Month: January 2024

Released: July 1985

Director: Richard Fleischer

Rated PG-13

Run Time: 89 Minutes

Distributor: Warner Bros.

Genre: Fantasy

Cast:
Arnold Schwarzenegger: Kalidor
Brigitte Nielson: Red Sonja
Sandahl Bergman: Queen Gedren
Ernie Reyes, Jr.: Prince Tarn
Paul Smith: Falcon
Ronald Lacey: Ikol

This may come as a huge shock to many of you, but I really like bad movies.  When you look at my movie collection, you might see that I have more bad movies than good ones, and you would probably be correct.  There is a word to use describe the bad movies that I love so much: Guilty pleasures.  But that begs the question: If I love these kinds of movies so much, should I really feel guilty about it?  Well, all I know is that I don’t feel guilty at all.  Especially when it comes to 80’s fantasy movies like Krull, Dragonslayer, or the Conan movies.  I LOVE that stuff.  I grew up on it.  The whole sword-and-sorcery aspect of the fantasy genre can be truly epic when it’s done right.  When it’s not, you end up with something like Red Sonja.  It’s widely regarded as one of the worst movies to come out of the 80’s, and for good reason.  Yet, for all it’s problems, I grew up loving it.  This movie is what I define as a “guilty pleasure.”

Red Sonja is set in the fictional age of Hyboria, same universe as Conan.  The film begins when a cult of priestesses are attempting to destroy the Talisman, an ancient object of immense power, before it destroys the world.  But, they’re interrupted when the evil queen Gedren shows up.  Most of the priestesses are slaughtered and the Talisman is stolen.  One priestess manages to get away, but is mortally wounded when a man named Kalidor finds her.  She tells him to find her sister, Sonja.  Sonja is found training with a master swordsman when she learns that her’s dying wish is that Sonja find and destroy the Talisman before it wreaks havoc across the land.  Along the way, she discovers that a young prince, Tarn and his guardian Falcon, are the only survivors of Gedren’s assault on their kingdom.  Believe it or not, Sonja’s story isn’t awful, but it does feel like there’s too much going on.  You’ve got Sonja, who is out for revenge against Gedren, who murdered her family.  You’ve got Kalidor, a lord whose duty was to see the Talisman destroyed.  You’ve got Gedren, who we learn literally next to nothing about except that she’s evil and power-hungry.  Gee, haven’t heard that one before.  There’s a lot going on, but there’s not enough information to really connect the audience with this world.  And at 90 minutes, there isn’t a whole lot of room for the characters to really develop.

The story itself really isn’t the biggest issue this movie’s got.  First of all, let’s talk about the casting.  I’ve yet to see a movie that is so miscast as this one.  The only one that manages to somewhat fit into this world is Arnold Schwarzenegger as Kalidor.  I think he knew he was going to be in a bad movie, so he had fun with it, and you can tell.  Sandahl Bergman, who had her breakout performance in Conan: The Barbarian as Valeria, doesn’t strike me as menacing as Gedren should be.  Gedren is a woman that should be incredibly intimidating, not just from a personality standpoint, but from a physicality level as well.  I just don’t believe Bergman as a sociopathic ruler.  I don’t necessarily think it’s HER fault, entirely.  Now, Ernie Reyes, Jr. as Prince Tarn:  Again, not his fault with what he was given.  His character was written as this spoiled, arrogant little brat that somehow manages to get the most character development in the movie.  That said, even as a youngster, Ernie could handle the physicality, as he’s a martial artist.  The real standout, in the wrong way, is of course, Brigitte Nielson as Sonja.  I get why she was hired.  She was tall and absolutely stunning.  But good god, she could not act.  Her performance was all over the place, and most of it was wooden.  Then it would go over-the-top.  I think she handled the physicality better than Bergman could, but Bergman was clearly the better performer.  Then you have character actors like Ronald Lacey and Pat Roach show up basically to collect a paycheck.

As far as the action goes, it’s pretty bog-standard when it comes to the sword-play.  It’s nothing that no one saw before, and some of the choreography is outright ridiculous.  Granted, Schwarzenegger handles it with ease, and to a certain extent, so does Nielson.  But you could absolutely tell that Sandahl Bergman was NOT comfortable wielding a sword of that size.  She didn’t really have the physical build for a weapon like that.  She would’ve been better off with a smaller sword like in Conan: The Barbarian.  For all the gripes that I have with Ernie Reyes’ performance, he could move, even at such an early age.  He would really come into his own in the 90s as a stuntman and martial arts actor.  It’s just a shame that he never really got the break that I think should have.  Red Sonja was definitely not the best start for his career.  The visual effects were mostly weak, except for the finale, which involved an exploding castle, which was pretty damn cool, as was the monster in the cave.  But some of the miniature work was weak.  We also never got to see the full extent of the Talisman’s power, just from a distance, and meh.  The set designs were pretty good, and the costumes were pretty interesting.  But the late Ennio Morricone’s rousing score was better than what this movie deserved.  The score was epic.

