Recently watched movies!

[lhb412]

^ Arrow always puts together a fantastic package. Can't wait for their Shinya Tsukamoto and Gamera sets.

[lhb412]

Birds of Pray

On the one hand, it's largely treading the same ground the two Deadpool movies already have, but an exceptionally terrific cast and some pretty dang impressive fight choreography make it worth the while.

[O.Supreme]

Lion King (2019) & Toy Story 4. They are on Disney+, so I didn't have to seek them out. Kind of hard to fathom such boring films are defining a generation and grossing Billions world wide. Even my kids didn't even really care.

[Dr Kain]

Toy Story 4 is wonderful. Better than the second film and probably better than the first.

The Lion King though, was my second least favorite film of 2019.

[lhb412]

Ultraman Orb: The Movie

The gang from the series is back and this time they are fighting an evil witch who wants to turn the Earth into a diamond for her diamond collection? Listen, I don't think under usual circumstances this villain would be enough to warrant a film and not, say, a single episode, but here's the most important part: she has a bunch of henchman. Like, the last 30 minutes of this 70 minute movie is just fighting because there are so many henchman to fight and several Ultraman to do the fighting. It's an enjoyable bit of fluff, but like most modern Ultraman movie tie-ins it feels more like a TV special then a 'movie,' you know?

This came out the year of the 50th anniversary of Ultraseven, and to celebrate Ultraseven/Dan Moroboshi joins the fight in the finale and popular Ultraseven villain Alien Guts is one of the more prominent aforementioned henchman.

[Dr Kain]

Sadako vs Kayako - What the "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" did I just watch? First off, did the people who made this movie even watch the Ring series? If not, couldn't they Wikipedia the rules surrounding Sadako? Or did Sadako get bored due to the lack of VCRs in home these days and change the rules of her own curse? Also, why the hell does this movie lack any sense of color? It's like the filmmakers took a cue from the Zack Snyder School of FIlmmaking and sucked all of the color out of it?

Okay, moving past that bullshit, I repeat my first question, what the "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" did I just watch? The movie was full of lifeless characters who had no personality, no development, and served no purpose to whatever the hell that thing called a plot was. There wasn't a single character here that existed beyond being a plot device or a death piece. No one was likable, no one was worth caring about, which means none of them were worth watching for 100 minutes. Then when we finally do get to the movie's SELLING POINT, nothing happens. Most of the brief fight between Kayako and Sadako is at night in a house so you can't even tell what the hell is actually happening. In fact, it's basically Alien vs Predator Requiem all over again. The ending is abrupt and the movie had no suspense, no tension, no horror of any kind, and relied solely on like 3 jump scares. I have no idea what the hell anyone was thinking when they made this movie unless the goal was to bore its audience to death. I don't even know what I can rate this dumpster fire, but it is mos definitely going to get an extremely low score when I figure it out. It is hands down one of the worst Japanese films I have ever sat through and that is saying a lot.

Sadako 3D - Well, at least it was better than Vs Kayako, though that isn't saying much. This movie is pretty much just "3D Jump Scare The Movie" with no sense of suspense, tension, and it is all in your face as if it were trying to copy some of the worst American made horror movies of all time. It also doesn't help that the film makes no sense at all and is 30 minutes too long. A generous 4/10.

[superhedorahsaiyan]

Mermaid: Lake of the Dead - an ok variation on the rulsalka legend- 6 out of 10

[O.Supreme]

TMNT (2007). There have been Six Theatrical Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films. I know the original 3 have a heavy nostalgia pull for some (even though 2 & 3 are awful), and the more recent films are considered a CG abomination (though Michael Bay had almost nothing to do with them, it was only his company that was involved), but the 2007 film from ImagI studios (distributed by WB) is often overlooked, and is, for my money the BEST theatrical Turtles film by far. The CG isn't quite Dreamworks or Pixar level, but the story is so good, and unique especially for a Turtles film. The acting is top notch. I've seen this film numerous times and give it my highest recommendation. Also while I'm at it, since its such a short list my rankings best to worst:


Great
1. TMNT (2007)
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

Mid-Range
3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
4. Out of the Shadows (2016)

Awful
5. II: Secret of the Ooze (1991)
6. III (1993)

I still lament the Loss of IMAGI studios. I know their second film (Astro Boy) was a box office failure, but it wasn't that bad, and their preview for Gatchaman looked amazing. They also were developing a Tetsujin 28 film Ahhh...what could have been.

[Dr Kain]

My list is definitley different from yours. I would rather sit through III than Out of Shadows and Secret of the Ooze is far superior to the sky beam of doom that is 2014. Out of Shadows was just a piss poorly edited nightmare where someone with ADD was in charge of post production.

Not sure which I like best though, the original live action one or the CGI one.

