Godzilla vs. Hedorah.

Review #2482: Godzilla vs. Hedorah.

Cast: 

Akira Yamauchi (Dr. Toru Yano), Hiroyuki Kawase (Ken Yano), Toshie Kimura (Toshie Yano), Keiko Mari (Miki Fujinomiya), Toshio Shiba (Yukio Keuchi), Yoshio Yoshida (Gohei, a fisherman), Haruo Suzuki (JSDF senior officer), Yoshio Katsube (JSDF engineer), Tadashi Okabe (a scholar), Wataru Ōmae (a policeman), Takuya Yuki (a communications officer), Yukihiko Gondo as a helicopter pilot), Haruo Nakazawa (teenager in the meadow), Kentaro Watanabe (TV news anchor), Haruo Nakajima (Godzilla), Kenpachiro Satsuma (Hedorah) Directed by Yoshimitsu Banno.

Review: 

Apparently, the impetus for this film (the 11th in the series) started with an expo. With the Mitsubishi Pavillion at Expo '70 in Osaka, Toho participated and saw their eyes interested in an audio-visual exhibit of mirror reflections that was created by Yoshimitsu Banno. Banno was approached to make a Godzilla movie and he came up with an idea about a pollution monster in light of the fact that Japan's growing economy would create a huge problem of pollution. Banno had graduated from Tokyo University in 1955 and actually served as an assistant director on four Akira Kurosawa movies and this would be his one major effort as a director. Banno aimed for a small cast with 35 days to shoot. Tomoyuki Tanaka, who usually oversaw the films as a producer, was in the hospital for most of production and Banno used this so he could include a scene he didn't think would get approved otherwise: Godzilla using his atomic breath to fly. Animation was also used at certain points in the film. For the American edit released in 1972 by AIP, it was called "Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster" with its own song "Save the Earth" (as opposed to "Give Back the Sun"). The movie was a mild success with audiences, receiving a bit of critical scorn along with subsequent appreciation in some circles (Roger Ebert once said this was his favorite Godzilla movie). Teruyoshi Nakano, who provided the special effects for the film, stated that the comic scenes were likely added to lighten the tone of a film that he felt looking back "seems kind of cruel and heavy handed". Banno never got to do a Godzilla movie again, although he did receive an executive producer credit on a few of the 2010's Godzilla movies in America; Banno died at the age of 86 in 2017. Incidentally, Jun Fukuda returned to direct Godzilla vs. Gigan in 1972, which happened to deal with cockroach-like aliens going to Earth after their planet was destroyed...by pollution.

I have to admit, this is a pretty fun movie. Of course, anything is better than All Monsters Attack. Sure, it probably won't be for everyone with its pacing of 85 minutes full of tension and mayhem...amidst plenty of strange imagery and moments. Just to paraphrase: people get turned into skeletons when sprayed by the monster, one person hallucinates fish heads on people (right before the sludge arrives) building is shown falling down to complete silence, a kid goes on a roller coaster and sees Godzilla appear in silhouette that you can actually spot because...yes. I do appreciate the Hedorah design apparently also being able to shoot lasers because screw it, why not? It might be goofy looking, but it makes a suitable enough idea in being a symbol of what things could be with a lack of care for the Earth: sludge (consider how things look now). People coming together to try and deal with the monster at least this time around is not a collection of speeches in a boardroom, and the kid this time around is mostly just curious rather than being all the way involved like the last film. I fail to see the problem with the scene of Godzilla flying with his breath. After movies where he did a dance and had a goofy son, the flight is not exactly uncanny to actually see in, you know, a monster movie where Godzilla already gets smothered in one eye. Yamauchi and the others in the cast are pretty routine, which is a compliment in that one isn't rolling their eyes at the level of drama that is supposed to play out in a Japan that may be more economically sound but may also lose something much more important in its soul. Even the hippies get involved, with a... bonfire on a mountain. And hey, here's a film where the military does something: they come with a big electrode to try and dry out the sludge monster before Godzilla takes him to the cleaners (wonder how he gets that stuff off him later). As a whole, it is a weird little film, but as a movie trying to be conscious of the time it was made in, it is a pretty entertaining film to see realized that managed to make an impression to stick out from the previous efforts. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

29 years old today. Ha.

Links for people delivering better insight from the actual production: Smog Monster Director EXTRA / ゴジラ対ヘドラの監督〜EXTRA〜 (SciFi Japan TV #26)

or this: Cinefantastique Magazine: 1970-2002 : Cinefantastique : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

War of the Worlds (2025).

Review #2481: War of the Worlds (2025).

Cast: 

Ice Cube (Will Radford), Eva Longoria (Dr. Sandra Salas), Clark Gregg (Donald Briggs), Iman Benson (Faith Radford), Henry Hunter Hall (Dave Radford), Devon Bostick (Mark Goodman), Michael O'Neill (Walter Crystal, United States Secretary of Defense), Andrea Savage (Sheila Jeffries, FBI Agent), and Jim Meskimen (the President) Directed by Rich Lee.

Review:

This is the debut feature of Rich Lee, who had spent two decades directing music videos for various bands after first doing work at Scenic Technologies doing sets/sculpting and also did work with previsualization for a few feature films. Not exactly the worse resume for a movie that might go down in infamy as one of the most ineffective feature film debuts ever. At any rate, let's start carefully. The screenplay was credited to Kenneth A. Golde and Marc Hyman, with a story by Golde as based on the novel of the same name by H. G. Wells (which apparently is in the public domain now). Evidently, the first rumblings of making this film started in 2020 that would use "screenlife technology" (as, as popularized by films such as Searching (2018), which shares a producer with this film in Timur Bekmambetov. So yes, they wanted to make a film that looked like an event but with the budget of a small thriller. Apparently, post-production lasted for two years after the film was shot over the course of fifteen days and had a handful of edits made over and over again. Actual footage of disasters (such as a fire) had CGI put over it to serve for this film. Universal was originally set to release it, but it was later sold to Amazon, who released it onto Prime Video. You might wonder why this film gets a pass then despite being on a streaming thing. Well, I do love a good target, especially one that claims to not be deterred by bad reviews.

The following things are namedropped or shown: Spotify, FaceTime, VISA, Zoom, the Mac, Tesla, the Push button ("that was easy"), Amazon (drones are totally cool) and gift cards, commentators such as Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson. Bekmambetov apparently believed that the best way to experience the action through the lens of phones and computers that surely would be a modern spin of the novel akin to the Orson Welles radio broadcast from 1938. I cannot imagine someone trying to pretend to be immersed in the film actually portraying an invasion and people rising above it to tell truths by displaying an image that says: "Let's Disrupt Some Shit". You have got to be kidding me with this movie, right? There is no desire in my mind to give the film the "so bad it's good" treatment, there is only a desire to bury this movie into the ground for all of the genuine terrible quality that comes through in 89 minutes of what barely even counts as a film. How can you call this a movie where you are basically paying attention to small rectangle rather than the whole frame? How can you call this a movie where you already know the outcome and the characters are still badly developed? How could this have passed for a film? Is that all there is, movies being made for "content"? To call this a movie is an insult to movies made on a shoestring budget or even Neil Breen. You can't believe anything you see or hear with the film from hacking to the art of needing a thumb drive as delivered by a drone. Ice Cube can't even make this tolerable to watch because he just sounds bored by what he is doing here, a movie where he was filmed without the director or actors around. Gregg can't even sell the idea that he cares about the perils of trying to seize a higher place of power in disaster because he has the commitment level of someone stuck in an unending phone call. The "Disruptor" stuff is just cringe and unconvincing in actually making you believe in the film besides the invasion. The effects, aside from the probable tastelessness (debate for yourself) of taking actual suffering and putting CG over it, don't even heighten the drama because the visuals just aren't interesting to look at. In the end, you could stick with the 1953 or 2005 version of War of the Worlds, end of story. This is an insult to moviemaking, and it honestly deserves to be buried into the ground for sheer audacity in wasting the time of its audience with no sense of tension, interest, or soul in any shape or form. Laughing at it isn't enough, giving it a 0 is what it deserves.

