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A Bug's Life (1998)
A Great Follow-up To Toy Story. A Lovely Charming Little Adventure.
Way back in 1998 we got a lovely new computer animated movie called, A BUG'S LIFE & it was such a fun movie & nice follow-up to the groundbreaking instant CLASSIC known as TOY STORY (1995).
John Lasseter & co of Disney-Pixar studios worked hard to create another loveable computer animated comedy adventure for the whole family to enjoy & i think they absolutely pulled it off.
Back in the 90's full on Computer animated movies were still in their infancy, unlike today in 2024 where evey animated movie is made of CGI. Back in 1998 A Bug's Life was another great adventure with little creatures again, this time bugs instead of Toys, & on an adventure full of crazy characters & a stacked cast doing great voice work. Also the animation is beautifully colourful & the storyline is simple, so sit back & enjoy this little feel-good, friendly adventure.
I always preferred A Bugs Life over ANTZ, both of which came out the same summer of 1998. I did like Antz but i liked A Bug's Life more, i saw both at the Cinema.
A Bug's Life is about a little blue ant named Flik, who gets into deep trouble with his silly inventions, but his heart is in the right place, he just messes up often. One time his ant colony are gathering food for their bullying, nasty superiors: The Grasshoppers, an evil bunch that use ants as slaves for their greed. Their leader is Hopper voiced brilliantly by a sarcastic & nasty Kevin Spacey. Flik causes his colony to lose all the food they've gathered for ages & that puts him & his fellow ants in a dangerous situation with the Grasshoppers, Flik sets out on a mission to make it right.
Little ant Flik stands up to the Grasshoppers gang but then has to back up his idea of fighting back, so goes on a quest to gather a bunch of "warrior Bug's" but he hires a bunch of flea circus show Bug's that pretend to be tough warrior Bug's & all sorts goes wrong. This is a funny little movie with lots of lively, fun & colourful characters & a moral heart about the oppressed rising up to make a stand.
A Bug's Life features a star-studded voice cast with the likes of David Hyde Pierce, Dennis Leary, Kevin Spacey, John Ratzenberger, Brad Garrett & Julia-Louis Dreyfuss, just to name a few.
You will recognise a few voices from Toy Story.
A Bug's Life is definitely still one of the best from Disney-pixar animated studios & as it is, it stands as a one-off single movie, it never got a sequel or a franchise, but that just makes it all the more special in my opinion. A Feel-Good fun flick.
I loved the toys they did for A Bug's Life in McDonald's, great memories & lots of Nostalgia for this wonderful, good-hearted adventure.
About Schmidt (2002)
A Beautiful, Soul-searching Comedy-Drama with an Outstanding Performance By the Legendary Jack Nicholson.
I've finally seen, ABOUT SCHMIDT & i loved every minute of it!!!
We all know that Jack Nicholson is one of the greatest actors in all of Cinema History & his performance here as Warren Schmidt ranks up there as one of his greatest performances.
About Schmidt deals with all real life stuff, grief, loneliness, regret & everything that makes us human. Although a bit depressing & dark, this film still has a feel-good factor to it because it shows you it's never too late to start Living.
About Schmidt is a lovely sweet story about a man who is totally lost in the world (we can all relate to this at times in our own lives) as he has recently retired from his insurance job & also suddenly loses his wife, & this loss knocks him sideways.
Warren is in his late 60's & now only has a single daughter in all the world that he cares about. Now, Warren is at a crossroads in life, he's old, jobless, wife less & has no porpoise, so is kinds lost everyday. With a sadness & bitterness inside, he decides to try to live life now he has nothing holding him back & therefore decides to go on a road trip in the huge 35-foot motor home he has just sitting outside his house. Warren & his wife both bought the vehicle to one day go travelling together but with her sudden death its just a solo journey now.
Warren truly goes on a soul-searching journey as drives accross America to visit his soon-to-be-married daughter. There's another obstacle in Schmidt's path, he can't stand his daughters boyfriend Randall (played hilariously & excellent by a redneck looking Dermot Mulroney) & this leads Schmidt to stay with his new "Family" of sorts from his daughters fella, & they're a weird bunch that Schmidt is not happy about. There's rich comedy gold from Schmidt's facial expressions when meeting the family.
We get one of Cinemas greatest leading ladies with the great Kathy Bates, who plays the outthere, hippy-like mother of the groom, Randall, Bates is pretty fantastic in everything & is wonderful here, & has some great hilarious scenes with the awkward Schmidt as he stays at her crazy home in a rough neighbourhood.
There's so much great stuff in this beautiful comedy drama, we get a lovely soul-searching road trip on his way to Kathy Bates house. Schmidt stops at different places along the way & even visits his old neighbourhood & home. Schmidt finds he hasn't really lived until now, he sleeps out at night under the stars in a lovely, sweet scene when he's on top of his vehicles roof & talking to his dead wife whilst looking up at the night sky , it's a real sweet moment.
The movie is expertly directed by Comedy-Drama specialist Alexander Payne, who uses colour to tell his story. All the beginning scenes are shot in muted, depressing & dull colours that gradually moves to strong bright colours when Schmidt gets on the road & we finally see some lovely sunny scenery, the cinematography is handled beautifully to tell this story.
I liked how Schmidt narrated his story in the form of writing letters to a child he's helping in a poor country, those letters gives him some meaningful porpoise in his lost life & he finally starts to show some emotion. I feel the character Warren Schmidt has just gone along in life, day by day doing the same boring routine over & over again & has just let life pass him by & with his retirement & marriage ending, that was his big wake-up call. This is a movie for anyone really, i believe it will help with growing old & in dealing with life. I think About Schmidt is a little treasure, a little jem that is worth revisiting from time to time to & appreciate its richness of ordinary living.
Some of the stuff Schmidt says in his letters is spot-on about life & it touches the soul. About Schmidt is a heartwarming little journey that is so nice taking because your on it with Warren Schmidt.
Kung Fu Panda (2008)
Kung-Fu Panda is so Awesome!!! Big Action, Big Comedy, Big Adventure, Big Heart & Big Panda.
Chubby, slacker panda Po get chosen as an ancient prophecy, The Dragon Warrior, & must train under the patient guidance of Shifu master. But everyone is unsure if Po is really the right choice as the "Chosen One" so Po must prove himself worthy of the title.
Kung-fu Panda is simply Awesome, such a fun piece of action comedy entertainment that's full of adventure & the beauty of ancient Chinese/Hong-Kong culture. Comic great, Jack Black is perfect as insecure Po & totally dives into the character & becomes Po. Jack has done so much comedy stuff, films & voice work, so he knows how to do this stuff with his eyes shut lol & yet he makes Po a lovable character that is so enthusiastic about Kung-fu & Food. Po is like a big kid, he has action figures of the furious five, that are his heroes & is in love with Kung-fu action & when he gets picked to be the leader of the group, well his excitement is beyond measure.
The voice cast is fantastic with standouts like Dustin Hoffman as master Shifu, he is hilarious & legendary in this role, or atleast his voice is. The humour mainly comes from the crazy relationship of Shifu & Po as they bicker & argue whilst training , the training montage is one of the best scenes in the movie, it looks beautiful. Actually Kung-Fu Panda is definitely one of the best looking movies from the incredible DreamWorks studio. I'm a big fan of DreamWorks as they gave us greats like, Bee Movie, Shrek, Shark Tale, Monsters vs Aliens, Over The Hedge, Madagascar & more, most of which became mega Blockbuster franchises.
Kung-Fu Panda boasts brilliant action sequences showcasing it's stunning animation & style, the entire movie is beautifully designed. There's a stacked cast doing great, fun voice work here with the likes of Ian Mcshane as an awesome villain, Seth Rogan, Jackie Chan, Angelina Jolie, James Hong & many more rounding out the awesome Furious Five Warriors & the other supporting characters.
This is one of my favourite, & most watched animated movies, along with Shrek, Shark Tale, Madagascar, Bee Movie & others (that ain't from DreamWorks).
A part from gorgeous Cinematography, the scenery & landscapes are stunningly beautiful & a fun music score & some truly incredible martial arts action, there's lots of heart too. There's a sweet story of a nobody becoming a somebody, a chubby loser becoming a deadly warrior, an insecure Panda becoming the confident Dragon Warrior. Po must train to become the legendary Dragon Warrior in order to protect the Valley & it's citizens from an old threat that will soon be Unleashed. Crazy fun ensures.
There's lots to enjoy with this fun, fantasy action comedy adventure with a top notch cast for kids & adults to enjoy. I watched this many, many times with my kids so i feel a little connected to it & have a little Nostalgic soft-spot for the film & will always love this first Kung-Fu Panda adventure.
The Hard Way (1991)
A Great Action Buddy-cop Comedy
The Action Buddy-cop Genre is my favourite of all Cinema genres, i love Cop films as i grew up watching all of them.
I adored the Lethal Weapon films & the Robocop films & i had all these on video bk in the 90's. Some of my favourite cop films were: Cobra, Lethal Weapon 1&2, Tango & Cash, Stakeout, Another Stakeout, Dragnet, Serpico, Demolition Man, Red Heat, K-9, K-911, Beverley Hills Cop Trilogy, Robocop 1&2, Cop, Black Rain, Drop Zone, Murder at 1600, Money Train, Die Hard Trilogy, Bad Boys films & many, many more. I just love Cop films!!!
