his films. Ultimately, The Incredible Hulk is a fine film, but it just can't stand up to the superior writing and character building of Thor, Iron Man or Iron Man 2. Liv Tyler (The Strangers, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Armageddon) is rather a non-event as supposed love interest Betty Ross. And William Hurt (A History of Violence, Dark City) as semi-antagonist General Thunderbolt Ross, is nothing but annoying (although it is pretty cool to see just how much they got him looking like the comic book character he is based on. You would've thought that having a modern day Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story to run with, backing from the success of the franchise you've got supporting you, that it would be easy to write strong characters, unfortunately, it's not the case. And while the action sequences are cool, and the fighting is possibly some of the best that Marvel's come up with, it's not enough to bring this film up to the standards of the other 3. The film lacks the flair I'm sure everyone would be expecting, and while it's a perfectly good monster-movie movie, perhaps a completely separate Super Hero origin story would have been better than the overly-CGI- ridden quasi-sequel to 2003's The Hulk that we ended up with. 60% -Gimly

Blade: Trinity (2004)

A disappointing end to the Blade franchise

[4/10 · 17 April 2015]

Blade: Trinity completes the Blade trilogy in cinematic grandeur, and brings about Dracula, an inevitable source in almost every Vampire franchise ever conceived of.

It was refreshing to have the "Elder" ruling-class/vampire-nation-lord/shadow-council thing dropped, since they were in both Blade and Blade II, and in both movies they were completely killed off, and ignored the existence of each other. Instead we have a group of happy-go- lucky vamps, who have one way or another made a mark in the world. You never find out how they managed to buy a skyscraper and a museum's worth of ancient art, but I'd imagine they had quite a lot of time to get their finances in order.

Anyway, deal is these vamps, right? Danica Talos (Posey "Queen of the Indies" Parker; Scream 3, A Mighty Wind), her brother Asher Talos (Callum Keith Rennie; Case 39, The X-Files: I Want To Believe), Jarko Grimwood (wrestler Paul "Triple H" Levesque), and their offsider vampires go to Syria in order to dig up the slumbering Dracula (Dominic Purcell; Straw Dogs, Blood Creek)... Or Drake... Or Dagon... They keep changing their mind. Anyway, after Dracula kills a bunch of them, he eventually agrees to join the team after he hears about the defender of humanity Blade (Wesley Snipes; New Jack City, Chaos) whom he believes may be a worthy adversary. Blade in turn gets together with the vampire hunting cell called "Nightstalkers", led by Abigail Whistler (Jessica Biel; the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Cellular) and Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds; Waiting..., Buried) and together they continue the war for humankind.

With me so far? No? Well you should be, because this plot is about as run of the mill as they get. While I'm on that, it's worth pointing out that where Blade's saving grace was this awesome mythos and story, and totally failed at characterising, Blade: Trinity had fantastically written characters, in a sort of non-event storyline. Where Blade II blended them, making it the best in the series. Trinity was okay, but it lacked a lot of the engaging elements from the previous two films.

I think in part this is because the film is meant to sort of cater to the cinema audience. After the success of Blade II, it's like they knew that people were going to go to the theatre for Trinity so they tailored the film accordingly. You know, just little things, cheesy lines come across in a way more bad-ass way on the big screen. Montages can get tedious on the computer, but can often blow you away in theatres. Explosions and action and CG back flips always translate better in cinema than on DVD. Unfortunately, I own the DVD, not a cinema. Maybe the goddamn vampire Pomeranian they threw in would've seemed less ridiculous if I'd seen Trinity when it came out in theatres, but I doubt it.

I'd like to bring up the issue of names. Not that people have unbelievably crazy names in these films, it's the' Super Hero genre after all, of course they've got stupid names! I love it! But the Blade series seems to be populated entirely by characters with the "Saying Names" fetish. It's all "Hannibal King! Die", "Blade! There you are", "Whistler! Come save us." "Drake! It's him" and gets pretty unbelievably dramatic rather swiftly.