Overall, I give it 0 out of 10 stars.

Well, we tried our best to do a quality Turkey Week. Six Novembers of having some pretty bad movies to close out the month has been pretty enjoyable, and I look forward to further years of ridicule. At any rate, presented here were the finalists: 

Doolittle / Killing Me Softly / National Lampoon's Movie Madness / Gotti / Driven / Date Movie / H. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come / Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Atlas Shrugged: Part II.

Review #2480: Atlas Shrugged: Part II.

Cast: 

Samantha Mathis (Dagny Taggart), Jason Beghe (Henry Rearden), Esai Morales (Francisco d'Anconia), Patrick Fabian (James Taggart), Kim Rhodes (Lillian Rearden), Richard T. Jones (Eddie Willers), D. B. Sweeney (John Galt), Paul McCrane (Wesley Mouch), John Rubinstein (Dr. Floyd Ferris), Robert Picardo (Dr. Robert Stadler), Ray Wise (Head of State Thompson), Diedrich Bader (Quentin Daniels), Bug Hall (Leonard Small), Arye Gross (Ken Danagger), Michael Gross (Ted 'Buzz' Killman), Rex Linn (Kip Chalmers), Larisa Oleynik (Cherryl Brooks), with Thomas F. Wilson (Robert Collins), and Teller (Laughlin) Directed by John Putch.

Review: 

Okay, maybe it seems silly to cover another Ayn Rand movie for Turkey Week. But if you had the displeasure of watching Atlas Shrugged: Part I. The 2011 movie barely made it to any theaters to begin with, so guess how they raised money for the sequel. Apparently, $16 million was raised by a company based in New Jersey in a private debt sale. Filming apparently was then announced to start in April 2012 to be released in October 2012 that totally would be in line with the U.S. presidential election. One of the writers of the film was Duncan Scott, who apparently did a re-edit of We the Living (1942) with English subtitles. He is credited with the screenplay alongside Duke Sandefur and Brian Patrick O'Toole. Everything is different, right down to the director. John Putch has mostly directed for television and a few projects for video. Even the cast is different, as apparently it wasn't easy to negotiate options with actors in such a short time. Producer John Aglialoro went on the interview circuit a bit in stating his hopes for the film to hit with certain audiences, once stating that leftists dismiss Rand as a "cartoon....that she was for selfishness". Perhaps not surprisingly, the movie was not screened for critics, accusing them as having their integrity going off a cliff while also deciding, yes, these think-tanks called The Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute are going to be fair and balanced towards this movie*. Atlas Shrugged Part II did get to screen on over a thousand screens on opening day....and a month later, the producers decided to not release numbers for it by the time it made a whole $3 million. The market rejected the films in theaters, but Aglialoro decided to finish the job with a third film in 2014 (you know damn well we'll be back to see that film in 2026).

The movie is termed as "sci-fi drama, and I hesitate to nof chuckle. If this was meant to be a challenge of the meme that rolls with the word "libertarian" in "we demand to be taken seriously!", it would be a bonafide swing-and-a-miss. It somehow is technically better than the previous film but is just as insanely boring, with its attempts at celebrating the defiant businessman and its incessant asking of who is John Galt (I'm Spartacus!) making me giggle again and again. The most fun you may get from the film is in the name game of spotting people you might recognize from better things: hey hey, its Ray Wise (and accompanying evil sneer) from RoboCop/Twin Peaks! A collection of TV guys in Teller (who speaks!), Picardo, Gross, Bader and Linn. A lead from Pump up the Volume*. Could you imagine if this film actually did influence someone in how they voted in an election? What, vote for conservatives or they'll keep trying to make movies to break into the mainstream? If you go up to a mirror three times and say "taxation is theft", will a Libertarian appear out of thin air to scold me for believing in a driver's license? It probably goes without saying that the dialogue is as stilted as ever for a movie that would probably serve as the real test for if something designed to preach to a specific choir is actually slop. Then again, how many movies actually show TV pundits play themselves? It is funny that this is the middle film of a series that certainly was just itching to get to John Galt and his big speech for the conclusion (70 pages for a book, probably less for a film) that basically dances like a soap opera with further people leaving society because, hey, who is John Galt? Mathis and Beghe can only do so much under the strain of it all, which means they sometimes sound vulnerable like actual human beings, even if two movies have managed to do little in making the audience realize why they matter as characters. The unending desire to nail oneself on the cross of Rand means an inevitable speech is looming around the corner or the soap opera-tier characters pop in and out, which is sad because good god you need a really over-the-top villain (Wise could've easily swallowed the film, so naturally they give him a few lines) to up the tension.. It basically resembles a religious movie but with the morals of holding the one true power together: capitalism rules guys, we just have to trust these elite and not the evil government red tape to do their job! The fact that the apparent depression that is supposed to be in the film basically shows just a few people at random times does put the proper trim of amusement to it all. They manage to make plane maneuvering and a train-crash the equivalent of one guy trying to start a "wave" and getting crickets. As a whole, Atlas Shrugged: Part II continues to get stuck in the mud of wooden dialogue with actors that cannot possibly hold it together when its foundation is a self-serving mash of meandering goofiness. 

 

Overall, I give it 3 out of 10 stars.

Later: War of the Worlds (2025)

*Hey, I try to have a balance. I try to not share visible irritation for the following: annoying pretentious filmmakers, hippies, annoying conservatives, annoying liberals, and people who believe that movies/video games influence people to do violence. If you ever want to say what grinds your gears: leave a note.

*Perhaps ironically, Samantha Mathis was elected to serve in a trade union position with Vice President, Actors/Performers of SAG-AFTRA from 2015 to 2019. Ayn Rand wasn't big on "altruism" and unions (as selected here: Ayn Rand's Defense of an Anti-Union Massacre — History News Network) but sure loved the government-run Social Security and Medicare in later years.

Postal.

Review #2479: Postal.

Cast: 

Zack Ward (The Postal Dude), Dave Foley (Uncle Dave), Chris Coppola (Richard), Jackie Tohn (Faith), J. K. Simmons (Candidate Eugene Welles), Verne Troyer (himself), Larry Thomas (Osama bin Laden), David Huddleston (Peter), Seymour Cassel (Paul), Ralf Moeller (Officer John Mann), Chris Spencer (Officer Greg Sharp), Michael Paré (Panhandler), Erick Avari (Habib), Lindsay Hollister (Recorder), Brent Mendenhall (George W. Bush), Rick Hoffman (Mr. Cornelius Blither), with Michael Benyaer (Mohammed), and Uwe Boll (himself) Directed by Uwe Boll (#1765 - In the Name of the King, #1924 - Alone in the Dark, #2144 - House of the Dead, #2317 - BloodRayne)

Review: 

"The lessons I have learned from my live-action adaptations of video game franchises have shaped my growth as a filmmaker. While there are areas where I would have approached things differently in hindsight, I am grateful for the opportunities to bring these beloved games to the big screen and to continue evolving and pushing boundaries in the world of film."