I discovered this gem, THE HARD WAY, on video bk in the late 90's i believe, as my mum got a video of it from a charity shop & i just loved it. My mum loved James Woods (so did i) & of course everyone loved Michael J, Fox so getting these two stars together in a cop film was so exciting.
Michael J Fox is such a sweet, nice guy (in real life & in the movies) so you can't help but like the guy & we all grew up watching his Back To The Future Trilogy. I also loved him in the underrated horror comedy thriller, The Frighteners!!!
Here Fox plays a hot young mega Blockbuster movie star named Nick Lang who is just releasing a Blockbuster sequel to his hit movie but is sick of playing likeable nice guys & wants to change his image by playing a gritty tough new role as a bad-ass cop. Lang wants to team up with New York's toughest cop: John Moss, played by James Woods. Lang has the idea that if he shadows Detective Moss for a couple of weeks he will delve deep into his character & nail the part for his next big movie. Of course Detective Moss doesn't want anything to do with this movie star but his boss makes him work with Lang. There's such a fun , lively energy to this buddy-cop flick that makes you smile & it feels like a perfect late-night movie, some films just sit well in that time.
John Moss is definitely one of my favourite movie Cops.
There's so much fun stuff packed into this hilarious action comedy that feels ahead of it's time. The Hard Way is similar to Robert De Niro & Eddie Murphy's early 2000's Buddy-cop flick SHOWTIME. Obviously SHOWTIME copied The Hard Way & both films are ridiculously underrated.
James Woods is hilarious as John Moss, a guy that has an explosive temper & is full of issues that stop him opening up about stuff, he's such a bad-ass that it jeopardises his relationship with a beautiful lady he really likes played by Annabella Sciorra (The Hand That Rocks The Cradle) & there's some fun stuff between these three as their relationship get mixed-up together. The comedy gold comes from Woods reactions to being stuck with Fox, his explosive temper & how stressed out he gets with him lol, some great conedy here. Woods is so uptight as Moss that his reactions are hilarious.
Woods is such an explosive personality & he gets to really play with that in this movie. Woods has that quick talking & witty way of getting his point accross & he's hilarious as Moss. I've always loved Woods in John Carpenter's Vampires, Cop, The Specialist, Casino & many more incredible performances.
James Woods is one of those powerhouse actors that i feel is underrated.
Our two arguing Buddy-cops are up against a serial killer that is hunting random people's around New York City with his custom-made super handgun, the killer is dubbed the "Party Killer" & is played by Villain regular STEPHEN LANG (D-Tox, Don't Breath 1&2) & it's another good menacing performance by Lang. I liked the setting here in a rough & gritty New York City where we visit urban ghettos & busy downtown streets all within a hot & sweaty New York summertime. The film looks great.
The film is filled out with damn good supporting players like Delroy Lindo (Congo, Gone in 60 Seconds) as Moss' police Captain who is a huge fan of Nick Langs (& this gives way to some very funny moments) & Luis Guzmam (this guy is in everything) as Moss' police buddy & a very young rapper turned actor LL Cool J (Deep Blue Sea, Mindhunters, SWAT, Halloween H20) as another cop.
Also a great old fashioned jazzy music score by Arthur B. Rubinstein, like an old Detective score.
The Hard Way was directed by the great, yet underrated, JOHN BADHAM!!! This guy specialised in making brilliant Cop films like the Classic, Stakeout (1987) & it's excellent sequel, Another Stakeout (1993) & the Awesome Snipes vehicle Drop Zone (1994) & the Cult Classic Roy Scheider vehicle Blue Thunder (1983). All great films that i love. Also Badham made other Classic's like Saturday Night Fever (1977) & Short Circuit (1986).
Badhams The Hard Way is such a fun piece of action cop entertainment as movie star Lang worms his way into all aspects of Moss' life, even staying at his place & following him everywhere. There's a real sense of pure FUN with this movie & everyone involved seems to be having so much FUN.
A movie that is a pure product of it's time the beautiful 90's & for that reason it's a nice piece of Escapism to better times in life & cinema.
Drop Zone (1994)
People Forget How Good Snipes Was Back In The Day!!!
Wesley Snipes was a huge star bk in the 90's, his mega Blockbuster glory days, & he made so many excellent movies with most of them being Classic's, or atleast to me anyway.
People forget how good Snipes was bk in the day!!!
Drop Zone to me has a nice Nostalgic comfort-viewing feel to it as i did watch it on old vhs bk in the 90's & loved everything about it & even now in 2024 it still holds all that niceness together for me. Zone isn't an ultra-violent movie so the action feels fun & adventurous & Snipes is much more a grounded everyman rather than a brutal bad-ass fighter, Snipes even comes off rather funny & goofy at times as he tries to fin in (undercover of course) with the Adrenalin-junkie environment of Skydiving. Zone is simply a perfectly fun summertime action flick that is drenched in 90's Nostalgia. Drop Zone is an exciting mix of Passenger 57 & Point Break, funnily Snipes starred in Passenger 57 & Busey starred in Point Break, now they're together in Drop Zone!!!
Snipes gave us 90's favourites like: Murder at 1600, Money Train, Demolition Man, Passenger 57, Blade, Drop Zone, Boiling Point, New Jack City, White Men Can't Jump, Rising Sun, The Fan, U. S Marshalls & more!!!
Snipes was an actor i definitely grew up watching as my older brother loved him & had most of his movies of video.
In fact i remember Wesley Snipes & Robert De Niro being my bros favourite actors, that's why he was so excited for those two teaming up in the underrated, The Fan.
Anyway, Drop Zone is an awesome pure 90's action cop thriller directed by the awesome John Badham who made some great movies, & specialised in cop films with Stakeout, Another Stakeout, Blue Thunder, The Hard Way & Drop Zone. All excellent movies.
Wesley Snipes plays a cop transporting a computer genius hacker on a plane to a prison when it's hijacked by terrorist skydivers resulting in his cop partner & brother being killed. The authorities don't believe that the hijacked "Jail break" happened so its up to Snipes Marshall Pete Nessip to uncover the truth by going undercover within the skydiving community to find out if the hijacking could happen at 38,0000 feet & who could pull it off.
Snipes is great once again & plays his cop role very different from say Passenger 57 or Boiling Point, because here he's very venerable, often comical & not bad-ass like his other characters. Nice to see Snipes play a more grounded & relatable character or cop as he's way out of his comfort zone & knows it, but must keep pushing to find the truth.
I loved these 90's Extreme sports types of action thriller's with cool names like: Terminal Velocity & Point Break, to name a couple. The 90's definitely made the best thriller's in the cinema history in my opinion, or atleast the most fun & gorgeous looking.
They had mostly great two word titles like: Executive Decision, Under Siege, Unlawful Entry, Terminal Velocity, Point Break, Shadow Conspiracy, Falling Down, Demolition Man, Judgment Night, Boiling Point, U. S Marshalls, Chain Reaction, Hard Target, Universal Soldier, Desperate Measures, Internal Affairs, Striking Distance, Double Impact, Double Team & many, many more.
Drop Zone is a finely crafted adventure, thriller with action & lots of cool skydiving sequences & gorgeous scenery of sunny & tropical looking Miami & Washington DC. & lots of sky-high photography that captured the magic of being that high up & looking down on the world.
We have a great cast here with 80's & 90's legend GARY BUSEY as the leader of the skydiving terrorists, & BUSEY is legendary for his work within the action genre of the 80's & 90's. Busey was in everything bk in the day like Lethal Weapon, Point Break, Under Siege & Predator 2, just to name a few. BUSEY is his wonderful angry, mouthy & excitable self once again & made another memorable bad guy character, he's always a joy on screen in these old skool films.
We also get Yancy Butler (Hard Target) who is a professional Skydiver & instructor that befriends & helps Snipes throughout the movie & she's very good here.
We also get a lovely Nostalgic & pure 90's action score by legendary movie music composer HANS ZIMMER. The score reminded me a bit of Bad Boys (1995) & so did some of the gorgeous colourful Miami cinematography, Drop Zone came out first i beleive. Zimmers score is has a lovely electric guitar sound that brings an almost emotional & Nostalgic flavour to it all.
Drop Zone is simple a really cool 90's action thriller that is full of adventure, fun & humour, if you love 90's films, especially 90's action genre stuff, than you will love Drop Zone.
I was lucky enough to have grown up watching Drop Zone & all these types of movies, they definitely don't make'em like this anymore.
Drop Zone is a CLASSIC action film from the 90's.
Bad Lieutenant (1992)
MADE ME ANGRY!!! A POINTLESS FILM.
Harvey Kietel is a brilliant actor & here he gives a brilliant intense & powerful performance of raw anguish & despair as a New York City Detective who is on a downward spiral of self destruction.
The acting is excellent, the direction is excellent but in the end the film felt empty, hollow & pointless.