It'll be interesting to see how Ryan Reynolds fairs. This Marvel film came out quite a while ago, since then he's played Wade Wilson in Origins: Wolverine, Green Lantern for DC Films, he was the protagonist in R.I.P.D. He's set to return to the X-Men universe for Deadpool. I suppose if Chris Evans can get away with playing The Human Torch in Fantastic 4 and Rise of the Silver Surfer then move on to playing Captain America in The First Avenger I don't see why Reynolds can't pull it off. Hannibal was great, Ryan Reynolds is great but I'd be fine to see this be the end of it all here.

-Gimly

Blade (1998)

A super hero faire with a touch of the horror genre

[7/10 · 17 April 2015]

First released in 1998, Blade brought commercial success back to Super Hero films, after the woeful distribution of films like Batman & Robin and Steel stopped the genre in its tracks.

Starring Wesley Snipes (New Jack City, Chaos) as the eponymous Half-Vampire/Half-Human hybrid come Super Hero/Vampire Hunter, Blade works with Dr. Karen Jensen and Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson: Planet of the Apes, Provinces of Night) in order to defeat vampires Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff; Public Enemies, Felon) and Quinn (Donal Logue; Zodiac, Ghost Rider) and their host of undead soldiers before they can kill Gitano Dragonetti (Udo Kier; Rob Zombie's Halloween, Johnny Mnemonic) and the other vampire Elders in a ritual that will transform Deacon Frost into La Magra, the vampire Blood God.

With me so far? No? That figures. The script's interesting, but it's not terribly sense-making. What I mean to say, is, the script's rubbish, but the *story* is great. The whole film is really rather story and effects driven, but the characters are pretty lacking. Quinn is sort of fun, and Deacon's well he's attractive, but not a lot else. Still, there's more to him than most of the characters, including the titular Blade.

Straight up, just putting out there, I think goth-culture is attractive, so, my aesthetics may go quite a way to influencing my decision in the final score, if you disagree with me, you might want to keep that in mind, seeing as most vampires have at least a little bit of that going on. All that aside though, the opening of Blade is one of the strongest ways a film can start off that I've ever seen. It has basically everything you could want for a modern vampire tale. Including the Blood Rave song, Confusion (Pump Panel Remix) by New Order.

The cinematography was another cool point, lots of ins and outs in a non-nauseating way. Although the fight choreography suffered from a serious case of "Only-One-Guy-Attacks-At- A-Time" Syndrome. Come on guys, this ain't Tekken. When there's an army to fight, fight an army. Maybe not all at once, I know that could get a tad pointless, but it really didn't transfer well in this film.

To end with, there's on plot-hole I'd like to bring up, I don't think I'll be spoiling anything too badly, but if you want to go in completely fresh, stop reading. There's one point when Frost says he needs to kill the 12 Elder vamps in a big underground ritual in order to complete his ascendancy into the Blood God (Khorne?), but he kills the leader earlier, on a beach. Okay, so maybe he wasn't counted, and he was actually number 13. But, Frost's lady-friend Mercury kills another with Blade's sword, before the ritual gets started, and nobody seems to care... I am dubious- faced.

After all that though, Blade's a vampire film that's not slow like Nosferatu, and not indescribably awful like Twilight, so for people with tastes like mine, it's certainly worth a geez.

66%

-Gimly

Blade II (2002)

The best in the trilogy, showcases Del Toro's many talents

[8/10 · 17 April 2015]

The second piece of this vampire hunter trilogy blurs the lines between Action, Super Hero and Horror, which personally I'm kinda liking.

This time around, Blade (Wesley Snipes; New Jack City, Chaos), Abraham Whistler (Planet of the Ape, Provinces of Night) and new arrival Scud (Norman Reedus; The Boondock Saints, Pandorum) must team up with the Blood Pack, made up of Dieter Reinhardt (Ron Perlman; Hellboy, Outlander), Nyssa Damaskinos (Hell Ride, Wrong Turn at Tahoe), Chupa (Matt Schulze; The Transporter, The Fast and the Furious), Asad (Danny-John Jules; Red Dwarf, Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels), Snowman (Donnie Yen; IP Man, Highlander: Endgame), Verlaine (Marit Kile; Doctors, Blue Murder), Priest (Tony Curran; The Midnight Meat Train, Underworld: Evolution), and Lighthammer (Daz Crawford; Hammer of the Gods, Game Over) in order to defeat UberVamp Jared Nomak (personal favourite Luke Goss; Death Race 2, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Tekken) and his army of Reaper Strain Vampires.