[O.Supreme]

I saw them all in theaters (except for the most recent ones). I think because the perception was they were going to be overly grim and dark, thankfully they weren't , but they had a nice mid-level seriousness to them, without being cringe-worthily silly like II & III. I understand people feel differently, but I'm sorry, I can't watch any film with Vanilla Ice.

Clever & Funny



Not Funny

[XvGojira]

God Tier
1. TMNT '90

Faulty but good
2. Secret of the Ooze
3. TMNT '07

More entertaining that I thought that one time I watched it
4. Out of the Shadows

Bad even for DTV
5. Turtles in Time

What have I done to anger you so lord?
6. TMNT '14

My main issue with TMNT'14 is the turtles origins; April's lost pets, learned ninjutsu via flushed ninja magazines, no Hamato Yoshi/Oroko Saki rivalry. That's like doing a Superman origin movie without Krypton or the Kents. And waiting to the 11th hour to "fix" the issue of originally intending Shredder to be a white guy did it no favors. What little good the film actually did ended up buried under all of that previously mentioned crap and a plot which was ripped off wholesale from the Amazing Spider-Man (the writers just scribbled out "mutant lizard gas" and wrote "Mutagen Virus" over it before calling it a day and cashing their checks).


Out of the Shadows, if you ignore the turtle's origins from the first part, is dumb but entertaining. And Bebop and Rocksteady were pitch perfect.

[Dr Kain]

[lhb412]

[quote="XvGojira"]
[b][u]Bad even for DTV[/u][/b]
5. Turtles in Time
[/quote]

This one was not direct-to-video. It received a theatrical release in 1993. I should know, I was one of the little kids in the theater! I know it's widely hated now, but I loved it at the time and it introduced me to samurai as a concept so I'll always have a soft spot in it for that reason.

[Rody]

Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus
After hearing about the original Invader Zim show here and there and learning of the new feature getting released on Netflix, I went through the show a couple of months ago and overall enjoyed it. Now, being prepared for Enter the Florpus, I was pleased to see that the film captured pretty much everything I liked about the show. It's almost dark, and maybe a tad macabre, but totally and unabashedly ludicrous about it. The production values are obviously ramped up, and many of the action scenes look particularly nice. It'd be neat if other cartoons from the 90s/00s could get a quality resurrection like this*.

Sahara
I heard about this film before it was first releasing, and then completely forgot about it until it popped up as a recommendation on Netflix. Story-wise, there's little of real note; it's a familiar adventure/romance/buddy film with a team of quippy underdogs rising to an occasion of greatness. There are a couple of comic moments that probably wouldn't fly in an American film. What's primarily of note about the film is 1: the smooth, angular aesthetic which suits the main characters, but also lends to a rather pretty film which distinguishes itself from rounder, more textured American productions, and 2: it's a cartoon about SNAKES. Seriously, how often do we get to see reptiles as endearing stars of a film? Overall it's a cute, entertaining film, mostly formulaic but with some slight inspired touches here and there.

Knives Out
Okay, now THAT was a cool movie! I went to a later night showing with a couple of friends, and we all loved it. I've heard it compared to classic Agatha Christie stories, but it's also got a Columbo story nestled inside! Writing and editing on this film were on-point all the way, with enough genre savviness to inform the audience, but not so much to distract from the film being its own story. I also greatly appreciated the sense of rather dry humor throughout the film, and the ultimate "message" the protagonist was left with (even if it was a bit quaint). This was a terrific watch, and I definitely plan to buy it and revisit it.

[XvGojira]

[lhb412]

[quote="Rody"]
[i][b]Knives Out[/b][/i]
Okay, now THAT was a cool movie! I went to a later night showing with a couple of friends, and we all loved it. I've heard it compared to classic Agatha Christie stories, but it's also got a Columbo story nestled inside! Writing and editing on this film were on-point all the way, with enough genre savviness to inform the audience, but not so much to distract from the film being its own story.[/quote]

You've managed to succinctly describe the core of what makes this film great! An episode of Columbo occurring within an Agatha Christie movel!

[Dr Kain]

Resident Evil Damnation - Wow, what an utter borefest this movie was. At least the lip synch was better than Degeneration, though the voice acting still left a lot to be desired. The best part about the movie was the scene dealing with the Tyrant fighting all of the Lickers. That aside, this thing was like a 40 minute plot stretched out to 100 minutes. I guess at least it is better than the last live action movie. 5/10

[Dr Kain]

Resident Evil Vendetta - Well, at least it was better than Damnation, otherwise, it was a mess. Not just from a narrative perspective, which was all action, little plot, but the animation was dreadful. Sometimes the characters looked like PS3 models, other times they looked okay. Some of them were very dead eyed. Rebecca's hair also kept shifting from brown to black back to brown at times. Next up, I had no idea everyone in NYC drove black cars. Like that scene where Leon is murdering people with the carcasses of Cerberuses, practically everyone was driving a black car except for one white van. Speaking of Leon, since when could he initiate Bullet Time? Not to mention his character shields were on God Mode (as were Chris'). I did like the opening bit that was in the mansion as it had some atmosphere, but other than that, this movie was garbage. Oh, and the final fight makes the big battle in RE6 look tame. Overall, I give it a generous 5/10. So when does the next installment come out since they left this one off on a cliff hanger with the Ninja Gaiden reject?