The annoying themes of religion just angered me, it's insanity to believe in such absolute fairy tale nonsense & here atleast the film shows how stupid religion, beliefs & Jesus all is.
A stupid young Nun is brutally raped in such a sick & disturbing way by a couple of low-life scumbags & because the pathetic Nun is mind-warped by religion, she FORGIVES them!!!! WTF????
The film angered me sooooooo much, religion lets the most evil people of the world do the most sickest stuff to people & "Jesus" & "God" forgives it all?????
WTF!!!! That's why evil people hide behind religion & why so much horrendous crimes are committed in the name of god or religion. Religion is EVIL.
The most annoying part is the fact the druggie Detective played by Harvey actually finda the two evil pieces of shi# that raped the forgiving Nun & he escorts them to safety!!!! WTF????
He gives them money & puts them on a coach to get out of the city!!!! WTF.
I WAS SHOCKED BY THE RIDICULOUSLY PATHETIC & ABSOLUTELY POINTLESS ENDING.
Kietel is a vile character but is interesting to see how far he's gone & i laughed at how pathetic & useless he was, he did NO police work or investigating at all.
Such a shame because the film had a decent gritty urban look & a top notch performance from Harvey, but in the end it was all for absolutely nothing. I wanted savage vigilante justice, this is why the Death Wish films are the best for some Vigilante justice.
This film just felt ugly, soulless & pointless in the end.
Dollman (1991)
Another Fun Little B-movie From Albert Pyun, Good But Not Great.
Albert Pyun (RIP) definitely didn't get the recognition he deserved.
Albert Pyun put his all into his mega low-budget movies, he went hard against impossible odds as producers & the studios nearly always cut his budget during production & where most directors would've walked, Pyun kept going & fighting to bring something to the screen. If you're interested in the B-movie great Director Albert Pyun i suggest you get a copy of the awesome detailed book: RADIOACTIVE DREAMS THE CINEMA OF ALBERT PYUN.
I have always been a fan of Albert Pyun without even realising it as i grew up watching his Cult Classic CYBORG (1989) on video & loved the look & style of the movie & it's music. CYBORG is also still my favourite Van Damme movie & i thank Pyun for creating that dark futuristic action thriller & giving me one of my favourite movies that i watched many times on video, & even now on dvd.
I'm also a fan of Full Moon Features from the glory days of the 90's with their B-movie greats like Puppet Master 1&2 & Demonic Toys amongst others.
So I've finally seen Dollman, a combination of those greats of the B-movie universe, Albert Pyun directing a pure cheap DTV B-movie for Full Moon films & the results are pretty much as expected, cheesy genre fun made on a nothing budget, but is still enjoyable.
Now i had always heard about Dollman but never got around to find it & see it until recently & was it worth the wait? Well, Dollman is enjoyable for exactly what it is, a very, very cheap B flick with a B movie character actor leading it all. The B-movie genre legend Tim Thomerson (Trancers, Nemesis) stars as a Dirty Harry type of tough & rugged, no nonsense cop on another planet that gets transported through a wormhole in space & ends up in the early 90's Gangster infested neighbourhood of New York City. Tim Thomerson is great in the role (very similar to his Trancers character) & is always a joy on screen in B movies, loved him pretty much everything. Thomerson plays Brick Bardo, the Dirty Harry from another planet, that is chasing his arch Nemesis, a mutant cyborg head called Sprug that floats around (its mental lol) he's a terrorist that needs to be blasted by Bardo's most deadliest hand gun in the universe. Anyway these two rivals end up in a wasteland (used in Pyun's Nemesis) that is supposed to be a part of a very rundown gritty Bronx neighbourhood. But the budget doesn't allow for a real life looking rundown gritty Bronx neighbourhood, so we get a few street shots of New York but most of the flick is set in an apartment & the same wasteland setting that stands in for an urban ghetto, & is reused in Nemesis.
The gimmick here is that now hard nut space cop Brick Bardo is now the size of a Doll here on earth. He goes about blasting the street gangs to bits, but The budget doesn't allow for any real footage or special effects that convince us he's tiny, just some off kilter camera angles but hey IT'S mega low budget. The special effects aren't that special, laughable at times, but this is pure B movie stuff that is often bizarre & has a sly sense if humour. The Beginning looks really good when set on the planet of Auturos in the distant future. The futuristic planet stuff all looks good & reminded me of Pyun's Nemesis,in cinematography & mood. I got nice dark sci-fi vibes of Blade Runner & Terminator & Split Second & Trancers, those types of shadowy, dirty & gritty run down futuristic worlds, well the beginning of Dollman i felt that. I would've liked to explore Brick Bardo's home planet some more. Atleast we do get to see hard-ass Brick Bardo try to clean up the south Bronx neighbourhood by blasting gang members whenever he comes accross them, just the film spent a bit too much time with talking in Lopez' apartment. I suppose underneath all this cheesy sci-fi cop "n" crims bloody action there is someone being said about how normal people have to survive these savage neighbourhoods & urban decay & that's why our other main character is that of Debi (Lopez) who lives in a run down cramped apartment with her little boy & is constantly being harassed by the local thugs & drugs gangs. How can you navigate all that chaos & live a normal life bringing up a kid? It would be hard & it's portrayed as hard. Debi goes to work to feed herself & her little boy & does what a mother would do & it's played well.
So yeah there is some small fragments of real life drama sprinkled accross Dollman. We even get to hear that Brick Bardo's wife & child are dead (Murdered by his arch Nemesis) & that has hardened Bardo into an even more bad-ass. We also find out Debi's husband & father to her little boy is dead, he was shot in the neighbourhood, & was a gang banger himself, sad life in the ghetto.
Brick Bardo & his crashed spaceship are taken bk to an apartment in the war zone neighbourhood of the Bronx, by a local lady named Debi, played fine by a committed KAMALA LOPEZ, who is constantly fighting off the gangs of the ghetto. Speaking of gangs of the ghetto, the leader is played by Villain specialist JACKIE EARLE HAYLEY (Watchmen, Robocop remake, Maniac Cop 3) as local gang leader Braxton Red, who gives an energetic & fun bad guy performance in this trashy & scrappy little flick.
Dollman spends a bit too much time in the scrappy apartment of Lopez & there's lots of talking but not enough action. The action comes nearer its ending (the film is a very short 78 mins) but when it does come it's fun in its extremely low-budget way. The action is bloody goodness at times with huge blasts from Bardo's extremely powerful gun. The action of Dollman is based on the urban Vigilantism in Death Wish 3 (1985), but its not quite as good as that movie or its urban action. I mean Death Wish 3 is a Bronson Cult Classic.
B movie & DTV Director ALBERT PYUN did try with Dollman but once again the idea is there but the budget isn't. Pyun couldn't create a world that looked gigantic to Tim Thomerson without the means to do so. Just camera angles are there to try to convince us Dollman is the size of a doll but truthfully it doesn't work at all, but as said it's a small B movie created on a miniscule budget & for that it's just a lean mean trimmed down fantastical action flick. As i said, the shooting blasts from Dollman's handgun, which is the most powerful hand gun in the universe, are done very well with massive explosive blood-soaked blasts & limbs blown off. When i think about it now as i write this i can't help but really like Dollman, it's a fine pure B-movie piece of entertainment, the type you would watch well after midnight & enjoy its moody sci-fi cop atmosphere. There's a few recognisable character actor faces sprinkled throughout this oddity, a few Pyun regulars like Michael Halsey (Postmortem, Mean Guns) & Vincent Klyn (Cyborg, Nemesis, Kickboxer 2).
Dollman is definitely watchable, it's got a charm that comes from its very early 90's look & a damn decent lead in Tim Thomerson, so Dollman is a fine B movie but it's no Cult Classic.
The look, cinematography is fine, unfortunately most of the time we see a boring wasteland with a gang of hoodlums standing around with machine-guns & smoking & looking stupud & non-threatening.
Dollman deserved a few million to pull off a truly good movie with that fantastic concept but atleast we have a Dollman movie, even if it so frustratingly could've been so much better.
Dollman is still a fun an easy late-night B flick so it gets a solid 7/10. You cannot help but enjoy this sci-fi action flick, small in scale but big on heart.
Sting (2024)
VERY POOR & VERY DISAPPOINTING. CRAP.
I loved the Classic, Arachnophobia & i totally enjoyed, Eight Legend Freaks & i loved the low-budget DTV creature feature, Spiders (2000) so i like killer spider films & i was excited for STING.
I was so disappointed by Sting, the film concentrated too much on a boring, weird family drama about a brat twelve year old girl who finds & keeps a strange spider in a jar.
The spider is an extraterrestrial creature & wants to hunt, kill & eat.
The setting is good, a frozen over snow-covered blizzard of a New York City where a tenement building is the place where the small alien spider crashed into. The Spider looks fine (typical & obvious looking CGI) & it grows into a decent looking alien spider but it all feels wasted because the film is mostly boring & concentrated on a bland family drama.
If Sting came out in the early 90's it would've been made by a fun company like Full Moon Features maybe? & it would've been a fun creature feature with the tenants having to team up to survive. The folks of the tenement building would've been wacky fun characters & the film would've been a fun late-night survival horror & not concentrated on boring family nonsense.