With me so far? No? Then go watch the damn movie! It's very bloody good. The opening is almost as strong as the original, and pretty much everything else about it is better. Not to mention the fact that I'm a total Luke Goss fanboy. All of the characters are so much better. They interact and everything. And even though Wesley Snipes has never really impressed me as an actor, the character of Blade was a little less cheesy, which always helps, and basically just better all 'round.

SPOILERS FOR BLADE, BLADE II and TRINITY: An interesting point, without ruining anything about the trilogy is that in all three films, vampires fight vampires. Not in the whole "Blade's half a vampire so he kills full-on vampires" way, although there is most certainly that, but in Blade, Frost kills the Elder vampires to become La Magra. In Blade II, The Blood Pack and Blade team up to take down a new, much more dangerous breed of vampires. And in Trinity, Dracula goes around killing vampires, pretty much for fun. Just food for thought. I've never read the comics much myself, so I don't really know if that's something that's been going on for a while, or if it just turned out that way.

There were a couple of lame bits. Some very stupid lines like "they took all of our weapons. Even your sword." Even your sword! Man, the single weapon for which you were named after that has killed more vampires than any other thing on the planet, and the vampires took it away from you? The audacity! And there's this whole thing where Whistler is alive again, they went most of the way to explaining it, and then sort of forgot. It would have been so simple to have a four second flashback cover the lot of it. Oh well.

Still though, I'm very, very fond of this one.

77%

-Gimly

Dredd (2012)

A far superior reboot that will probably never see the sequel it deserves

[8/10 · 17 April 2015]

I really was quite a fan of Dredd, I thought the actors, post-staff, director, writers and cinematographer all did an outstanding job. However, there is one man in the crew who makes the rest look bad. By comparison. Because Paul Leonard-Morgan's soundtrack is by leaps and bounds the standout piece of what was already a decent film by its own right. His work on Dredd is praise enough (he also did spectacular thing's for Limitless in 2011). I never got into the deeper Judge Dredd universe (ie. 2000 AD comics) and almost all of my knowledge comes from cursory internet searches, and that "Dredd VS Death" video game. But from what I can gather, Dredd is a more honest depiction of the source material than the Stallone-led Judge Dredd of '95. So the music is outstanding, the Slow-Mo scenes are innovative and spectacularly produced and the specialised ammunition are astounding to watch. These are the three best parts of the film, in descending order, which to be fair, means that the gimmicks of Dredd are its most impressive feature. It's story is not broad (More of a "day in the life" than "save the human race" deal) and its characters are not greatly explored (though certainly not shallow), and it's mostly held together by these aforementioned "gimmicks", but more power to them! Better to have a solid baseline interconnected with deeply original fascination, than to have a boring rehashed piece of crap baseline, loosely stapled together with some poor excuse for dumping the same cliché $100,000 CGI explosions we've already seen four hundred times this quarter. Surprisingly, New Zealender Karl Urban (Star Trek, Star Trek: Into Darkness, LotR trilogy) makes for a better Dredd than I'd anticipated. Having a psychic was something I was initially skeptical of, too, however Olivia Thrilby (Juno, The Darkest Hour) put my concerns to rest after a long enough period to buy her role (about 25 minutes). And Lena Headey (Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Purge, Game of Thrones) I've liked since she played Queen Gorgo from 300 nearly a decade ago, so she"s always a safe bet in my books, particularly in the role of relentless drug-lord Ma-Ma, she really is at home playing ruthless women of power, isn't she? That all said, Dredd is not the best film I've ever seen. It's not even the best action-focused science-fiction film released in 2012 I've ever seen. But it takes risks, and that's nothing to be scoffed at. We need more Dredd's in our film industries, something to break up the monotony of most of Hollywood. Something that doesn't need to go big, or tick x amount of acceptability boxes, it's satisfied just being good. 77%

-Gimly

Man of Steel (2013)

Incredibly problematic if you've got a brain, but enjoyable enough as a popcorn-flick

[5/10 · 17 April 2015]

Man of Steel is intrusive, disrespectful, flawed, melodramatic, loud, needlessly destructive, poorly choreographed, awkward, inadequately paced and really kind of empty.