Oh go figure, another Uwe Boll video-game movie. You might call it low hanging fruit, but there is a curiosity to what Boll does so weirdly in trying to adapt material in his own vision for audiences. The basis for this film is Postal, a 1997 top-down shooter game developed by Running with Scissors (as founded by Vince Desiderio). Whichever game one played (the first was isometric, the second was first-person and open-world), you went around encountering the town of Paradise and shooting things (the first was probably a bit controversial, it featured an attempted shooting of a school). Apparently, the German fan club of the game contacted Uwe Boll and asked him about doing a film based on the game. Boll contacted Desiderio and got the rights to do a film as long as the company had involvement with the production. Apparently, Desiderio did have a dark and gritty script in mind with Steve Wik (who was involved with the two games) but Boll instead went with a script he wrote with assistant director Bryan C. Knight that had "satire". After all, his first film (German Fried Movie) was a comedy. Apparently, there are two versions of the film, one that is 100 minutes and a "Director's Cut" of 114 minutes (which did have a festival screening); inquire further here. Although there were ideas of doing a wide release...distributors balked to where it had a release to four screens on opening week in America. The movie was shot in September/October 2006, roughly around the same time that Boll had a series of boxing matches against alleged online critics of his films (for whatever reason, one of the DVDs included footage from said fight as a bonus feature). Boll didn't take certain reviews well, but your milage may vary. Boll tried to do a Kickstarter for a sequel in 2013 to raise $500,000 but dropped out after it raised less than seven percent of its goal. Boll was involved in a few more sequels to his video game films with BloodRayne and In the Name of the King, albeit for the video market. Postal is the penultimate feature film adaptation of a game that Boll did, with the last one being Far Cry (2008).

Technically speaking, this is his best video game movie. Go figure, the one where he tried to do jokes on purpose is almost an actual movie. The opening scene may or may not set your expectations a bit too differently from the actual film: it starts with a debate from two terrorists flying a plane over just how many virgins they will get for the attack they will do before the plane. When they don't like the answer and try to abandon the mission, the passengers end up breaking into the cockpit right as the plane crashes into a tower. So, there's that. For all of the controversy one could have about making light of a certain plane crash, the real issue of the film is that it only works on a basic level of humor that barely rises above juvenile at times because of the assortment of jokes that basically come off as ones done based on what irritates Boll or what might get the most jollies, whether that involves male nudity (don't ask who), bad women drivers getting shot up, annoying panhandlers that won't leave you alone (okay that one is relatable) fat people antics involving food or sex, a lead character wearing a "Peace" shirt when shooting people, depicting Osama bin Laden and Bush as buddies, and so on. Boll claims that various actors (Foley, Troyer, Simmons) wanted to be in the film against the wishes of their agents. Sure. Some of the cast do better in timing than others, probably best served with Foley, who seems to practically glide in playing sleaze for over-the-top amusement. Ward (who apparently would be a featured option in the next two Postal games) has a few effective moments in timing where life is basically hell around him, one where basically regrets are for lesser people, as evidenced by the scene where he tries to get a better numbered ticket while a rampage is going down at the unemployment office. Boll must've at least had a tiny bit of glee to play a fictionalized version of himself here: he gets to make an Auschwitz joke and tell folks that he hates video games. The gallows humor basically works best when it seems to deal with how violence begets more violence as opposed to say, Verne Troyer getting penetrated by monkeys or a ridiculously complicated plan about trying to steal dolls. The violence is about as stock as it can be and the timing of the jokes may or may not be the result of having just a few takes to do them for "freshness". The film can't quite achieve the humor it yearns to have and instead is a bit too goofy to actually click on a consistent level, but I did at least enjoy a chunk of its simmering annoyance at human foibles. As a whole, Boll clearly wanted to make a broad satire about violence or something about political anarchy that might as well be a poor man's Dr. Strangelove. Is it successful? No, it is full of crude hits-and-miss moments, but it definitely is watchable enough to at least make you believe Boll has potential as a filmmaker beyond calling him one of the worst. Pick your poison. 

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Saturday: Double feature.

Twisted Pair.

Review #2478: Twisted Pair.

Cast: 

Neil Breen (Cade Altair / Cale Altair), Siohbun Ebrahimi (Donna), Sara Meritt (Alana), Denise Bellini ( Agency Director), Marty Dasis (Corp. Executive/Detective/Soldier), Brad Stein (Detective), John Smith Burns (Corp. Executive), Art MacHenster (Corp. Executive/Soldier), and Greg Smith Burns (Cuzzx) Written, Produced, and Directed by Neil Breen (#1767 - Fateful Findings, #1925 - Double Down, #2146 - I Am Here....Now, #2313 - Pass Thru)

Review: 

There are probably people who actually believe Neil Breen makes movies as some sort of a joke. Well, that would be stupid, so let's approach these movies with the curiosity of wondering how a filmmaker continually manages to make terrible movies ("so bad it's good" should be sent to the woodchipper). As before, Breen serves as the costume designer to go with a variety of other things that he "cleverly" tries to hide in the credits. Apparently, the movie had crowdfunding from GoFundMe that raised a few thousand dollars, with filming being done at Nevada State College. So, what's the plot description for this film? Breen plays two identical twin brothers (well, "identical" minus the fake beard) that are hybrid A.I. entities that have different methods to "achieve justice for humanity", mainly because one got fired for not doing good at their job (which namely involves things like protecting troops or jumping in the air). All for the runtime of 89 minutes, as evidenced by the poster that you can see on the actual website (complete with an AOL account, in case you need to ask questions about how to buy a DVD for $30). In 2023, a sequel was released with Cade: The Tortured Crossing. 

 

You can see that this is the film where Breen really wanted to do green screens for damn near anything possible. But hey, at least the premise is different. He has evolved from cut-off vests with medals from his very first film (which he made in 2007, mind you) to having folks admit their crimes before a mass suicide to now just making folks vanish/blow up to...having a plot to take one guy's "empire" down. While having a scene where he just sits near a computer. One sequence in particular sticks out early: Our hero bumps into a girl and tries to apologize to her with a date but she rejects it. Then he follows her house and breaks in that leads to a fight...where it is then revealed that they actually already are in a relationship and that I guess they like to roleplay. Ever hear of Henry Darger? That was a janitor/hospital worker who became noted only in death because of a 15,145-page novel he had written about child slave rebellion to go along with a variety of collages and illustrations*. Breen's movies must feel like that: the work of someone who just wrote whatever the hell popped in their head, and I don't even know if Breen has ever actually been influenced by movies with his stuff. Stock footage and green screens are all that you get with this movie when it isn't filmed at night, complete with an eagle because, reasons. I wonder when and how Breen was compelled to start making movies like this: he has to be, what, 60 by this point? He basically is doing the same kind of weird fan-fiction about himself that for whatever reason deals with the fallout of people being abandoned (children or not) to go with saying mealy-mouthed stuff about artificial intelligence and casting people that probably aren't too different than if you found people at your local Denny's to go do a video. I reject the idea that Breen is an outsider artist, mainly because Breen just seems like he makes movies for whatever he pleases, regardless if they get screened at festivals or not. His stuff is repetitive yet they earn one star because even this is a smidge above Coleman Francis (that may be the real low bar, don't let anyone tell you about Ed Wood). Between the strange magic frames, diamonds, guys getting shot and again and a reference to the ending of Pass Thru (which is being screened in a room with an Ultraviolet poster), there is plenty to notice for what ultimately is another Neil Breen experience in confounding strangeness. 

Overall, I give it 1 out of 10 stars.

Black Friday: Postal.

*see, Movie Night does try to teach.

A Sound of Thunder.

Review #2477: A Sound of Thunder.