Also Sting is very poor for a stupid part of the film where the Spider can open its jar (it screws the lid off) & go out through the ventilation system & go kill & then stupidly, & for no reason it returns to its jar & screws the lid bk on????? WTF!!! WHY? It's so stupid, why would an Alien Spider that has been captured in a glass jar return to its prison & screw the lid bk on? So dumb, i couldn't believe it at all. The creature would've just stayed in the air vents, no need whatsoever to return to its little jar. DUMB stuff like that ruined it, well it was also ridiculously boring with no good characters at all. The director should've studied the Classic ARACHNOPHOBIA (1990) that was full of fun, interesting & likeable characters.
Sting could've been awesome, it had a cool set up & then went down from there.
I couldn't care less if any of the characters survived & that's definitely not good for a horror!!!
Doctor Mordrid (1992)
DOCTOR MORDRID is such a Nice Little Fantasy Gem That You Can't Help But Like It.
Being a fan of most of Full Moon Features from the early 90's I've always wanted to see they're low-budget version of Marvels Dr. Strange & now i have.
Doctor Mordrid is simply a fun piece of light fantasy fun.
I enjoyed this little fantasy flick, Don't care what others say.
Mordrid is definitely a fun take/version of Dr. Strange & it's a very nicely made movie with such a comforting feel to it all. I felt that nice early 90's vibe of other Full Moon films like my favourite of there's, Demonic Toys.
Genre & B-movie legend Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator, Fortress, The Frighteners, Castle Freak, Cellar Dweller) is perfectly cast as ancient magician & Protector of earth Doctor Mordrid, who lives in New York City & owns a huge post tenement building & gives lectures in the subjects of the occult, supernatural & the unbelievable. Jeffrey Combs is really good in this mysterious role as our lonely immortal hero & he reminded me of a Bruce Wayne/Batman & The Shadow type as much as Dr. Strange. Mordrid has a huge beautifully designed apartment that is rich in detail of ancient artifacts, old books & all things centuries old & interesting like he's living in a museum of all things wonderfully strange from the past. I could tell that although low-budget director Charles Band put his heart into his passion project, Doctor Mordrid. The products design is gorgeous especially in Mordrids richly detailed apartment & when he visits another dimension world that is floating, all created beautifully. Our timeless hero is constantly on guard & watching for signs of the return of his arch Nemesis named Kabal, played by 80's & 90's genre great BRIAN THOMPSON (Cobra, Fright Night part 2, Hired To Kill, Moon 44, In The Cold of the Night) who has promised to return to Earth & destroy it. Kanal is evil & fun & the hulking pumped-up Thompson is having fun playing this barbarian of an evil ancient magician warrior. Both Mordrid & Kabal are immortal & have lived for centuries & always in battle with each other, it's perfectly simple & comforting comic-book fantasy stuff.
What i like about Full Moon films is the fact they always have a small bunch of characters, usually some wacky ones, that are in a single location for most of the movie & they encounter something very strange or supernatural or evil & here we get an apartment building with some wacky neighbours that inhabit Doctor Mordrid's building. Mordrid does venture out though into a very quiet & unpopulated "NYPD" building, because of the budget there's hardly anyone around but it adds to the movies relaxed & quiet mood. There never seems to be many people around in Full Moon Features universe. I do wish we got a sequel or two, they made loads of Puppet Master & Trancers films but no more Mordrid? I want more adventures.
The music score is absolutely beautiful by Full Moon regular Richard Band, he scored those wonderfully playful scores to Demonic Toys & Puppet Master. All the Bands came together to make this fun slice of Nostalgic fantasy fun, Charles Band & his father Albert, directed it & brother scored it.
I felt they really tried to make this a good little movie, they shot it in Los Angeles but set it in New York City, so we get a few NYPD cars to show where its set & that's about it but it doesn't hurt the movie. They pulled off a nice looking movie with the budget they had to work with.
There's some nice old school stop-motion & some nice special effects scattered throughout but it's not full of action but it's always interesting.
Also Yvette Nipar is very attractive & decent as a police advisor on the occult & stuff & she makes for a nice duo with Mordrid's eccentric professor.
All in all Doctor Mordrid is a really nice movie & one of Full Moon Productions best.
I also like Dollman, Puppet Master 1&2, Trancers 1&2, Demonic Toys & more.
I also grew up watching Charles Band's Empire Pictures films, before he made Full Moon Features, with the likes of Troll, Dolls, Arena, Robo-Jox, Ghoulies 1&2 & more.
Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor (1994)
Really Enjoyable 90's Martial Arts Action-Thriller By Legendary Cult Movie Maker Albert Pyun.
Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor (1994) is the 2nd sequel that cult movie maker Albert Pyun has made for the Kickboxer franchise. Previously Albert made the cult sequel favourite Kickboxer 2: The Road Back (1991) where we're introduced to the brother of Van Damme's character. We got the Awesome Sasha Mitchell, a huge tall guy that is totally believable as a hulking kick-ass fighter.
Kickboxer 3: The Art of War was a decent & enjoyable sequel that put Sasha's champion fighter David Sloan against kidnapping sex traffickers in Rio. Part 3 was a good solid sequel & i liked it, but part 4 was even better.
Kickboxer 4 is about an imprisoned David Sloan that is set free by the government to compete undercover in a bloody fighting tournament in Mexico hosted by his old enemy Tong Po.
We find out his enemy Tong Po had David framed for murder & locked-up & if that wasn't bad enough Po has captured David's wife & has her imprisoned at his warrior compound in Mexico. David is set free to go fight his way through Tong Po's tournament & take him down once & for all & rescue his wife. It's typical 90's cheese at times & i loved that because it's a direct-to-video product of it's time. Sasha Mitchell is excellent here once again as good-hearted David Sloan, the man where trouble haunts him always. Sasha is such a big tall cool & handsome guy & is totally believable as he grabs, kicks & punches his way through bad guys. Sasha is a decent actor & a nice presence of goodness in a dangerous world of bloodthirsty warriors. Awesome cult movie director ALBERT PYUN (RIP) was a talent, a very underrated movie wizard that wasn't appreciated enough in my opinion when he was alive. I've always been an Albert fan since growing up watching & loving his Cyborg (1989), still my favourite Van Damme movie, on video way bk in the day.
Albert made lots of movies mainly with tiny budgets but he always put his heart into it & that gave us video era gems like Dollman, Kickboxer 2, Kickboxer 4, Adrenaline: Fear The Rush, Nemesis, Crazy Six, Mean Guns & many more.
Albert really directed his Kickboxer 4 sequel like a proper 90's direct-to-video martial arts actioner with thrills & kills & erotic thriller scenes & a new style of main villain Tong Po here, who is more like a Bond villain here but alot of fun in his evil ways. Also Pyun regular & B-movie fan favourite, Thom Mathews has part as Tong Po's right-hand man & it's always good to see that guy because he's been in so much good B-movie stuff: Return of the Living Dead, Friday the 13: Jason Lives, Crazy Six, Nemesis, Blast, Mean Guns, Bloodmatch & many more.
There's a nice feel of Bruce Lee's Enter The Dragon here with the big warrior fighting compound where a bloody tournament with take place. Obviously Albert was a big fan of that 70's martial arts Classic.
The action scenes are incredibly well shot, with the best being when David enters a bar on his way to the tournament in dusty Mexico, here he sticks up for a little blond teenage girl (who is also a fighter on her way to Tong Po's tournament) where Sasha takes on everyone in the bar & expertly & in full control takes them down with incredible fighting techniques & skill. That bar sequence is the best fight in the movie as it shows off Sasha's incredible fighting skills.
Kickboxer 4 is a well told pure 90's action thriller revenge story that was popular in the 90's with low-budget productions & a cool martial arts fighter leading it all.
The film is well directed by Albert Pyun who seemed to really wanna make a typical & proper martial arts action movie that was destined to hit the shelves of Blockbuster video in the action genre section.
Kickboxer 4 is a slick, good looking movie with plenty of 90's cheese & plenty of fun bloody fighting sequences & some good characters to root for.
I'm a fan of this type of movie from the glorious 90's video stores times so i get a nice Nostalgic kick from these types of martial arts flicks crafted on low-budgets & made with style & heart.
Thank you Albert Pyun for all your hard work.
Phantoms (1998)
A Great 90's Atmospheric Horror-Thriller. A Real Gem.
Phantoms is pure 90's Nostalgia-filled, Horror-thriller entertainment with a real creepy atmosphere & a top 90's cast.
Phantoms comes outta Dimension films with following in the footsteps of hits Scream & Scream 2, with a hot cast of newish talent & in a Horror story.
Phantoms is also a fun monster movie, the likes of which the 90's did so well, with gems like, The Relic & Mimic & Virus.