It's also the best live action Superman entry ever released.

Snyder, Goyer and Nolan got together and they completely overhauled the whole thing. Though they have intermittent moments of faith to the source material (comics) it is clear they wanted to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the original series (Superman I,II, III, IV: The Quest for Peace, Returns and Supergirl).

Gone are the crystals of yore, replaced with what doesn't look that unlike graphite. A change that initially aggravated me, but began to grow on me very damn quickly, especially after I saw just how encompassing they were with the technology (see the Moon Nazi meets Space Jockey gasmask above for reference).

Michael Shannon (Bug) is a great General Zod, and though his voice lacks the commanding presence of Terrence Stamp from the original, his character is written much better, and so Shannon is able to take the role to a far superior place than Richard Donner ever did.

When all is said and done, Man of Steel was well worth whatever hurdles had to be crossed to make it. It succeeds as a piece of entertainment, and sets up a pretty great mythos to ground the future in. Probably not for a Justice League film (an idea which has never enthused me) but most certainly for a second Superman film (which I actually rather look forward to).

I did, however, have a multitude of issues, not least being "Why the Hell does Superman mystically find a suit with his house-sigil on an unrelated space ship? More importantly, why is his the only one that has colour?". The most of which however, was the needless destruction. Violence doesn't phase me in the least, but I like to see it done right.

Single punches sending your enemy flying through a couple dozen skyscrapers for 25 minutes straight is not "done right". Especially not when these fights are performed almost entirely with very poor CG. It's like they haven't progressed in technology from Blade II (despite it being released over a decade ago). I know I've said it a million times before, but I obviously need to keep saying it: |||THERE IS STILL A PLACE FOR PRACTICAL EFFECTS IN CINEMA|||

-Gimly

Superman Returns (2006)

As evidenced by the fact that the next Superman film was a reboot, Superman Returns is not good enough to reinvigorate the franchise

[5/10 · 17 April 2015]

About on par with the first two films, maybe a little better, probably a little worse, depending on what exactly you're analysing (but certainly leaps and bounds above III, IV and Supergirl). I'm a big fan of Spacey (Men Who Stare at Goats, 21, K-PAX, American Beauty, A Bug's Life, Se7en, The Usual Suspects) so with him playing Lex Luthor (above in white) I had something to look forward to regardless of anything else. The rest of the cast is barely worth noting though, if at all. Worst of all, Brand Routh (Scott Pilgrim VS The World, Zack and Miri Make a Porno) simply can't stand up to Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel. For whatever reason, Returns doesn't get away with its overly lengthy runtime in the same way that Superman and Superman II is capable of doing. The depth that was endearing of the first two films, has by this time become a chore. There's something to be said for an enjoyment factor here, which is of course the most integral part of the entertainment medium. But beyond this, some decent effects and Spacey's Lex Luthor, there is really nothing to be gained from the piece. Again though, infinitely more enjoyable than '83 - '87 entries. 54%

-Gimly

Superman III (1983)

The first "bad" Superman film, but not the worst

[2/10 · 17 April 2015]

The Superman franchise changed hands again with the release of III. A move which aggravated a lot of cast, crew, and fans. Christopher Reeve was disappointed in the series' new direction, but not so much as to turn down the paycheque of another role. Margot Kidder's negative reaction gained her a back seat in the film, and Gene Hackman left the piece altogether. Though there's plenty to be said about Christopher Reeve's acting ability, as he plays Clark Kent, Superman and a darker, uncaring version of Superman, all in the one film with vigour; this is essentially all Superman has going for it by this stage. Richard Pryor is out of place in the DC universe, making slapstick terror and taking up nearly as much screen time as the Man of Steel himself (much to my chagrin). Robert Vaughn's Ross Webster makes for a poor Luthor substitute. Lana Lang's insertion as a love interest was completely disrespectful to the effort that had been put in with the first two films, making Superman's sacrifices and emotions all but redundant. There's very little new material in the piece, and everything that is new, is for the worse. The end result is a cheap disappointment that should never have been made, whose only saving grace is it's titular character. which the film severely under uses in favour of boring sideline exposition and pointless, deranged silliness. 21%