Cast: 

Edward Burns (Travis Ryer), Catherine McCormack (Sonia Rand), David Oyelowo (Marcus Payne), Ben Kingsley (Charles Hatton), Jemima Rooper (Jenny Krase), Wilfried Hochholdinger (Dr. Lucas), August Zirner (Clay Derris), Corey Johnson (Christian Middleton), Heike Makatsch (Alicia Wallenbeck), Armin Rohde (John Wallenbeck), and William Armstrong (Ted Eckels) Directed by Peter Hyams (#233 - 2010: The Year We Make Contact, #326 - Timecop)

Review: 

Hey, ever read A Sound of Thunder? Well, there were rumblings of making a film adaptation of Ray Bradbury's short story of the same name (as originally published in 1952) since at least 2000, when Renny Harlin and Pierce Brosnan were tapped to work on it for Franchise Pictures, with Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer tapped to write the script (Gregory Poirier later worked on the screenplay to get credit with the duo, known for co-adapting Sahara). They wanted to fast-track production before a possible actor strike, but the following year saw Harlin taken out for Peter Hyams and eventually Edward Burns was cast over Brosnan, who wanted re-writes. Franchise Pictures went down under during post-production, which got in the way of a movie that was meant to be $55 million. In 2004, Franchise filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The movie was being filmed in Prague when an actual flood hit the area that saw re-scheduling and a post-production that went on for nearly two years. Previsualized software (and sub-contracted work) was used to basically save time what became a nightmare. This was the 18th feature film for Peter Hyams, who had previously started the 2000s off with The Musketeer (2001), which didn't exactly rock the world. After this, he made two more movies: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009), a movie that may actually have even less of a reputation than this movie, and Enemies Closer (2013), a film that had a limited US release; the then-66 year old also shot for Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009), as directed by his son.

In the future of 2055...people spend money to go back in time to wait for a guy to tell them when they can shoot a dinosaur dead. Sure. It almost seems too easy to say this movie is really, really bad. There's something to be said about a movie that talks about "time waves" and "Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle" with the confidence that audiences would just accept the malarkey that comes across for a mess in both visuals and as a time travel movie. What you get here is a bland movie, one that has a handful of bad green screen effects and dopey-looking creature effects that would've seemed ripe for an Irwin Allen movie. But even if the effects were magical or invoked some sort of interest, it was not going to override the lack of an interesting story that can't really evoke the Bradbury story. The original story wasn't really much besides saying "careful about stepping on something, otherwise everything goes to hell because, that insect was important millions of years ago" (the name of the story came from the firing of a rifle), but here you get a movie where for whatever reason the changes to the timeline happen from wave to wave that makes plants and stuff grow weirdly. All from a mess-up where trying to shoot up a dinosaur that was planned to die (notice how shooting the gun doesn't have an effect on the stuff around the dinosaur). With how the characters have to go on a trip to see who messed up with the stepped-on thing, I wonder if someone watched The Warriors a bit too much. It also lacks an interesting hero or villain to really latch on to, and that's even with the presence of a white-haired Kingsley. Burns might as well be transparent with how he brings nothing to the table as the lead focus: there isn't a sense of guilt or adventure to anything he goes through, and McCormack can't actually make the consequences of time travel seem compelling either. You would think Kingsley would know better than to do stuff like this, but between him trying to be "funny" here and a "villain" in BloodRayne (2005), I suppose money does win out. The others don't end up any better, mostly being used to basically serve as fodder (given that the ending never seems in doubt, obviously the dead-count is back to zero). There just isn't anything to laugh with in terms of humor or anything to really gawk at for interest, and the climax is all about...using a few seconds to say the right thing and save the insect. As a whole, even when knowing that the film took years and years to actually realize its vision, there is no slice of hope to be found here with how bland and uninvolving it all is.

Overall, I give it 2 out of 10 stars.

Next up: Twisted Pair.

Fantastic Four (2015).

Review #2476: Fantastic Four.

Cast: 

Miles Teller (Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic), Michael B. Jordan (Johnny Storm / Human Torch), Kate Mara (Sue Storm / Invisible Woman), Jamie Bell (Ben Grimm / The Thing), Toby Kebbell (Victor Von Doom / Dr. Doom), Reg E. Cathey (Dr. Franklin Storm), Tim Blake Nelson (Dr. Harvey Allen), Tim Heidecker (Mr. Richards), and Dan Castellaneta (Mr. Kenny) Directed by Josh Trank (#152 - Chronicle)

 

Review: 

"I don’t regret any of it. It’s a part of me."

Oh sure, this is an easy target. But why not? 20th Century Fox saw two Fantastic Four movies make a little bit of money and thought they could start over, finally settling on Josh Trank to direct in 2012, as he had made quite the impression with Chronicle. While Jeremy Slater (who actually had provided a bit of input in the script of that film) was initially tabbed to do the screenplay, it went nowhere when they clashed over what they wanted the story to be as Slater wanted to go for a tone akin to the recent release of The Avengers (2012)...which Trank hated, because he apparently had only seen the 1990s animated series and wasn't exactly a comic book movie fan. Simon Kinberg was hired as a co-writer and co-producer in 2013. The movie was filmed in 2014 over the course of 72 days but Trank had a hell of a time trying to balance the workload and internal pressure, with varying level of reports over how stressful it was in production (whether his behavior was erratic is up to debate - the casting of Jordan as Storm riled a few people on message boards and Trank resorted to carrying a gun on his nightstand). The apparent first cut of the film was "morose" and not to Fox's liking which led to reshoots and re-writes; ultimately, Trank, Kinberg, and Slater were credited for the screenplay. Trank did negotiate a deal to at least make his own cut while Fox got Stephen Rivkin to make a cut assembled from certain takes, which Trank claimed were picked deliberately to be cheesy. One day before the release of the film, Trank posted on social media about having had a fantastic version of the film in mind that would probably never be seen. The movie made a bit of money but obviously did not generate desire for a sequel* while Trank didn't return to directing until Capone (2020).

I can't even tell just who is most at fault for this piece of junk. How bad was Trank's first cut that they went with a version that never actually goes into first gear? 100 minutes go by with four lead characters that have chemistry on the level of when you encounter a homeless man on the street. The movie looks and feels so dreary that it makes the 2007/2009 Fox efforts actually look like high-effort features, right down to an opening sequence that has "it's clobbering time" used first....when Ben Grimm is hit by his brother. What was the second idea, Johnny Storm having a fear of fire because his mom got burned to death? Sue Storm being afraid of being alone because of a traumatic clown experience? The movie is basically a wind-up toy that goes nowhere, says nothing, and accomplishes nothing. Apparently, Trank's experiences living in a "racially intense Los Angeles where we were used to seeing white superheroes", combined with being a director with control, led to him casting Jordan as the Human Torch (actually, he also wanted to cast a black woman to play Sue Storm too but was overruled). It's funny that the one really noted name that Trank got for the film did get to be in a successful film for 2015...with Creed, which was released months after Fantastic Four. Sure, nobody pulls off a quality performance of the four, but he probably is the least affected, I suppose. It isn't even worth crapping on Teller, what exactly is he supposed to do in a movie where he doesn't register any sort of energy? The chemistry between him and Mara actually is transparent in how thin it feels, and Mara almost does accomplish the act of seeming invisible...except for the fact that Bell accomplishes even less with a rock-man that inspires chuckles at how it looks. Kebbell has two hurdles to stumble over: a pathetic characterization of Victor Von Doom (as last played by Julian McMahon to mild results) and a Dr. Doom that is in the movie for less than 15 minutes that doesn't get an interesting motivation when he is turned into a grey-green goo man. When the most involved person in the movie is Cathey in a thankless role, you are in trouble. It can't even be a cheesy movie like the 1994 unreleased feature, no, it has to try to be a failed imitation of stuff like Batman Begins (2005). The climax of the movie is probably the most cobbled-together and it happens to have the one noted line: a stupid line about "fantastic" that became a "meme". You would think after four Fantastic Four movies, you would get one that has a friendly quartet and interesting action and production values, but oh no, not quite. As a whole, Fantastic Four (2015) is a movie fit for nobody. It is made of nonsense that will come and go with absolutely no impact except maybe to the psyche of Josh Trank. It does however make a good film to make fun of, at least.