Phantoms stars a young Ben Affleck (Justice League, Paycheck, Smokin' Aces, Daredevil) as a Sheriff of a small populated town Colorado, that teams up with two sisters who have just arrived in the town to discover its empty & very spooky. One of the sisters, the older one, is played by Joanna Going, who is a doctor coming to work in the small isolated town. The other sister is the younger & more outgoing sister played by the gorgeous Rose Mcgowan from Scream. We also get Liev Schreiber of Scream 2 fame as a weirdo police officer & old school Classic British actor Peter O'Toole as a writer for an eccentric paper of fantastical news. This group of mixed charities have to work together in order to fight against an ancient creature that has risen after thousands of years in hiding. This monster is a huge mass of black slime & tentacles & can morph into anything. I was reminded of John Carpenter's Cult Classic, Prince of Darkness (1987), which was very cool.
Phantoms is dark & very spooky, it's got a chilly winter setting & with a whole town that has vanished, it's often really unnerving. Something ancient & evil has risen & wants to terrify humankind. There's a really good story here & quite creepy when you think about how easy humankind can be attacked by a powerful force, there's always a real threat that we could be wiped-out by something.
The atmosphere, mood & cinematography is top notch 90's & almost cozy in a way. The town is beautifully isolated & very creepy & the small cast do really well surviving in this spooky place. There's an awesome scene with a big supernatural moth creature that attcks the group & it's so well done, & so damn cool. The score is suitably moody & the look & feel is very Carpenter, Very X-Files & with a little Silent Hill.
Phantoms is definitely a moody, supernatural Horror-thriller that took me right bk to the 90's. I miss those days, i miss the way the movies looked bk then & how they felt. You can always tell a 90's movie when you see one, or i can anyhow.
I love Phantoms.
Muzzle (2023)
A Nice Little Character Study Drama & Modern Cop Thriller With A Top Notch Performance From Eckhart.
First off i love the old 80's & 90's buddy-cop Dog movies like James Belushi's Classic K-9 (1989) (which is one of my all-time favorite films since the video days) & it's direct-to-video 90's sequel K-911. But I'm not bothered about Hanks' Turner & Hooch as i felt it was abit too sad. But i also really liked Chuck's go at it with his 90's Top Dog & then that little Cop & Dog sub-genre seemed to die out.
Of course K-9 (1989) is the greatest dog cop film of all-time.
Then i saw the dvd cover of MUZZLE & instantly i was excited to check it out because it looked like one of those buddy-cop dog films i grew up loving.
MUZZLE stars Aaron Eckhart (the guy that was excellent as Harvey Dent aka: Two Face in The Dark Knight) & has Starred in many films including Paycheck, Olympus has Fallen, London has Fallen, I, Frankenstein, Battle: Los Angeles, In The Line of Duty The Core & many more, as a very rough & ready K-9 unit cop named Rosser, that starts to uncover a mystery surrounding his dog partners death. His original partner Ace is shot dead & Rosser loses it & that's the start of this dark & moody movie about loss, loneliness, anger & vengeance. There's actually a lot under the surface of MUZZLE, maybe a bit too much as not all of it is fully explored.
At the heart of MUZZLE is the fact dogs are real partners to cops & they mean as much to them as a human partner & This movie definitely captured that.
Aaron Eckhart seems to be revitalising his Career as a B-movie Action Star with lots of action-thriller films being released straight to dvd with his rugged face on them.
Eckhart is a capable actor with intensity & a hurt & bitter look in his eyes like a man that's seen it all & lived. So Aaron is great in this role as a tormented man that seems very lonely & very lost. His character is Jake Rosser & is a Los Angeles K-9 cop with a past in Afghanistan as a soldier that has seen it all & lived.
PTSD & a very gritty & apocalyptic looking LA are on show here in this serious thriller. Eckhart is great as he navigates his way around skid row of a very downtrodden underbelly of Los Angeles where drugs & homelessness are everywhere. The film looks great for a lower budget production & Eckhart is great on screen (although the role could've easily have been played by Thomas Jane & been just as good as their both so similar & both good actors) & his new dog partner he gets named Socks is a good actor for a dog. You see Eckhart's bitter & angry cop gets a new dog partner that has been through hell too, so both cop partners are messed up emotionally & have to learn to trust each other & get on. But the mystery of the film is abit weird & not fully explored or explained, in detail anyway. There's a new drug on the dirty, gritty downtown streets of Los Angeles & apparently Socks the dog was the crime syndicates property for sniffing out drugs or something? Or for testing drugs on? I'm not totally sure but it wasn't good either way. The bad guys of MUZZLE are never fully explored or really seen so we don't get that cool old school cop genre trope of having an awesome bad guy that our hero cops are tracking down. Some of the scenes & dialogue feel disjointed & unfocused properly. I feel there's alot cut from the movie but it didn't speed things up because the film is a slow character drama most of the time & definitely doesn't have enough action in it. There's a cop character that is an asshole & really dislikes Eckhart's cop but suddenly & surprisingly decides to help him near the final showdown at the end? That's bizarre & unexplained.
There's a nurse that seems to really fancy Eckhart that lives in his building & the relationship feels weird & there's no real chemistry at all.
Stephen Lang (Don't Breath 1&2) has a nice little part as an LAPD K-9 trainer.
At times i got glimpses of that K-9 movie feel i love, like when Eckhart is chatting to his dog in his car whilst cruising around Los Angeles but again its never fully explored to be fun & doesn't last long. I think MUZZLE wanted to be a more very serious police drama about the relationship between a police man & his police dog & in that case the film does it well but its just missing some more action sequences & a proper bad guy & better supporting characters.
Aaron Eckhart does his best with a low-key grumpy & depressed performance & he does act well. It was good to see him have to go to a psychiatrist to sort his head out as tough men never really seem to open up so those scenes are actually very important in todays mental health awareness times. Eckhart is on a mission to find out who killed his partner dog at the beginning of the movie & why? But seems no one is interested in helping him & worse is his superiors think he's losing it so he sets out to investigate on his own terms & time. There's typical cop genre tropes scattered throughout but done in more serious tone & it's definitely Eckhart that keeps the whole thing together.
MUZZLE is a decent little cop drama/thriller but don't expect old school cop action like i did because its disappointing in that way but good as a dark character piece.
I will watch it again & hopefully pick up bits i might have missed.
MUZZLE is a good watch & a decent cop film & is the very rare type of buddy-cop dog film you don't see anymore, it's a K-9 movie updated to our modern times & yeah i did like it even if it wasn't as good as i thought it could've been.
Bronson (2008)
A Powerhouse Phenomenal Performance From Tom Hardy & Absolutely Mental & Hilarious.
Legendary British actor Tom Hardy is spectacular on screen in this very low-budget stylish Biography Drama of infamous British Criminal Charles Bronson.
Tom Hardy has definitely proved himself as one of today's greatest actors & can play pretty much any role like a chameleon. Hardy is phenomenal here.
Hardy is spectacular here as beefed up nutter prisoner Charles Bronson who Hardy makes such an interesting & wild character, spot on actually as a performance of a real person I've heard.
Bronson is Britain's most violent prisoner in real life & its something he's very proud about as he's put in all of Britain's prisons & keeps coming back like a force of violent nature. This is a based on true life story & it's a crazy story that is funny, tragic & action-packed. Bronson wants fame & will do anything to get it as he gets more popular & well known throughout the prison system & the in the news. Bronson is a man with a big ego & an even bigger appetite for brutal violence & his craziness is captured by Hardy here.
Bronson tells the his story in through the 70's & 80s & how his love for uncontrollable violence keeps him from living a normal life. Bronson is unpredictable & can flip at any time anywhere & he's a scary bloke.
The film plays out his mental story in a very darkly funny way & done very theatrically & very stylish. The cinematography is excellent for such a low-budget movie & the score is awesome with it's 80s synthesiser style & suits the old school period feel of the film.
Bronson may be a brutal butter but he's still got a moral code as you see when his rage takes over for a vile pedo he can't wait to get his hands on. The guy is such an interesting & fascinating character & Hardy delivered it all in a powerhouse performance that explodes on screen.
I loved the black humour of the piece & the movie is never dull or depressing like many British drama films. Bronson is electrifying as a piece of Cult Classic entertainment & packs plenty into its short running time.
Tom Hardy totally committed to this role & is Excellent.
Bronson is compared to A Clockwork Orange often but Bronson is way, way better than that crap.
Inside Out 2 (2024)
TERRIBLE!!! HORRENDOUSLY BORING ANIMATED DRAMA.
The first film was ok but this sequel is so bad. This is one of the worst sequels of all-time!!!
This sequel is a very, very long bore fest that is basically a long animated drama that is ridiculously unfunny. There's nothing Fun about this stupid sequel at all.
The new characters are crap & add nothing.
I can't believe the cost of such terrible nonsense, I'm so glad i grew up watching the likes of The Land Before Time & The Rescuers Down Under & many other great animated films.
The Toy Story franchise is excellent & doesn't need to worry about the Inside Out crap taking over.
This film focused on Anxiety the new character but it's just annoying & way over the top to enjoy or even find funny.
Such a disappointing film, even my littlest daughter didn't laugh, i Don't think anyone laughed at all in the cinema.
I Don't know how kids will enjoy this? It's so long so boring & so unfunny.