Red Sonja was based off of the Marvel character of the same name from 1973, which was partially inspired by Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories.  I’ve never read the comics, but I’m pretty sure that this movie really didn’t do them justice.  It’s hard to say what went wrong here.  The dialogue is awful, and the direction by Richard Fleischer was painfully inconsistent, which is weird, because I actually enjoyed Conan: The Destroyer, which came out the previous year.  This movie is a mess, but it’s a glorious mess that I honestly enjoy.  It’s not boring and it doesn’t really overstay its welcome at 90 minutes.  Let’s be honest here, I’ve seen much worse than this.  Arnold Schwarzenegger had gone on record saying that this movie was the worst that he’s ever made…and I can’t disagree.  It IS a bad movie, and certainly one of the worst fantasy films of the 80s.  BUT: I can’t bring myself to hate it.  I grew up as a kid watching it and being completely entertained by it.  I feel that this movie falls under the “so bad, it’s good” category.  I would love to see Shout Factory or Vinegar Syndrome pick up the rights to this movie and give us some new interviews about the film and the how’s and why’s of what went wrong.  Obviously, Richard Fleischer wouldn’t be a part of it because he passed away in 2006.  So, yeah, I’m still having fun with this gloriously bad movie from my childhood.

I realize that everybody else out there has done there own ranking systems on YouTube using Letterboxed, but I’m not going to do that, because I’m just too damned lazy.  Again, this is going to be another list, but this time, I’m going to narrow it down to franchise films.  To preface this, I want everyone to understand that with these rankings is that I feel that within certain franchises, there’s not really a bad movie.  There’s clearly ones that are better than others, but not all of them are awful.  I will be getting to those franchises, but for this one, I’ve chosen the Indiana Jones movies to be the first.  I’ve been a huge fan of the movies since I was a kid.  Harrison Ford as the whip-wielding archaeologist is one of his most memorable roles aside from Han Solo.  The movies were inspired the old-school adventure serials of the 20s and 30s.  Combined by stellar directing by Steven Spielberg, solid story-telling by George Lucas and an epic score by the brilliant John Williams, the Indiana Jones films are some of the most fun you’ll ever have at the movies.  For these rankings, I will go from best to worst, so let’s get started.

1. The Last Crusade

When I was thinking up this list, I was debating on putting Raiders of the Lost Ark at number one.  Most people would, it’s the first and the best of the bunch.  If I had made this last before 2018, Raiders absolutely would’ve been at number 1.  When my father passed away, I developed a more personal connection to the film, because the characters of Indy and his father, Henry Jones, Sr.  Let’s just say that I understand the…animosity between the two.  Ultimately, this is the most light-hearted of the bunch, but it’s also the most satisfying, at least for me.  This film also has a bit of an origin story for Indy, starring the late River Phoenix.

2. Raiders of the Lost Ark

Here at number 2 is what many consider to be the best of the bunch, and rightfully so.  This is an old-school adventure flick using old-school stunts, action sequences and effects.  What makes this stand out amongst its peers, even today, is it’s sheer sense of fun.  The introduction of Indiana Jones is one of the coolest moments in any movie, but the side-characters are also outstanding.  Indy’s chemistry with Karen Allen’s Marion Ravenwood is fantastic.  You’ve also got some really nasty villains with the Nazis played to perfection by Paul Freeman and Ronald Lacey.  The desert chase is one of the most iconic action set-pieces in the entire franchise.  If there’s a movie that truly defined the adventure genre, it’s Raiders of the Lost Ark.

3. The Temple of Doom

Temple of Doom is the Indiana Jones movie that I actually grew up watching the most.  This was my first foray into horror as a genre.  Now, technically it’s an action-adventure film, like the rest of the films in the series, but this was the darkest one of the bunch.  Child slavery, human sacrifice, voodoo.  Those aren’t exactly cheery ingredients in your run-of-the-mill adventure film.  This movie was a result of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg going through some tough break-ups and divorces.  Their mood was pretty dark, and the film reflects that.  The bugs still make my skin crawl(pun intended), but it’s the main villain that sends shivers down my spine: Mola Ram, played with menacing perfection by Indian actor Amrish Puri in his only Western-made movie.  Mola Ram’s scary as fuck.  This movie was controversial on a number of levels.  First, there accusation of cultural insensitivity in regards to the Hindu religion and what Indians ate.  The dinner sequence was pretty off-the-wall.  Secondly, this movie was very violent.  It depicted human sacrifice with Mola Ram ripping people’s hearts out and lowering them into lava pits.  It’s brutal.  It’s the reason why the PG-13 rating would be created.  Kate Capshaw’s Willie Scott irritated a lot of people including yours truly, but Ke Huy Quan’s Short Round was awesome in my opinion.  Quan recently received an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Everything Everywhere All At Once.  THIS is where he got his start.  When it comes to action, this has some of the most memorable action in any movie.  The mine-cart chase and the bridge fight, again, are truly iconic.  But as dark as this movie is tone-wise it still maintains a sense of humor and adventure throughout.