Overall, I give it 3 out of 10 stars.

Next for Thanksgiving: A Sound of Thunder.

*Ten years later, Marvel did The Fantastic Four: First Steps, a bare minimum for a decent movie. No, I'm still a bit mad that they went with having that dopey baby in it.

King Kong Lives.

Review #2474: King Kong Lives.

Cast: 

Brian Kerwin (Hank Mitchell), Linda Hamilton (Dr. Amy Franklin), John Ashton (Lt. Col. Archie Nevitt), Frank Maraden (Dr Benson Hughes), Peter Michael Goetz (Dr. Andrew Ingersoll), Jimmie Ray Weeks (Major Peete), with Peter Elliott (King Kong), George Yiasoumi (Lady Kong), and Benjamin Kechley (Baby Kong) Directed by John Guillermin (#726 - King Kong [1976], #1231 - Shaft in Africa, #1447 - The Towering Inferno, #2044 - Never Let Go)

Review: 

Do you remember when they did a remake of King Kong the first time around? The 1976 film of King Kong was the one with the poster that called it "The most exciting original motion picture event of all time." Dino De Laurentiis spearheaded the venture after buying the film rights from RKO-General (whether he did so on the basis of seeing a poster in his daughter's room or because he was brought in to it by Paramount after Michael Eisner suggested the idea of a remake is debatable). The fiery John Guillermin (Laurentiis called him a "talent guy" and also a "strange character" while Guillermin aimed to do a remake that could balance jokes and the "danger of bathos" with obvious sincerity) directed a movie laced with a few hiccups. A Lorenzo Semple Jr-penned script aimed for a light amusing touch for a supposed more sophisticated audience while having the balls to have a lead character named Dwan and had to do a man in a suit because of failed attempts to do a full-scale animatronic Kong*. Even though it may not have been the megahit Laurentiis thought it would be (he actually thought it could rival Jaws [1975]), it did make some money. I watched the movie back in 2015 and thought it was painfully average, especially with its human stars, because when I watch a King Kong movie, clearly, I want to focus on the love story. So, anyway, ten years later. Laurentiis wanted to make another movie for years but couldn't get a good script going, with ideas being floated about Kong going to Russia or even being involved with kids for goofiness. But Ronald Shusett (the co-writer of Alien) and Steven Pressfield pitched an idea of an artificial heart that apparently won him over. As for Guillermin, he had made three flops (Death on the Nile [1978], Crossover/Mr. Patman [1980], Sheena [1984]), but here he was, back for what ended up being his last theatrical film as a director; he died in 2015 at the age of 89. Evidently, documentary filmmaker Charles McCracken did uncredited work on the film in directing the film. 

Apparently, when it came to reviews, they tried to strong-arm Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert in to only showing snippets of the film on TV for their show if they were positive about the film. The movie did make money (most notably in the Soviet Union), but the marketing costs evidently did not help matters for Laurentiis in a movie that has not exactly had many admirers over the years. It's easy to see why. At least the effects for the two Kongs look fine at times. It helps when the rest of the movie is so damn silly that even the 1960s Godzilla movies would tell it to relax. You might remember that Kong was bloodied and fell down the World Trade Center in the last film. Don't worry, the film will tell you that with its reprisal of the ending of the film that is included here...and that Kong actually is in a coma. I think it actually makes me want to check out King Kong Escapes (1967), the one where Toho did a mechanized King Kong. Here we have a movie with half of a good premise: Kong in the backwoods rather than in a big city...or just have it be about the two Kongs. Instead, it tries to play every card on the table with a lack of interest in really given Kerwin & Hamilton meaningful lines. Kerwin apparently was in on the idea that it was an adult fairy tale that would have humor and basically be more a film to show Kong, and, well, I can't blame him there. The two are just stuck in autopilot, even when trying to spruce up the bare minimum in "he's the cocksure dude and she's the smart one". Ashton and the others that deal with Kong result in little to really care for besides calling them disposable, which is a shame, since one could have fun with an adversary that cares about taking down the beast. It just lacks drama or even corny fun, somehow managing the impossible of just appealing to nobody. At the end of the day, this is overblown 10-pound schlock in a five-pound bag of crap that is semi-enjoyable when one knows that the 1976 film was already pretty lame to begin with. For a film that pretty much nobody wanted, you could probably do worse.

Overall, I give 4 out of 10 stars.

Tomorrow: Fantastic Four (2015)

*Carlo Rambaldi, Glen Robinson and Frank Van der Veer won a special Academy Award for the visual effects. Also, unrelatedly, Pauline Kael called the 1976 movie a "romantic adventure fantasy". Ridiculous.

Steven Pressfield wrote in his book The War Of Art : Steven Pressfield : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive that he thought the script was going to turn out a hit film. While it wasn't, it at least meant he was an actual pro and he went on to do scripts such as Above the Law and novels such as The Legend of Bagger Vance and Gates of Fire.

The Nutcracker: The Untold Story.

Review #2473: The Nutcracker: The Untold Story.

Cast:

Elle Fanning (Mary), Nathan Lane (Uncle Albert), John Turturro (the Rat King), Charlie Rowe (Prince Nicholas Charles "N.C.", the Nutcracker; Shirley Henderson as the voice of the Nutcracker), Frances de la Tour (Frau Eva / The Rat Queen), Aaron Michael Drozin (Max), Richard E. Grant (Joseph), Yulia Vysotskaya (Louise / The Snow Fairy), with Jonny Coyne (Gnomad), and Peter Elliott and Daniel Peacock (Gielgud; Alan Cox as the voice of Gielgud) Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky (#1876 - Tango & Cash)

Review:

“Our goal was to create a world in which fantasy was intertwined with reality, the way children experience the world. Toys spark their imagination, and we, like children, with incredible technology at our disposal, decided to play with these toys and give our fantasy absolute freedom."

Once upon a time, in 1816, E. T. A. Hoffman wrote a literary fairy tale called "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" that was published in Berlin. Alexandre Dumas later did a retelling of the work in 1844 (a loose translation) before 1892 saw the premiere of a two-act ballet with music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Apparently, the first feature film of the Nutcracker was in 1967 in Poland. There have been versions in stop motion (Nutcracker Fantasy [1979]), a version with the Pacific Northwest Ballet (Nutcracker: The Motion Picture [1986]), a 1997 short in IMAX, you get the idea. Apparently, Andrei Konchalovsky (director of films such as Runaway Train) had an interest in doing a film version for forty years, but plans finally came together in 2007. You might wonder what is different, well, it is The Nutcracker music to go along with lyrics written by Tim Rice (known for various things, such as the lyrics for The Lion King) that has the songs based on the dances of the ballet (songs such as "It's All Relative" ended up never getting a soundtrack album release); the movie is cited as a UK-Russia-Hungary production, as one does when filming in English. Apparently, in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, the movie was known as "The Nutcracker in 3D" while Russia called it "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was first released on November 24, 2010 in Canada and the United States to the thunderous applause of nobody. Budgeted at roughly $90 million, the movie made less than a quarter of that back at the box office. Konchalovsky actually argued that the movie just didn't have good enough marketing in America (where it made little money) because the critics "completely misunderstood it" as a dreary movie rather than a "fun fairy tale", and Europe just didn't go to see it besides Russia. No movie with a noted reputation of being a flop is complete without some weird funding: the movie was primarily financed by VEB.RF, a Russian corporation chaired by none other than Vladimir Putin, and they actually sued the producers for unpaid loans in 2020 (in fact they helped to pay for the 3D conversion). The next to try a Nutcracker movie was in 2018, when Disney did The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, which was almost as big of a failure. At least Andrei Konchalovsky kept on directing, doing so as recently as Dear Comrades! in 2020, when he was 83 years old.