The Eagle (2011)
An Excellent Gritty, Dark & Dangerous Warrior Survival Thriller
First off I've never been a fan of Channing Tatum as to me he was a bland typical pretty boy star that was a crafted to please the woman crowd with crap like his Magic Mike movies. I also wasn't bothered about his silly Jump Street cop comedy films & i had only ever actually watched him in one movie & that was his small role at the beginning of the G. I Joe sequel "Retaliation" & that was that & made no impact on me whatsoever.
The Eagle is the first Channing Tatum movie I've seen & i gotta admit he's really good here as Roman leader & warrior Marcus who is over in England to find out what happened to his father's legion that vanished years earlier. Also the Romans beloved symbolic artifact, The Golden Eagle of Ninth statue, went missing with his father's disappearance & the Roman superiors want it back.
Tatum does give a very good-hearted & strong willed performance as a young man trying to prove himself as a warrior like his father & to earn respect amongst his troops.
I really did like Channing Tatum in this role & he proved to me he's not just a typical bland Hollywood product of an actor.
I'm still not bothered about other Tatum films but The Eagle is atleast one he made that i was actually interested in seeing (can't stand his rom com flicks).
The best performance goes to the excellent British actor Jamie Bell (Death Watch, Skin) who plays brilliantly a slave to the Romans that becomes Tatums own personal slave when Marcus saves his life from a brutal Galaditor fight. Jamie Bell has absolutely proven he's an excellent actor before & he keeps delivering powerhouse performances with each movie. Here Bell plays Esca who is has the task of getting Marcus accross the British countryside that's full of rogue warriors & brutal tribes that want Roman Blood.
What i really liked about this gritty & tough warrior thriller was the buddy element that becomes the movies backbone with Roman leader Marcus & Warrior slave Esca working together undercover whilst travelling accross dangerous territory trying to find where Marcus's father's men died & where the Golden Eagle is.
The movie looks beautiful with gorgeous Cinematography & gritty punch with the swords & bloody action scenes.
I really did find that Tatum & Bell made a compelling team & i really enjoyed the story & dangerous mission they were on.
Because these were ancient warrior times everywhere feels dangerous & everyone seems deadly & our two heroes have to navigate their way around it all.
The Eagle is an excellent ancient warrior adventure with two damn good leads that create a friendship you love.
The Eagle is a kind of (or could be classed as) sequel to Neil Marshall's Centurion that came out a year earlier in 2010. The Eagle basically follows on years later from the events of Centurion & so would make a nice double bill.
I much prefer this type of Swords & Sandels adventure to the over bloated boring epics like Gladiator or Braveheart.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024)
THERE'S STILL NO ONE COOLER THAN WILL SMITH. An Instant Action Classic.
Will Smith will always be a Legendary Star.
I'm a big fan now of duo Belgium- Moroccan screen-writers & director team Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah, i love their gritty, frantic, violent & strikingly visual style, they gave Bad Boys For Life & Bad Boys Ride or Die that New cinema boost for todays movie world.
The first Bad Boys (1995) & Men in Black (1997) are two era defining movies to me from the beautiful 90's & both are in my all-time top 10 fave films list. Also i, Robot (2004) makes my top 10 list, so as you can see 3 Will Smith movies are in my top 10, so the guy means alot to me.
Not to mention Big Will is still my all-time favorite Rapper!!! I grew up in the 90's listening to Code Red, Big Willie Style & Willennium, & in the early 2000's Will dropped his best (slept on fire album) with LOST & FOUND (2005) my most listened to album ever.
I also loved Enemy of the State & Wild Wild West because in the 90's Will Smith was the biggest movie star in the world & everyone had his films on video & watched the hell outta them. No one was cooler than Will Smith in the 90's.
Bad Boys Ride or Die was an absolute blast of action-packed buddy-cop fun & a proper popcorn blockbuster. I had an absolute blast watching this in the cinema with my wife, we laughed out loud at many times & was blown away by the awesome action sequences & i loved the colourful cinematography that just popped on screen. Really Ride or Die is a spectacular action buddy-cop flick.
This time around our beloved Miami cops become fugitives whilst trying to unravel a mystery & high up corruption within the police department. They gotta clear their late Captain's name (some nicely put together & smart cameos from Joe Pantoliano as Captain Howard once again) & have to deal with a new sadistic Mercenary villain.
Will Smith delivers a fantastic performance once again as Mike Lowry, but this time he's not as sure of himself & suffers with panic attacks due to feeling guilt that his son murdered his beloved Captain Howard. Mike is in constant fear of losing the ones he loves & Will gives the performance a powerhouse dramatic touch along with his hilarious banter stuff with Martin Lawrence.
Oh & Martin Lawrence is absolutely brilliant here, probably the best he's been since the first film. Martin's family man cop Marcus is on a spiritual ride throughout this movie & believes he's indestructible & becomes a super cop kinda switching roles with his partner Mike. The chemistry between Will & Martin is pure genius & the funniest they've ever been. That fun banter & strong chemistry is what holds these movies together & what keeps us coming back to watch these Bad Boys.
From exciting new camera angles & first-person perspective action sequences to in-your-face kick-ass brutality & hilarious banter Ride or Die is a fresh feeling Bad Boys movie. Things are kept fresh in this entry so it still feels new & exciting & that's why it's the best Bad Boys movie after the original 90's Classic.
Ride or Die is a new action, instant CLASSIC in my opinion.
Ride or Die is full of characters from the Bad Boys franchise that add a nice connective cinematic tissue to the other films.
The movie looks fantastic with colourful neon-lit cinematography & the action is fast & furious with bloody kick-ass brutality. Some of the camera angles are excellent, especially the first person camera perspective of Lowry & Burnett in the big final showdown action sequence. Ride or Die is kept entertaining with fast & frantic kick-ass action scenes & laugh out loud gags & banter, so much lively energy zips throughout this buddy-cop action comedy you can't help but get swept along for the wild ride. I truly consider this 4th Bad Boys movie an instant CLASSIC, there for gets the ultimate 10/10 rating. Honestly this movie is a beautiful piece of Escapism from the real world & all it's harsh drama, a great movie.
There's so much jam packed into this fantastic sequel that i can't wait to watch it again.....& again as i have all the Bad Boys films.
Will Smith is still a LEGEND & Martin Lawrence is back better than EVER.
Greatest Buddy-cop duo ever. Definitely an Instant CLASSIC.
Bad Boys (10/10)
Bad Boys 2 (9/10)
Bad Boys For Life (10/10)
Bad Boys Ride or Die (10/10) all great films, a truly iconic franchise.
Cleanskin (2012)
SEAN BEAN is Awesome As He Hunts & Kills Evil Extremists!!!
Excellent British Actor Sean Bean is on top ass-kicking form as a tough no-nonsense secret service agent named Ewan who is on a mission to hunt & eliminate an extremist terrorist group throughout London.
Cleanskin is drenched in gritty political realism & an interesting look at both sides of the Terror. We get a look at the corrupted government Conspiracy side & the sadistic mind-controling of radicalisation, but in the end you cannot feel sorry for the pathetic weak morons that let themselves become evil cowardly terrorists.
Sean Bean is awesome in these types of hard military roles, as he was equally excellent in the underrated British Vigilante Thriller OUTLAW (2007).
Sean also impressed me in the bleak medieval horror BLACK DEATH & he plays hurt looking, bitter, angry & sad all at the same time with his facial expressions & that is a talent of a fantastic powerhouse actor.
Cleanskin is a cracking hard edged Action Thriller with a story that feels so realistic & with it's violence shown brutally & realistic. London is the setting & is filmed in a slick but gritty way & the music is pure Thriller score & performances are all good but Bean is the best of course.
It's a pleasure to see Bean slaughter extremists without mercy.
Bando (2020)
A Kick-ass Thrilling Action-packed Zombie Movie & Superior Sequel.
The first film, Train To Busan, was good & well made & exciting & thrilling right up until its stupid ending!!!
But with Peninsula we get much better characters & a much more exciting playground with the destroyed apocalyptic Peninsula land.
The over-dramatic ending ruined the movie for me. The father didn't need to die & really could've survived easily & that's what made that ending way too contrived for emotional effect. Just like the stupid ending of A Quiet Place, both movies ruined by a fathers stupidity.
Peninsula is such a better movie though all round.
Except for the over dramatic near ending scene with the cool Snake Pliskin type hero played by Gang-Dong Won & the heroic mother, that scene went on way too long, again for emotional effect, & becomes very corny & cheesy. But that's my only real complaint with this much superior sequel.
Set years later after the zombie outbreak of the first film we get a quarantined island Peninsula that's been left to rot with thousands of zombies still there.
Also everything was left as it was so that means there's big money there in trucks & that's what this flick is an adrenaline pumping zombie heist action thriller. Zack Snyder copied this films idea with his terrible Army of the Dead.
The main guy Seung played by Gang-Dong Won is a Snake Plisskin type who has lost his family at the beginning of the film on an infected boat & now is a loner without a cause. He is pulled in with a small crew of thieves to sneak onto the quarantined Peninsula & steal the trucks full of money.
But of course nothing goes to plan & we get a kick-ass action-packed thrilling & exciting survival Thriller as the Korean film goes full on Mad Max & Escape from New & Dawn of the Dead & I Am Legend & so on. The Destroyed city of Peninsula is created perfectly, really the fx & production design is excellent.