-Gimly

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

The worst in a very tainted series of films

[17 April 2015]

This fourth instalment sees the return of Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor, as well as the introduction of "evil fingernails" and the most jejune stupidity in the franchise.

There is a certain amount of enjoyment to be gained from watching Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman and Margot Kidder go about their business like this was one of the first two movies, but at the end of the day the film's a total non-event. There's almost nothing worthwhile here.

The awareness of the cast about just how poor the film was is both a good and bad thing. On the one hand, a little self-deprication and honesty goes a long way to redemption, but on the other, if they knew how bad it was, why commit to the starring roles? They weren't contractually obligated to do so (like Avengers actors are nowadays).

The notion of Superman bringing about an end to nuclear war was kind of neat, so that initial premise had some promise, but unfortunately the whole thing takes a back seat and everything in the front row is just... Just awful, let's be honest.

12%

-Gimly

Supergirl (1984)

Not worth the effort, just like Superman III, IV and Returns

[2/10 · 17 April 2015]

Set after the events of Superman III, but without Superman (whom is inexplicably off planet at an inter-galactic peace summit. despite there never having been a mention of non- Kryptonian aliens). Starring Helen Slater as Superman's magically existing cousin (from an entire colony of surviving Kryptonians, despite canon that after Superman II, Jor-El was the last living one). Honestly, I could go on listing continuity errors but I'm afraid at some point in the next few weeks, my keyboard is going to run out of batteries. So I'll just have to skip ahead to reviewing the film off of its own merits.

Eventually, sorcery (Superman's other weakness) was eventually going to have to be brought into the series, so I can forgive that lameness, most certainly. That's not what makes this a bad film. It's a combination of probably the weakest romantic plot (not subplot, which it really should have been), a chronically unenthused (to put in nicely) Peter O'Toole (Lawrence of Arabia, Troy, The Tudors), an overabundance of non-practical effects (which technology of the time was just nut ready for), nearly unbearable banter, and the flimsiest plot built of character being inconceivably stupid that make the film so bad.

But then, that's really the entire film.

At least Supergirl's alter-ego had more thought put into it than "adds/removes glasses" and Selena was an... Acceptable, I suppose, villain. But ultimately Supergirl sits with aforementioned Superman III and Quest for Peace as entirely missable.

20%

-Gimly

Riddick (2013)

May have put the nail in this struggling franchise

[6/10 · 15 April 2015]

In this latest incarnation, Riddick goes boldly goes where no previous entry has gone before: Nowhere. Say what you will about the previous film (Chronicles of Riddick) at least it had the guts to take some risks. Sure, almost all of those ended up being complete misfires, but they were still taken. Riddick on the other hand plays it safe. It's a path not entirely without benefit, but one that was not expected from the series spawned by Australian cult-classic Pitch Black. Shoot me for saying it but I'm actually a huge fan of Davind Twohy (The Arrival, Waterworld, G.I. Jane, A Perfect Getaway) so I actually sort of hoped for more from the piece. Sure Chronicles was silly and disjointed, sure Dark Fury was totally unnecessary and Dark Athena/Butcher Bay were only intermittently decent, but overall the Riddick franchise will always be compared to Pitch Black, and against this prodigy, the latest movie is simply subpar. The Necromonger storyline has been all but dropped, any connections to previous characters (sans Riddick) are completely unbelievable and the events are a shameless rip off of the first film. Seeing a more "survivalist" and intelligent Riddick is nice, as it's always been sort of more insinuated than outright shown. The entire world that the events of the film take place on is even moderately interesting, and none of the actors or characters are outright let downs, but overall Riddick falls much closer to the "barely watchable" category than the "brilliant" one. It's "cool", it's pretty and it's most certainly entertaining, but it's not new, it's not clever, and it's most certainly not as good as Pitch Black. 62%

-Gimly

Predators (2010)

An under-appreciated action-come-sci-fi-horror that is the best entry in the Alien/Predator franchise since the original Predator

[8/10 · 15 April 2015]

I can honestly say this is my favourite entry in the Alien/Predator franchise since the original Predator in 1987. It completely restored validity to the Predator series that was called into question with the release of Alien VS Predator and Requiem.