[Gentleman]

Anna and the Apocalypse

I was interested in this movie when I saw a trailer for it a while back, and last night I got a chance to check it out. It's basically Shaun of the Dead crossbred with High School Musical, and draws heavily from both. It's cute and fun, and worth checking out if you're a fan of either (for me, it's SotD. I like musicals but never saw HSM).

[O.Supreme]

Sonic The Hedgehog - If you had told me a decade ago I'd be seeing this in theaters, I'd be in disbelief. If the you told me I'd actually like it, I'd for certain think you were joking. Unlike Mario, Sonic doesn't hold any nostalgia pull for me, sure I played the original game when it came out, and while I did enjoy some Genesis games, I was always more of a Nintendo kid. But my son for some reason has come to really like Sonic so we went with another family, and it was basically for all the young kids who like Sonic. Now, I fully expected this to be bad, but It did surprise me. Jim Carey was about 70% back to his classic 90's peak self, with some great comedic moments.

The rest of the cast rounded out pretty well, and Sonic was actually quite a likable character. Of course any movie that is at least partially set in San Francisco gets bonus point from me . I will be interested to see how this does world wide. It may actually be that rarest of thing -a movie based on a Video Game that is actually good.

Dragonheart: Vengeance: (2020) So yeah, I'm that guy. As long as Universal keeps pumping out straight-to-home Dragonheart films (on Netflix and DVD) (I cant even call them sequels since none of them is really connected), I'll watch them, because of how much I love the original film.To be fair none of the other films have been really anything great. I watched the second one a couple of times, it is geared toward a younger audience, but the 3rd and 4th films have taken a darker tone. Thankfully and surprisingly, this 5th film has come the closest to recapturing the spirit of the original. The CG isn't great, but with Melissa Bonham Carter voicing the first Female Dragon we've seen (there was a female dragon in the first film killed offscreen) she does quite well, and we get to know more about the lore of dragons in this world. The ending is a bit anticlimactic without a big battle scene, but it does make good points, and tries at striking emotion with the audience. For once, the sharing of a Dragons heart is not the hook or the ending, in fact it all takes place before the movie even starts, but you find out what happens as the story goes on, similar to the original. For anyone that enjoys movies and stories about dragons in general I'd give it my recommendation, and the best thing is, you can watch it as a standalone film since it has no ties to the others.

[Dr Kain]

[XvGojira]

Terminator Dark Fate - Skipped this at the theater from some bad word of mouth from friends and they were right. Although it wasn't as bad as they made it seem, and even watching it with one of them they said they enjoyed it more this time then in the initial viewing. I'll start with what I did like. I knew they'd eventually have to shift the date of Judgement Day and swap the savior of humanity to someone else from the aging John Connor. I mean we're 9 years away from when Kyle Reese was sent back in time in T1. So having a new "hope of humanity" is fine with me. I love Carl. I would watch a whole movie about a Terminator selling drapes and raising a family. I mean there's some issues I have with him within this story (which I'll get to) but as an isolated character, I wanted more of him and his "normal life". The idea of sending an augmented human back to even the playing field against a terminator is cool. A terminator with an endoskeleton and a liquid metal "skin" being able to use both separately is novel way of evolving the use of T-1000 type tech (a better use than just as shape changing skin in T3).

Now for the bad.

First and foremost, the biggest flaw to me, is the removal of Skynet. That massive shift makes this feel like they took the script to a Terminator rip-off movie (Exterminator Legion: Fate of Darkness) and just tossed Linda Hamilton and Arnold into it. If they were altering it that much they should have drastically changed the Terminator. But nope, still a skull face with red eyes, but now it's black and has a hollow chest and is missing the back half of its skull (for whatever reason). If you're going to change it, then change it. That's be like if the Star Wars sequel movies had Luke Skywalker and co fighting against a new villain who sprung out from nowhere named Kiaser Dalpafiend, a Grim Earl of the Blith who uses the evil side of a new magic called the Impulse. I mean you can say that's exactly what the sequel trilogy did but they had the excuse of the FO rising from the ashes of the Empire. Unlike Legion who came from nothing yet still looked like they copied the nonexistent Skynet's homework.