  

Apparently, Konchalovsky had to figure out the movie was about loneliness, specifically children who are not heard at home. If Roger Corman watched this movie, he probably would've shook his head at the idea of a movie like this being made for $90 million...because where the hell did the money go? 1920s Vienna could've easily be curtailed for setting this movie in dreary Anytown with how the movie operates. This is supposed to be a fun fairy tale? The movie where the rats are made to look like Nazis? The movie where one character is implied to Albert Einstein for no apparent reason? The movie where barely anyone registers a performance worth mentioning? As a fairy tale, it is a plodding movie, managing to evoke the smallest of interest in the alleged Christmas spirit. As a family movie, the 110 minutes move along with a good deal of nothing actually happening to really latch on to, particularly since the songs don't really make an impact. If the ballet feels like a Christmas tree in its majesty and sense of wonder, this movie basically is the equivalent of a rotted synthetic tree, filled with a whole lot of nothing. Even making fun of the Nutcracker for looking like they mugged Pinocchio (specifically from Shrek) feels like it is stating the obvious, at least when compared to the clown and a person in a monkey-suit. It isn't so much that the cast is bad as is the fact that they feel like cardboard with little to actually latch on to. Lane basically looks like he is staring at one's soul with an expression of "the money, the money, the money", while Grant is bafflingly in a father figure role when he probably seems born to chew the scenery of a villain (hey, I liked Hudson Hawk, sue me). Turturro has the look of Phil Spector but strangely sounds like Bernie Kopell from Get Smart that manages to evoke eye rolls rather than heightened interest. You could say it is meant to be campy, but it isn't particularly funny, at least when compared to his plan of blocking out the sun by putting toys in furnaces to make black smoke. You know, for kids! One wonders if they had a loose inspiration from Life Is Beautiful (1997), which was set mostly in a concentration camp where a father uses his imagination to shield his son from the horrors of the camp. The Producers (1967*) had the idea that if you flung enough absurd things, people will view something as a satire as opposed to being offended by what they saw. Here you get mecha-rat dog things and weird double roles because, uh, reasons. The Nutcracker: The Untold Story proves that you could fling middling visuals (in 3D!) and Nazi-rats to people and they would reject it out of hand rather than accept what the filmmakers were peddling (or smoking). As a whole, this is just a sad little misfire by someone who clearly thought they knew better in making a movie fit for families. The only people who ended up watching the movie either strove to check out the ballet or read the book just to get the taste out of their mouth.

Overall, I give it 3 out of 10 stars.

Next up: King Kong Lives.

*Did you know Nathan Lane was in the 2005 edition of The Producers, the one that was based on the musical? 

Half Past Dead.

Review #2473: Half Past Dead.

Cast: 

Steven Seagal (FBI Agent Sasha Petrosevitch), Morris Chestnut (Donny Johnson "49er One"), Ja Rule (Nick Frazier), Nia Peeples ("49er Six"), Tony Plana (Warden Juan Ruiz "El Fuego" Escarzaga), Kurupt (Bernard "Twitch"), Michael "Bear" Taliferro (Joe "Little Joe"), Claudia Christian (FBI Special Agent Ellen Williams), Linda Thorson (Judge Jane McPherson), Bruce Weitz (Lester McKenna), Michael McGrady (Guard Damon J. Kestner), Richard Bremmer (Sonny Eckvall), Hannes Jaenicke (FBI Agent Hartmann), with Mo'Nique (Twitch's Girl), and Stephen J. Cannell (Frank Hubbard) Written and Directed by Don Michael Paul.

 

Review: 

You might know that Steven Seagal was a star at one point in time. Above the Law (1988) utilized him to his strengths in, well, kicking the crap out of people, even if he already had ideas of being a filmmaker too. His fifth film as a star in Under Siege (1992) was probably his peak, mainly because he was surrounded by people who looked like they wanted to be there for what could've easily been just "Die Hard on a boat". He finally made his presence known as a director (a bad one) with On Deadly Ground (1994), a movie that was beyond absurd in its environmental message in the face of having so many bodies all around the place. He then did a sequel to Under Siege in 1995 before having one noted supporting role in a movie with Executive Decision (1996) before starting to get into doing direct-to-video work such as The Patriot (1998) or stuff that didn't even get a US theatrical release such as Ticker (2001). Exit Wounds (2001) paired him with DMX in what was thought to be a "comeback movie", although it was this last venture with Warner Bros. At the end of all of this is Half Past Dead (2002), the 11th and final theatrical movie with Seagal as the key star, and it is the only one that was rated PG-13. No, seriously. He has made one theatrical movie in America since* this film with Machete (2010). Half Past Dead was directed by a first-timer in Don Michael Paul. The actor-turned-director/writer wrote the script for the film, which was his first theatrical script since Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991). He would go on to such vaunted works as Who's Your Caddy? (2007) to go along with a litany of movies for the video market (Jarhead 2, three Tremors sequels, Kindergarten Cop 2). Half Past Dead was not a hit with audiences even with just a budget of $25 million. Two years later, Seagal added music to his "forte" with an album of music that had "pop, world, country, and blues music" in it. The less said about his ties to other countries, the better.

There is plenty of satisfaction to be had here. No, not as a good movie, I mean the satisfaction of seeing a bloated, lazy, arrogant Steven Seagal fall off the lowest bar possible when it comes to "action star", complete with barely even having a close-up of Seagal. This is delightfully pathetic, managing to evoke a sense of feeling like a ripoff of any action movie that just pops up in your head. To add on to this, apparently, some unused aerial shots from The Rock actually does show up in the movie. Being painfully generic is one thing, being painfully generic with a star having the charisma of a rotted potato is another. There is absolutely nothing to Seagal in this film to latch on for interest, unless you count him wearing a durag for, um, some reason. The near-death experience the character suffers at the opening doesn't really come into play, honestly, because Seagal just drifts through scenes with the same blank expression. It isn't a story of revenge or even a story of finding one's place after suffering trauma, nah, it is just a guy who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time that is totally not a regurgitation of Die Hard and The Rock (did I mention the movie is set with a restored Alcatraz? It goes right up with a plot about a guy wanting to get the secrets of a doomed man of where he buried valuable gold). His fight scenes seem more like the work of creative cutting with stunt doubles than an actual physical presence. Chuck Norris in his fifties probably had more fitness than Seagal, so where's that excuse? Chestnut seems mildly invested in getting to play a villain in it for the paycheck that probably isn't too different from an actor in it for the paycheck, which is a nice thing to say in a movie where Peeples and her getup of leather (someone watch The Matrix or certain magazines, hmm?) and eyeshadow probably serves as the one attraction worth watching for the whole movie in terms of curiosity. Ja Rule appeared in a handful of movies in the 2000s that probably were fun to do (Assault on Precinct 13 [2005], for example) alongside having a rap career. In that regard, being in this film to try and play buddy with Seagal (a'ight is said a handful of times to make that clear) is not nearly as embarrassing as being the future co-founder of the doomed Fyre Festival, to put it mildly. Stephen J. Cannell appeared in one film as an actor when not doing work on TV, and it was this one. Your guess is as good as mine. By the time the movie ends its pursuit of, uh, retribution and gold, you will have learned that a "generic" action movie can be a blessing when compared to bad action movies like this. As a whole, Seagal was reaching his fifties when doing stuff like this and it shows pretty clearly for a movie that is too bloated, too under-cooked and too tired out to be anything other than a piece of crap fit for laughter.