Predators touches on some Grindhouse conventions without slipping into the cheesiness of it. I can only imagine what good it would have done for the franchise if this had been the sequel to Predator, and Predator 2, AVP and Requiem all faded away like a bad dream, then the time wasted on those was put to better use continuing the vein of this and the original. (Let it be known that I actually like the AVP films more than most people).

There's plenty of actors to take note of; Adrien Brody (The Pianist, King Kong, Splice) as Ex- Black Ops Mercenary Royce, whom both emulates Schwarzenegger and takes the lead in a new direction; Danny Trejo (Machete, Death Race 2) as Chuchillo who's a brutal enforcer from the Los Zetas drug cartel in Mexico; Oleg Taktarov (Rollerball, Righteous Kill) as Nikolai, Russian Heavy Weapons Spetsnaz Alpha Group commander (whom my friend Calum introduced me to, he's a fan of the guy from his UFC days); Laurence Fishburne (Apocalypse Now, The Matrix) as Noland, a US Air Cav. soldier who's survived for a long time before the others even arrive, and has already killed at least two predators, and Topher Grace (Spider- Man 3, That 70's Show) as Edwin, a doctor whom doesn't seem to fit in with the band of elite killers that have dropped from the sky. All these kids are always worth watching, but I was also introduced to Walton Goggins (House of 1000 Corpses, The World's Fastest Indian) I've watched movies he's been in before, but never really took note of him until Predators in which he played death-row mass-murderer Stans, and he was bloody brilliant, and hilarious to boot.

Though there were some obvious problems with character relations and developments, that can be a problem with the set-'em-up-and-knock-'em-down type of film that Predators had to have. Unfortunately the major issue I have with Predators just plain plays it too safe. Though I majorly enjoyed it, Predators could have been even better if it took further in the directions it was looking in. They took some great steps, and hopefully we'll see director Nimrod Antal (Armored, Vacancy) and Producer Robert Rodriguez (From Dusk till Dawn, Sin City) come back and take the Predator franchise in the direction that it deserves to be taken.

Everything old about Predators is right, everything new about Predators is amazing, there's room for improvement to be sure, but I don't think I'll ever get sick of Predators, which is the absolute most impressive thing I can hope to get from a movie. Ever.

81%

-Gimly

Alien vs. Predator (2004)

Not great, but cops much more flak than it deserves

[6/10 · 15 April 2015]

I can honestly say, that this is one of the most under-rated films of 2004.

Not because it was good, just because it was panned so damn hard by critics! I think this is mostly due to the fact that it was being compared to both the Alien and Predator series, which is fair enough, but it was never going to be what either of those films was.

Ultimately it's downfall came from some poor dialogue, and trying to reach a larger audience. Where Predators was a film that you didn't need to have watched all the others in order to follow, it was still fundamentally a Predator film, aimed at the Predator-loving market. AVP on the other hand used references to the older films, but then completely threw the canon out the window and went for a larger fanbase. And whilst it worked to some degree (my grandma liked it) it wasn't enough of a step in either direction. AVP was complicated as a stand alone, and disastrous when compared to anything else in the franchise except perhaps its sequel Requiem (and maybe Predator 2 or Alien3).

Honestly I think the film works as an archetypal film in the realm of both Alien and Predator, just not a sequel or prequel to either. The lead protagonist is a woman by the name of Alexa Woods, portrayed by Sanaa Lathan was clearly meant to be a modern day Ripley, and catastrophically failed at doing so. The Predators were as cool as ever, and people complained that in the latter half of the film they weren't as ghostly as in Predator/Predator 2, but we've already had two whole films of that, and these were juvenile Predators, so it sort of made sense that they were a tad more restless.