What exactly happened in the future anyway? Are we just to assume, that like T1, humanity won but a Terminator was send back in time so they sent a protector or is the war still going on and people and machines are being flung into the time stream willy nilly? Was Sarah killing older model Legion terminators or were they the last remnants of Skynet? They don't explain anything. We just see Grace save the commander and then volunteer to become an augment. I assume that they left that open up for sequel, which isn't happening, but instead it just muddled the plot and made me question the whole premise. And in that future flashback, it looked like she killed a liquid terminator with a head shot (its "dead" carcass pinning her to the ground) so they developed weapons to kill liquid terminators or something?

The new Terminator was terrible. He wasn't intimidating and switching from having a personality to silent killer seemed off. I was surprised that he didn't make any old man/you're out dated quips to Arnold when they were fighting. And the drawl he had when talking to the sheriffs was too much. I know the T-1000 put on airs when asking "have you seen this boy" to those girls but that seemed subtle, but this new guy was nearly cartoonish. The name of the Terminator annoys me. Rev-9. The hell does that mean? The Skynet Terminators naming convention made sense. T-800, T stands for Terminator.

My issue with Carl, as much as I love him, is that he makes no sense. I'm a very flawed, dumb, hairless ape, but if I were an advanced AI capable of sending cyborgs back in time to kill the mother of and/or the leader of the resistance that defeated me, I would have a long list of tasks for the cyborgs. That's one thing T3 did right, with no info on John, it went after the humans under him. One of those tasks would be to ensure and even accelerate the creation of Skynet. Not just sit around and begin to grow a conscience in a few months after completing his mission, which he could only do if his learning chip was turned on (like the deleted scene from T2 explaining why that T-800 learned why humans cry), and feel remorse and help Sara stop other Terminators via text messages. I assume that Carl helped fight against Legion, hence why Grace had his address basically tattooed onto her stomach. Which, that's a flashback/forward I would have loved to see. Explaining how he's is a terminator but from a different future and totally not just saying that to gain a human's trust to kill them.

The whole "twist" of Dani being the new John Connor, should not have been a twist. It was just saved for a third act reveal to keep Sara and Grace at odds with one another for the majority of the movie. I like to think of my self as fairly pro-feminist and all that but that "You're not the threat. Your womb is." line and I think there was one other later in the movie, was just.... ugh. It almost felt like a character assassination of Sarah. I get her being bitter, sad, and angry about John but this made it sound like she resented him. And I'd think she'd be a bit more sympathetic to the only other person who is going through anything close to what she went through (twice). The only reason Grace never told Dani, and by proxy Sara and the audience until the end, is that Future Dani said past Dani wouldn't be ready. I'm sorry but seeing a dude turn into liquid metal and having him and his robot skeleton attack you, would easily ready someone for just about anything. A robot from the future is trying to kill you. Yep, saw that. I'm an augmented person from the future sent to protect you. That explains your super strength, so why me? Because you're what bring humanity together to kill them in the future. Okay, makes sense and is there anything else I should know? Bigfoot is real and is the leader of our north west garrison. Neat.

On paper the action scenes sound good and kind of cool, but sub par effects ruin them. The sub par effects ruin a LOT of this movie for me. There's a flahsback/forward of young Grace meeting Dani and it looked like they photoshoped Dani's head on a different body in those scenes (for some reason, she isn't much older than what she is in present day). There's like 1 practical effect of the border guards removing shrapnel from Grace and poking at her augmented skin armor. Nothing on Arnold looked practical and the more damaged he got the worse it looked. And even some of the car chase crashes seemed off. Like they were shot practically but then CG was used to alter/composite them and just made them look off. I can't say for sure, but some shots which should be real end up looking fake. Also green screen back drops EVERYWHERE. And they don't even try with some elements, like the cargo plane with the open cargo door should have wind whipping around wildly, or even trying to suck them out, but there's just a gentle breeze.

Finally, they just leave the two terminators fused to the bottom of that construction site? I mean, wasn't that the paradox of T1/2, that Cyberdyne created Skynet because they had future tech in the remains of the first Terminator. Wouldn't some company or the government take what's left of Carl and Rev-9 and whoopsy daisy we just created SkyLegionNet and humanity is boned.

I want one more Terminator movie. Just one. No time travel shenanigans. No third act twist. Just give me a future war movie. The prologue to T1/2 but for like two hours or less. Give us a Rogue One, about a rag tag team of humans whose vital but suicidal mission is why/how John and the rest of the resistance are able to land the killing blow to Skynet. After that movie, do not touch the franchise again. Unless they're doing the Carl show. I could watch a metal endoskeleton covered in living tissue talk about drapes with butterflies or polka dots for hours.

[Dr Kain]

Dark Water - Not bad. I loved how it was all built up tension as opposed to jump scares and gore like a ton of others do. I am a little unsure as to how I feel about the ending, but other than that, I really enjoyed it. 8/10.

[Dr Kain]

The Lodge - Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooring. 6/10

[H-Man]