Overall, I give it 4 out of 10 stars.

Bring on the sixth year of bad movies to celebrate Thanksgiving Week, hell yea. Next one up: The Nutcracker in 3D (2010).

*On a probably unrelated note, the following year after Half Past Dead, Segal had to take the stand because a bunch of mobsters from the Gambino crime family were brought in by one Julius R. Nasso to try and threaten Seagal after the dissolving of their partnership.

*For whatever reason, someone actually transcribed the dialogue of the film into text form here: Half Past Dead Script - transcript from the screenplay and/or Steven Seagal movie

Predator: Badlands.

Review #2472: Predator: Badlands.

Cast: 

Elle Fanning (Thia / Tessa), Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi (Dek / voice of Njohrr / Apex Predator / Father), Reuben de Jong (Njohrr / Apex Predator / Father), Mike Homik (Kwei; Stefan Grube as voice), Rohinal Narayan (Bud), Cameron Brown (Smyth), and Alison Wright (voice of MU/TH/UR) Directed by Dan Trachtenberg (#784 - 10 Cloverfield Lane)

Review: 

Predator (1987) came onto the scene when its writers Jim and John Thomas wondered, "What would it be like to be hunted by a dilettante hunter from another planet the way we hunt big game in Africa?” It ended up being more than that of course, as one does when having John McTiernan as a director and the fact that yes, it was far more than just an "macho" action movie because most importantly: it was a movie that dealt with one creature setting out to find a worthy opponent (i.e. a thinker besides just shooting at what moves) that would actually engage with the environment and scenario given for a meaningful battle. The follow-ups that have followed in the wake of a movie that is now rightfully seen as an action/sci-fi/horror staple have been, well, distinct: Predator 2 (1990) was the last of the series with the Thomas brothers writing it and I really have to re-consider why I didn't care about it back when I saw it years ago. We do not speak of Alien vs. Predator or its equally dumb follow-up. Predators (2010) had a variety of actors to choose from for an interesting focus on a planet of killers being hunted down...and landed on Adrien Brody, the weakest possible choice (I will die on that hill). The Predator (2018) apparently nearly killed the franchise before the streaming circuit saw a variety of films from Dan Trachtenberg in Prey (2022) and Predator: Killer of Killers (2025); I didn't have time to see those two movies on Hulu, sue me.* But we are here for the movie bold enough to be in theaters with Badlands, which was written by Patrick Aison and Trachtenberg. Made on a budget of $105 million (the most expensive film of the franchise), the movie has so far made its budget back in its release to theaters this month. Nice to be in theaters, eh?

 

It may interest you to know the MPA considers violence of synthetic robots and alien creatures such as the Yautja (okay, I don't remember when they got that name, but obviously it wasn't going to be "Predators") to be worthy of a PG-13 rating, which amuses me when you consider the amount of things that get churned down to doom. This was a fun movie, if you could tell by my statement. It is a solid middle-tier effort in a series that really just benefits from just enjoying the hunt and the surroundings. The rule of the jungle is at hand here with a fairly likable group of people to see through it all, as opposed to going with merely the tried-and-true method of honorable warrior stuff and instead finds a fun adventure in creature-gazing. It helps to have Fanning there to deliver most of the audible lines (to us, anyway, since the Yautja communicate through subtitles, which I'm sure nobody would complain about) in a double role that lends her the chance to have some fun in showing the two sides of synths: ones who like playing with others and ones that, well, like to serve MU/TH/UR (which, maybe is a bit of a spoiler alert, goes better when one has legs to stand on, apparently). Will some have a point in not caring for some of the moments of, uh, humor? Maybe, but what is so damn bad about having a movie with a little bit of buddy humor for a series built on just doing whatever it wants? You want Predator (1987)? Then go watch Predator. Schuster-Koloamatangi proves worthy enough to provide the physicality required for a movie that invites you to consider a "runt" predator and be on its side in seeing Dek get back home. Amidst the spilling of non-human blood every now and then is a pretty nice locale to see the action take place, figuratively and literally (blade grass anyone?). I would venture to guess that another Predator movie with these filmmakers would be an enticing one. As a whole, Predator: Badlands is a solid movie fit for consideration among the usual suspects of adventures with its own type of blended pairing that happens to have a few visual interests to go along with a sense of charm and engagement for the spirit of what it means to really hunt.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*At least Trachtenberg did 10 Cloverfield Lane. Also, why the hell couldn't they just do another Cloverfield follow-up? I'm still not over The Cloverfield Paradox just being dumped.

NEXT TIME: Turkey Week Six looms this Sunday.

The Running Man (2025).

Review #2471: The Running Man (2025).

Cast: 

Glen Powell (Ben Richards), Josh Brolin (Dan Killian), Colman Domingo (Bobby "Bobby T" Thompson), Lee Pace (Evan McCone), Michael Cera (Elton Parrakis), Emilia Jones (Amelia Williams), William H. Macy (Molie Jernigan), Daniel Ezra (Bradley Throckmorton), Jayme Lawson (Sheila Richards), Alyssa and Sienna Benn (Cathy Richards), Katy O'Brian (Jenni Laughlin), Karl Glusman (Frank), Martin Herlihy (Tim Jansky), Sean Hayes (Gary Greenbacks), David Zayas (Richard Manuel), and Sandra Dickinson (Victoria Parrakis) Directed by Edgar Wright (#971 - Baby Driver, #1537 - Shaun of the Dead, #2408 - Scott Pilgrim vs. the World)

Review: 

“It’s clear, having done test screenings, that there are people who have neither read the book nor seen the 1987 film. But when it first came to me, I wasn’t interested in doing a remake of the film because there wasn’t any sort of reason to do that. I think the reason to remake a film is if there’s something else in the material. So it was never going to be a scene-for-scene literal remake. It was always, in our heads, a new adaptation of the source material.”

You might remember that The Running Man was originally a novel before being churned into the moviemaking circuit. Stephen King, under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, originally wrote the novel in 1982 as a paperback original. It was set in the year 2025 in which a dystopian America has a government-operated TV station that has shows fit for public consumption in violence that included "The Running Man", where one has to survive 30 days from any opportunistic person and a group of killers to go along with having to send in messages every day. Apparently, the book featured the contestants getting $100 an hour to stay alive and $100 for every cop or hunter they kill. King apparently wrote the work in the span of a week (as opposed to his process of writing pages-to-pages in a few months). The 1987 movie came about as the result of people who saw the idea of George P. Cosmatos or Andrew Davis to direct Christopher Reeve and said, nope, you're getting Paul Michael Glaser (past star of Starsky & Hutch and future director of Kazaam) directing Arnold Schwarzenegger, as written by Steven E. de Souza. There are a few beats in the movie that was pretty fun beneath the slashing to the literary material...because all one had to do was go through four game quads in three hours. Yep, just three hours while dealing with dudes that had the following: a hockey-themed killer, a dude on a chainsaw, an opera singing electric shooter and a flamethrower to go along with Richard Dawson having probably the time of his life as Killian (in the book, Killian is merely just the producer, not the actual host). Funny enough, a lawsuit came out not too long after the release of the film that accused the film of plagiarizing a 1982 French film Le prix du danger, which had been an adaptation of Robert Sheckley's 1958 short story “The Prize of Peril" (that story had a normal man faced with escaping murderers with the help of alleged good Samaritans, incidentally). Incidentally, the 2025 movie, in following certain beats of the book while having its own type of ending, was endorsed by King. Oh, and it is a movie where you can see Arnold Schwarzenegger on the $100 bill.