Bringing Lance Henriksen back was an awesome decision, one that was probably lost on the audience who had not seen the Alien series.

Tommy Flanagan is another an actor I love, it was a shame his character (Mark Verheiden) was so underused. Ultimately, the film is a good one to pick up and put down, don't think about it too much, don't compare it to the others, go in with your only expectation being that it's a monster-movie, then you won't come out too disappointed.

59%

-Gimly

Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)

Not enough going on here to warrant anything that went into this film

[3/10 · 27 March 2015]

I'd like to preface this by saying that the race-issues raised by many people surrounding this movie should not be swept under the carpet by any means, that is a conversation that should be had with many differing views all I'm sure of merit. But my feelings towards it did not impact my opinion on the movie, as a movie. As a story and a technical achievement etc. etc. etc. I judged the film purely on its own merits, and how I felt about the actual content. And the actual content bored the Hell out of me. Ridley Scott has had highs and lows and various middle-grounds in between, but he hasn't helmed a project I've truly LOVED in fifteen years, and that concerns me. Any other director I would have long given up on, but for some reason I keep drinking the Ridley-Kool-Aid and I keep being disappointed. The problem is, there's not a soul in the cinema-going world who doesn't intimately know the story of Moses inside and out since childhood, so there's no surprises to be had from beginning to end. Maybe if they brought a fresh twist to it, or maybe if they did every single part of the tale the best it had ever been done, then maybe we'd have a worthwhile endeavour on our hands, but instead Exodus just sort of... is. The Abrahamic religions' mythology just by and large isn't as exciting as the others'. And here we see the story of God's primary prophet, who's greatest achievement is moving water from one spot to another so he can run away better. Impressive to an extent sure, but we've been spoiled by Gods like Thor and Darkseid in the zeitgeist this past decade, so I guess bizarrely casted wait-around marathons just don't impress me as much as they might have in say, when The Ten Commandments came out which covers the same junk in 45 minutes as Exodus in TWO AND A HALF HOURS and that was NEARLY A CENTURY AGO. There's plenty of things I didn't hate about Exodus, sure, but there's nothing to really like either, which for a story that was already retold to death before even the advent of film, just won't cut it. It's been done so many times before, it's been done better before, and with the exception of one crocodile-related scene in about the middle, it's not worth your time. Because again. It's two and a half hours, and that is A LOT of your time for "sort of okay".

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

While not as good as critics would have you believe, it's still the best film of 2015 thus far

[7/10 · 26 March 2015]

I saw two films in two days here, yesterday I saw Chappie which I was told I would hate and actually kinda liked, and today I saw Kingsman, which I was told I would LOVE and actually only kinda liked. As much as I try not to have any expectations going in, there's only so much you can do to avoid that. And because its hard to get a gauge on your outside influences, it can be hard to know just how much not loving a movie was because you had it over-hyped, and how much is because its just not your thing. I had the same problem with Gone Girl, and, like Gone Girl, I'm gonna assume it was predominantly the former and not the latter, and bump it up from three starts to three and a half by the skin of its teeth. Now you may have noticed that I said I "didn't love" it rather than "it was garbage". That's because I liked it, I really liked it and there is a lot you'll carry out from Kingsman that you'll hold on to for a long time. Matthew Vaughn is an absolute goddamn MASTER filmmaker, Colin Firth, Mark Hammil, Sam Jackson, Michael Caine, Mark Strong and Geoff Bell all get to flex their acting muscles here, and that is never gonna fail to get me stoked. You may not have heard of Taron Egerton or Sofie Boutella before, but mar my words, after their performances in this, you're gonna start hearing about them a lot, real damn soon. I'm calling it now, unless they somehow start making some monumentally poor decisions, household names by 2018. I did like Kingsman, and I feel obliged to tell you it earned the right to hold onto the top five box office for over a month, and its appeal is, while not universal, still broad. It may well be the best film of 2015 thus far, but it's also not so glamorous as most would have you believe.