We get other survivors in the zombie filled city with mental soldiers & a nice family that has adapted to survive the Apocalypse. The little family are great with a war veteran old man & his tough no-nonsense daughter & her two girls, a brilliant driver of a teenage daughter & a super smart & funny little girl with custom made zombie distracting remote control cars. There's lots of fun in this ferocious zombie flick & so much glorious action & blood soaked violence. There's an awesome prison games sequence in an abandoned mall with human being hunted for sport by mutated zombies for the crazy soldiers enjoyment.
There's a vibe of Day of the Dead with the mental soldiers that are as dangerous as the zombies themselves.
There's ferociously fast car chases similar to Mad Max Fury Road & such a cool hero of this adventure that fights & handles guns like Chris Hemsworth in the Extraction films. The action is gritty & fast paced with so much shooting & fighting it's an action gem. Think a Korean mix of Escape from New York, Mad Max & Day of the Dead, that's kinda what Peninsula is & it delivers.
I loved Peninsula & it should be an action cult classic in the future.
Monsters: Dark Continent (2014)
TERRIBLE CRAP ABOUT IDIOT COCKY FRIENDS IN THE ARMY!!!!
One of the worst sequels of all-time!!!
The first Monsters movie was an interesting indie flick with bizarre creatures wondering around America but it was watchable, even if it wasn't amazing.
This sequel title Dark Continent is about a group of idiot friends from Detroit who are mouthy & cocky & all unlikeable. This is a war drama with monsters in the background, it sucked so badly.
This is a typical trying to be cool "America soldier hero" movie & it sucked so badly.
I didn't like any of the main cast of best friends at all.
I found the troopers to be absolute idiots & the type of mouthy types i wouldn't even want to talk to.
I had to turn it off before the friends even got in to the action because i couldn't stand them on screen. I saw some of the huge monsters moving in heards accross a desert & then was bombed & i felt sorry for the creatures.
If your going to have a group of friends as the main characters of your movie atleast have them likeable!!!
Such a waste of what could've been a sequel like say, Aliens or The Hills Have Eyes Part 2, where the soldiers or marines are a bunch you actually want to survive.
The Garfield Movie (2024)
5/10 Is Just Right For The Garfield Movie. Surprisingly Very Boring.
I grew up loving Garfield i had the books & the cartoon on video & soft toys & all sorts of Garfield stuff.
I enjoyed the Bill Murray voiced Garfield movie, but not the terrible sequel, but even that movie wasn't great but Garfield was done right especially with the voice of Bill Murray.
Now Chris Pratt is doing the voice of Garfield & to be honest he wasn't as bad as i thought he was gonna be. For some reason studios want Chris Pratt to voice iconic animated characters i don't know why? He voiced Mario too & he's bk as Garfield.
So Pratt wasn't too bad, not the voice ot should've been but he wasn't annoying anyway. The best voice & character wasn't Garfield in the movie it was his father perfectly voiced by the great Samuel L. Jackson as Vic. I loved the Vic character & Jackson has such a great voice he stole the show in my opinion. Surprisingly this animated adventure ended up being very boring & hard to get through even for small kids. How they can mess up Garfield is beyond me.
Anyway the first parts of the movie is done lovely with some touching moments & some fun & baby kitten Garfield was ridiculously cute but when the film gets its stupid villain, a female Cat that wants revenge on Garfield's father for something in the past, the film goes really OTT.
Yes this is obviously aimed at very little kids but it still goes too silly & becomes boring. The whole Milk heist is ridiculous & the big action sequence on the train near the end was overlong, boring & too silly.
The movie looks great with it's lovely colourful look & animation but it just goes too stupid like a Minion movie or something.
I saw it with my wife & kids & two of my girls enjoyed it & one of them got bored like myself.
It's a shame they can never get a Garfield movie right.
Demolition Man (1993)
Big Budget Nostalgic Sci-fi Action Spectacular From The Awesome 90's!!!
Demolition Man is a pure early 90's Big Budget sci-fi action Thriller spectacular starring two mega action stars of that era, Stallone & Snipes.
I grew up watching all the old school 80's & 90's action stars & Stallone is obviously one of the greatest of all of Action Cinema History. Schwarzenegger, Stallone & Van Damme are probably the three kings of the action genre but of course there's lots of greats like Statham, Snipes, Willis, Lundgren, Adkins, Norris, Seagal & more, but Stallone, Schwarzenegger & Van Damme are the most well liked & most loved of the era.
Demolition Man holds a very special place in my movie-loving-heart because i was young like 10 or 11 at the time of it's release & my older bro brought it on video with Stallone's Cliffhanger & we watched the hell outta those two videos.
Demolition Man feels comforting watching it today in 2024, i feel the movie was ahead of it's time with how the future will be. Everything is almost censored today & we live in a silly "Woke" era where everything & everyone is getting shut down due to "Cancel Culture" see times have gotten ridiculous like in Demolition Man.
Anyway as a movie Demolition Man is a spectacular piece of action-packed Sci-fi entertainment with amazing production design of a futuristic Los Angeles & with a stunning music score & a fun kick-ass humourous tone & two top notch performances from Stallone & Snipes.
I miss the 90's it was a beautiful time for movies at the cinema & on video in Blockbuster & many video stores, movies felt magical back then.
Demolition Man is a lovely piece of Nostalgia of those times of Big Budget Blockbusters starring mega action stars.
Here Stallone plays 20th century legendary cop John Spartan (one of Stallone's best characters along with Cobra) & he's excellent in the role with a real human side to his gruff no-nonsense violent action cop persona.
I love Stallone & many of his movies are some of my all-time favorites like Cobra, Tango & Cash, Demolition Man, Nighthawks, Judge Dredd & more.
The Demolition Man role feels tailor-made for Stallone & that's why the movie is great. Equally the movie is so great because it has one of the greatest movie villains ever with Wesley Snipes as Simon Phoenix, a sadistic brutal killing machine of a criminal with a sly sense of humour & Snipes nailed the part & is probably his greatest performance.
Stallone & Snipes facing off, like on the movie poster, felt huge for action movie fans bk in the 90's & the movie pretty much became an instant CLASSIC.
Our hero & villain from the 90's are released into a futuristic world of a new Los Angeles in 2032 (San Angeles) where everything is banned & everything is like a peaceful utopia but these two old school rivals will tear this new gentle world apart.
The film is full of fun satires of a "Peaceful Utopia" but nothing is ever what it seems & like all governments there's corruption & John Spartan will take them all down whilst on his mission to finally destroy Simon Phone.
A hilarious script, beautifully designed sets, great performances from everyone (Sandra Bullock is great fun & best I've seen her & so is Rob Schneider who joined Stallone again in the Awesome Judge Dredd) there's so much to explore & Analyze in Demolition Man because its such a smarty made action movie but lets just say its hugely enjoyable & a stone cold 10/10 Classic.
Snipes is also great in Passenger 57, Murder at 1600, Money Train, Drop Zone, New Jack City, Blade 1&2, Boiling Point & more, he was a guy i loved on video back in the day too.
I watched the hell outta Passenger 57 on video.
Outlaw (2007)
A Very Gritty-as-hell Bone-crunching British Vigilante Thriller
Outlaw came out in 2007 when Britain was in a hell hole & even named Broken Britain & this gritty thriller was a reaction to the times.
I'm not a fan of mouthy blokey laddy Director Nick Love at all, i can't stand his crappy Chav flicks like "The Football Factory" or "The Business" & i have no interest in his later cop thriller "The Sweeney" but his product-of-it's-time angry revenge Thriller Outlaw is a movie i really liked.
From the horrendous Broken Britain era we had a bunch of movies that came out of that hoodie horror times such as: Harry Brown, Eden Lake, The Comedown, The Veteran, F, Shank & Kidulthood for an example. These films captured the fear of the times, the fear of the savage unprovoked attacks on innocent people by roaming feral Chavs. All of which was absolutely TRUE.
England had become a hell hole of police corruption, killer Chavs, free walking Paedophiles & non-stop horrendous crimes on the news & on every single front page of the papers.
The time was so dark & so depressing & absolutely hopeless. The anger of the victims & just people surviving in that sewer had to go somewhere & Nick Love cleverly captured it in his vigilante film. But there's also some very funny pure British humour in places & i laughed alot at certain bits.
In a place where the law doesn't help you & the most evil scum simply get a slap-on-the-wrist what would you do?
Outlaw is a violent movie that definitely doesn't glorify violence. The angry & hurt characters here use violence as their last option when they've lost everything.
Sean Bean gives an excellent performance as angry & lost soldier Bryant who has just returned to London from his tour in Afghanistan & turns up in a land he doesn't recognise. Britain/London is rubbish strewn shi#hole infested with mouthy violent moraless Chavs. These young thugs are everywhere & seem to be raised on hatred & violence & if that wasn't enough, the whole of England is a war zone where big Gangster thugs are protected by corrupted cops & criminals do what they want when they want & as usual (just like real life) they never pay the proper price for their crimes & are freed to do it all again. Outlaw almost feels like a true documentary of the time, its filmed with a jerky gritty & constantly moving style that works perfectly & the cinematography is dull, grim & depressing. Sean Beans Bryant has had enough & wants to do something about the state of his country that he has fought for & so bands together a bunch of victims of society & form a modern day posse.