There will be people who just compare it to the 1987 movie (one that could alternatively be cited as being a fun action movie but also one you really can't take seriously) and basically not give this movie the fair shake it deserves. And damn it, this feels like one of those movies that deserves to have a following because it just wants to aim for slick entertainment in seeing both a dystopia built on illusions that probably aren't too different from our world (a nation built on suffering, maybe?). This would probably make a good double feature with the other King adaptation of this year in The Long Walk, with both movies having an ordinary guy choosing to participate in a deadly game where one just has to keep moving to survive because of their desperate situation. I found it interesting to present the game as being played not by ordinary Joes but instead "lazy" people that is in turn built up by the production team in its own form of staged high-scale drama while also having some time spent with a few oddballs to meet up with our Everyman. Powell does pretty well with the desperation required in making a hero that you could believe would jump into the pool of sharks in charm, although I suppose others will take their time to buy him as one who stumbles into being a folk hero of some sort. I enjoyed the push-and-pull of despair and hope you can get as the movie goes further on in one man's quest to simply help the people around him in a mostly familiar place of dystopia (read: not too far from now, because where does the bar go in reality TV crap after having people play games for money?) and a few enjoyable action beats.

Admittedly, the film doesn't have as much of a ham in an adversary as, well Richard Dawson, since Domingo is merely a figurehead of bombast while Brolin shows up from time to time in smarmy conviction to go along with a mostly faceless Pace (faceless boots of authority? Wonder where that came from). But it is nice to see them there to represent the spectacle (i.e., the boot on the neck of the public). You see a few guests along the way to roll along with Powell that make for a few interesting moments, mostly from Cera because of the amount of time you see with him in barely-contained paranoia. Admittedly, the film does nearly stumble at the climax, as if somehow the runtime (133 minutes) actually needed a bit more time to really breathe to make everything sink in. But I think it is the kind of ending I can forgive in the spirit of "I've liked what I have seen, so let it pass." As a whole, The Running Man is a ball of a time for those who just want to see a King work get its due with a few visceral moments of charm and bite to make for a solid popcorn movie at least one time.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Suitable Flesh.

Review #2470: Suitable Flesh.

Cast: 

Heather Graham (Dr. Elizabeth Derby), Judah Lewis (Asa Waite), Bruce Davison (Ephraim Waite), Johnathon Schaech (Edward Derby), Barbara Crampton (Dr. Daniella Upton), Graham Skipper (Pathologist), Brett Newton (Professor Fisk), Chris McKenna (Crawley), J. D. Evermore (Detective Ledger), and Ann Mahoney (Susan) Directed by Joe Lynch (#2469 - Mayhem)

Review:

"I think part of it stems from I grew up watching a lot of horror movies -- and again, this is just my kind of cinematic fetish -- I like to be affected by watching something. I don't like to just complacently let something wash over me, whether it's watching Airplane! or Top Secret where you can't help but laugh at the absurdity of everything that's happening on screen, to A Serbian Film, where you can't help but go [cringes] "Ohhhh, ugh, my god." There's something about the kind of films I grew up watching and still watch today that push the limits because I like to be provoked. I like to see where that line is as a viewer and go "Yeah, go ahead, push it over." I want to be challenged. I like cinema that challenges me."

You might remember that Dennis Paoli wrote a handful of films with Stuart Gordon to varying success. Paoli had been friends with Stuart Gordon since high school with a shared interest in films and reading. Naturally this became a fit for Gordon's Re-Animator (1985), which was based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Paoli served as a co-writer on From Beyond (1986), another loose adaptation of Lovecraft. Paoli worked on a handful of scripts for movies in the years that followed, such as The Pit and the Pendulum (1991), Body Snatchers (1993) and Dagon (2001). Gordon and Paoli had planned to work together on an adaptation of Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep, but it never got all the way off the ground before Gordon died in 2020. The resulting remembrances of Gordon led to Paoli and Barbara Crampton reconnecting and talking about scripts, as she was now a producer. He brought it over to Crampton, who in turned showed it to Lynch. Lynch had an interesting idea that intrigued Paoli and others: gender-swapping the leads. The film had a limited release in 2023 before getting onto the video/streaming circuit.

Admittedly, I do sometimes check the rating of a film by other folks around the Internet to get a gauge on how people view something because, well, it never hurts to check. For whatever reason, this is apparently one of those "love it or hate it" type of flick, and I guess the viewpoint doesn't help matters, since Lynch wanted to make a movie where the lead character visualizes the movie as if it was a "late night 10 o'clock erotic thriller from the '80s or '90s". If you go in thinking the movie will just be a Gordon pastiche, well, you might not get all you want, particularly with the effects, but I don't really see a problem with that here. This is a body-swapping movie that wants to ask what all the fuss is about in feeling around new things that, proudly or not, would be fit for the "Skinemax" comparison...or an offbeat Freaky Friday with a few camera spins. Honestly, I dug the movie, mostly because there is something to have fun with in the mayhem of body politics with a demon that likes to jump around for the sake of trying new things (and also smoke) at the expense of people's lives. In that sense, Graham and Lewis have a bit of a challenge in making the swap game interesting beyond just doing the "how to prove one isn't who they are" thing. Each approach it in different ways, naturally (a tiny bit of nudity comes from seeing Graham and maybe a tiny bit of kinky nature). A good chunk of it could be considered a "midlife crisis" when it comes to Graham's character, as if writing books and having to hear people prattle on in therapy while being married just can't compare to maybe, just maybe, having a bit on the side. Graham makes this trouble work, I can believe that one could be tempted (and then, well, horrified) by a new presence among the doldrums of life. When it comes to the scenes of swapping, she makes it quite charming to actually see engage with the new self (yes, the demon craves flesh and doesn't really care who it is, which I guess makes it a greedy bastard more than just bisexual). In the torment of what is and what isn't quite there in the body, Lewis makes a worthy performer to display some of the charm and some of the strangeness in trying to adapt around, mainly because the chemistry between him and Graham is more the fact that he is just something new rather than because he's God's gift to talking to women. Admittedly, it is nice to see a few moments with Davison commit to the bit of playing a hungry demon needing a nibble for a time, and Crampton makes a capable presence of going with the growing absurdity of events without being swept away by it. Some might think it a bit hokey with its body swapping and maybe not nearly as gooey as it could be, but I had a fun time with the movie, mostly because I thought it was a pretty amusing movie in seeing the perils of basically a midlife crisis explode in your face. I liked its sleazy nature, right down to its ending and would say that even if it isn't for everybody, it is nice to have a movie as weird as this come around every now and then.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

And so ends the 7th rendition of Halloween: The Week After. Nine reviews over the course of those seven days went mostly without a hitch. The horror season will be a fun one in 2026 with all of the runner-ups we had in October/November. We'll see how the rest of the month goes and beyond. 

Some of the movies we missed in the 38 days of horror: 

The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963), Frankenstein Unbound, Nightmares, Inn of the Damned, The Legacy (1978), The Guardian, Daughters of Darkness, The Uncanny, Torture Garden, The Company of Wolves, A Taste of Blood, Scream Blacula Scream, Monkey Shines, Basket Case, Full Circle (1977), Nightbreed, Innocent Blood, What Lies Beneath, He Knows You're Alone, Schlock (1973), Asylum (1972), The Monster Squad, People Toys, The Brood, The Descent Part 2, Messiah of Evil, The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964)

Quartermass 2, Lust for a Vampire (1971), Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter, Paranormal Activity, Ring 0, The Funhouse, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, The Evil Dead (2013), Child's Play 3, Critters, Ginger Snaps, Possession (1981), Repulsion, The Omen II, One Missed Call, Van Helsing, Toxic Avenger II, The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Insidious II, Scream 2, Phantasm II, Hellraiser II, Ravenous, and Drag Me to Hell.

Be ready for Halloween: The Week After - Crazy Eights in 2026.