Sean Bean is truly excellent & you agree with everything he says throughout the movie. Next best performance is from Sean Harris ('71, Harry Brown) as a very angry security guard that often goes OTT but has the real darkness to go through with what their mission is all about, Violent Revenge.
Danny Dyer is decent as a bullied city office worker, he is the voice of the real people & audience because he lives in fear of the thugs & violence that surrounds his everyday life & is full of anxiety & fear.
There's a judge that turns vigilante because his pregnant wife was murdered by a local crime boss & goes unpunished. There's a soft talking & well educated University guy that has been severely beaten & disfigured by a random attack from violent street thugs & wants to do something about it as his attackers are freed early, of course because the system is a joke.
We get a great powerhouse performance from legendary British actor Bob Hoskins as a bitter old cop fed-up of the police corruption & the scum walking the streets because of a bent justice system.
Nick Love definitely picked a cracking cast in this ensemble piece & tells his story as real as possible. In fact the film feels dark & very dangerous from how it's filmed & scored.
Not a Nick Love fan but i loved his best movie Outlaw.
Outlaw will ask a lot of hard questions & will put you in the shoes of the victims & ask what would you do?
I actually agree with the vigilante justice especially if the scum have taken everything from you but it's not glorified & you see both sides of the impact of violence & vigilante justice. What's interesting is the Outlaw posse really don't actually get hardly any scum that they want to because no everyone has that darkness to really do it so it's actually very realistic.
When there is violence is bone-crunching & impactful & horrible as it should be but also rewarding when some of the evil thugs get what they deserve.
Outlaw is like a grindhouse picture in how it's made, created on a small budget & is very shockingly violent a very dark subject matter, like The Exterminator (1980) & Taxi Driver (1976) & Death Wish (1974), Outlaw is crafted in the style of those old school 70's thriller's where they feel dangerous & unpredictable.
All in all Outlaw is a very thoughtful thriller & well made to make you think about society & where were heading.
Trancers II (1991)
Good Fantasy Fun. A Decent Sequel & Nice Seeing Tim Thomerson & Helen Hunt Again.
I really enjoyed Trancers (1984) & after that one i watched this sequel & it was a fun flick.
Trancers 2 is very low-budget like the first film but with a very early 90's cheesy charm & a cast of awesome B movie stars.
Both, Trancers & Trancers 2 are fantasy sci-fi B movie fun & both earned a solid 7/10 in my opinion.
I'm not bothered about all the other sequels as they look very bad in quality.
Anyway Trancers 2 is set six years after the original & hard-boiled future cop Jack Deth has been living in 80's turned 90's Los Angeles with his now wife Lena, played once again by a fun Helen Hunt. So nice having Helen Hunt back & a treat as she didn't have to at all as by the early 90's she was a fairly big star. This time old enemy Whistler is back, well his brother is. Yes Whistler had a bad brother know one knew about & he wants to continue his brothers evil plan to take over the world with his Trancers.
Things get complicated even more so for Jack when his wife (Megan Ward) returns to Los Angeles from a different time period before she was killed by Whistler. So we get some fun with Jack mixed up trying to please each wife whilst keeping everything cool. There's almost a fun cheesy situation comedy feel to the flick at times. The budget seems very low so we get more comic bits for our heroes. Like the first film Trancers 2 could've done with more action but for the low budgets of the films they are decent entertainment for what they are. I really enjoyed Trancers 1&2 but I'm not bothered about the rest of the sequels because the quality dropped massively.
Tim Thomerson is great once again as Jack Deth & his chemistry is still great with Helen Hunt.
This time the main base of evil is an insane asylum where the head of the place is Whistler's evil brother played by Villain expert Richard Lynch as Dr. Wardo. There's a bunch of B movie familiar faces scattered throughout the film, there's Jeffrey Combs, Megan Ward, Barbara Crampton & more, all game for some fun in this crazy cheesy fantasy action comedy.
Trancers 2 is simply a fun Video era B-movie piece entertainment with a nice Nostalgic feel to it with it's early 90's time period.
Charles Band made another good Trancers movie.
Trancers 2 really reminded me of the better times of the video stores & the gems you would discover there.
Trancers (1984)
Good Old School B Movie Sci-fi Adventure Fun From The Great Charles Band.
First off i love most stuff from the legendary B movie producer/director CHARLES BAND.
I grew up watching his, then Empire Pictures productions/ films like Troll, Dolls, Ghoulies 1,2 & 3, Robot Jox, Arena & then later onto his Full Moon Features like, Prehysteria, Demonic Toys & Puppet Master 1&2.
I always loved the fun fantasy worlds Band created & the wacky characters that existed in those worlds. Band created lots of fun & inventiveness on tiny budgets & created some loved Nostalgic B movies that thrived in the better video store days.
I finally watched TRANCERS!!! Well i double billed the first two TRANCERS films. I'm only interested in the first two because the others look so too silly & too cheap.
Trancers (1984) was a good low-budget sci-fi fun.
A nice mix of Terminator & Blade Runner with a dash of old fashioned Detective noir.
I loved B movie royalty TIM THOMERSON (Dollman, Nemesis, Dollman vs Demonic Toys) as the tough no-nonsense old school cop from the neon-lit Los Angeles of future of 2247. Thomerson plays Jack Deth, a trooper/cop/bounty hunter from Angel City (the future Los Angeles) who specialises in tracking down & eliminating Trancers. The Trancers are humans overtaken by an evil force that turns them into zombie-like killers. Trancers are created by an evil cultist warlord criminal known as Whistler. Whistler uses his psychic powers to control the weak minded of people as his violent soldiers. Trooper Jack Deth has a history with his arch Nemesis who killed his wife some time ago & now Jack is gonna track down Whistler by going bk in time to 1980's Los Angeles. I loved the sci-fi fantasy story & Tim Thomerson is awesome as the old fashioned hard boiled Detective that feels like he's straight out of an old black & white noir B movie.
Tim Thomerson owns the role & is a B movie legend in his own right & is awesome on screen.
The time travel is done smart & fun with future cops being able to transport their consciousness into an old ancestor of the time period they want, the 80's.
There's some fun gags with the ancestor stuff.
The spunky fun Helen Hunt (Twister) is great fun as Jack's girlfriend named Helena, she's a cool, punky girl who likes the adventure of the situation & Hunt is great in her role & works wonderfully with Thomerson.
The two race around 1980's LA trying to stop assassinations & to stop Whistler's evil plans. The Beginning of the movie used the best practical FX of the whole movie with its neon-lit nighttime futuristic opening sequence in a diner, great scene & introduction to the world & its characters.
There's a dark, punk tech-noir mood to the film & it's low-budget helps it feel trashy & rough around the edges in a good fun way.
The Trancers are ok for what they are, humans that turn quickly into Demonic faced killers in a few seconds & die just like any human would.
This first film could also be classed as a "Xmas movie" as its set over Christmas time in Los Angeles. We get some fun Xmas action scenes but it always feels weird & outta place when Xmas is portrayed in sunny LA.
Anyway Trancers is good fun, not Brilliant but damn good.
Trancers probably did need more action & stuff but for its very low-budget Charles Band did what he could with what he had & it's a definitely fun.
I liked the performances of Tim Thomerson & Helen Hunt as they keep movie fun & there's some good action & a good pure 80's synthesiser score.
The film looks decent enough for its time, like 40 years ago, & i really liked the Trancers universe that's created & directed by Charles Band. Trancers maybe the best film directed by Band.
Trancers 2 is good fun as well.
I love cult films & B movies & this is a damn good one.
Sanctum (2011)
Rhys Wakefield is a Horrendous "Actor" & Ruined The Film.
I love deep cave exploring films & underwater adventure flicks, my favourite is THE CAVE (2005).
I had been wanting to see this for a while, but i didn't know the movie cast one of the most bland, typical, leads ever!!! Rhys Wakefield.
Rhys Wakefield is horrendous, he's such a bland & boring & so typical actor it's painful to watch.
These typical Australian "Actors" or leading men are so bad, so bland & so the same it's ruining movies.
If you're blonde, muscular & have "Surf" style pretty-boy looks then you are guaranteed a movie career & to be the new Hot leading man. Hollywood has a conveyerbelt for these typical actors, we had the horrendous SAM WORTHINGTON given the lead role in James Cameron's Avatar, Funny thing is James Cameron is producer for this film lol, & then he was hot (totally bland) for a bit. Same for the horrendous JAI COURTNEY who was given numerous lead roles (Terminator Genissys, Suicide Squad, Die Hard 4) & yet he is one of the worst actors in cinema history. Even Chris Hemsworth is made by the same Conveyerbelt, but he's proven he's a damn good actor that can do it all, i like Chris lots.
These blonde, bland & wooden, soulless "actors" from Australia are ruining most movies. Fact.
Anyway this film has some suspense scenes & stuff but the blandness of the actors make you not care at all if they survive.