4. Dial of Destiny

The fifth and final entry in the Indiana Jones films to star Harrison Ford is also the first film in the franchise to not be directed by Steven Spielberg.  The wheel has been given to James Mangold, who directed Logan, the 3:10 to Yuma remake, and Cop Land.  For a final adventure, this was pretty decent.  It’s not ground-breaking and doesn’t even come close to the first three, but maybe that was the point.  At 2.5 hours, it’s the longest film in the bunch, but the pacing is surprisingly nimble.  The opening 20 minutes are pure Indiana Jones.  The film sees Indy taking on the Nazis again with Mads Mikkelson playing the main villain.  The film also sees the return of fan-favorite John Rhys-Davies as Sallah.  Phoebe Waller-Bridge plays Indy’s god-daughter…and I’m not a fan.  The actress does a fine job, but the character is incredibly unlikable.  Her side-kick though, is a hoot, and so is Antonio Banderas as Spain’s finest frogman, Renaldo.  This time the MacGuffin is Archimedes’ Antikythera dial.  Essentially, time travel’s involved.  But of course.  Still the movie feels more like an Indiana Jones movie than our final entry into this list.

5. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Crystal Skull’s placement on this list should come as no surprise to anyone.  Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the by far the weakest entry in the series.  Not just from a narrative standpoint, but also character, and visual effects as well.  The biggest issue with this movie that I have is there is no tension or fear of death for our heroes, which was extremely prevalent in the original 3 movies.  A lot of that comes down to the over-use of CGI.  The original 3 movies had to do it through miniatures and practical effects, but Crystal Skull eschews that for CGI.  To be fair, some of that CGI is impressive, but it’s also really obvious.  Because of that, the sense of danger isn’t there.  Not only that, the characters aren’t particularly memorable outside of Indy and Marion.  With all due respect to Cate Blanchett, the villains in this movie are some of the most stock and meme-worthy villains to ever threaten Indiana Jones, and quite frankly, they’re forgettable.  Is it really a bad movie, though?  I don’t think it is.  The idea of using aliens is not far-fetched for the film, because it was set in the 50s.  There was a lot of that stuff going on back then, especially in the cinema.  It’s a fun, inoffensive romp that never overstays its welcome, and it’s got some pretty decent action to boot.  Hell, it’s even got a decent sword-fight in there between Shia Lebouf and Cate Blanchett.  Harrison Ford and Karen Allen just knock it out of the park.

That’s it.  That’s my ranking of the Indiana Jones films.  I expect that we haven’t seen the last of this character in the movies.  Harrison Ford is done with the character, but someone else may end up taking up the whip and fedora in the future.  I don’t know who that’ll be, but they’re going to have some pretty big shoes to fill.  There’s a new game coming out for Xbox and PC called Indiana Jones and the Great Circle that looks like fun, so I’m sure that more adventures are to come.

Released: June 1989

Rated PG

Run Time: 107 Minutes

Director: William Shatner

Distributor: Paramount Pictures

Genre: Science Fiction

Cast:
William Shatner: Kirk
Leonard Nimoy: Spock
DeForest Kelley: McCoy
Laurence Luckinbill: Sybok
James Doohan: Scotty
George Takei: Sulu
Walter Koenig: Chekhov
Nichelle Nichols: U’hura

Star Trek is one of the longest-running franchises in the entertainment industry, spanning TV shows, movies, books, video games, and theme park attractions.  It’s a franchise that’s been widely regarded as a possible look into our future.  The original series from the 60s gave us a glimpse of what our future could be with an all-inclusive cast of characters that included African-Americans, Asians, Russians, and non-human crew members like the Vulcan, Spock.  It’s a very forward-thinking franchise that’s had a large number of successes across the decades.  The original series only lasted 3 season, but there were plans for a follow-up series called Phase II.  It didn’t work out, and when Star Wars hit the big screen in 1977, Paramount decided to respond with a movie of their own, which would end up being Star Trek: The Motion Picture, directed by Robert Wise and released in 1979.  The reception was mixed with some people praising the visual effects and outstanding music by Jerry Goldsmith, but others lambasted the film for its slow-pacing and bizarre story.  Myself, I love the movie.  It feels the most Star Trek of any of the movies, but that doesn’t make it the best one.  The movie would get a sequel for a much lower budget: The Wrath of Khan.  Thanks to director Nicholas Meyer, Star Trek II became a smash hit in 1982 and is regarded by many to be not only one of the best sequels of all time, but the best Star Trek movie of all time, and it’s really hard to argue that point.  Obviously, the success meant that Paramount wanted more movies, so we got The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home, and what most people think is the worst movie in the franchise, The Final Frontier.  Today, we are going to look at why the movie is hated by so many, and why I think it’s over-hated.

The film begins as Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are on shore leave at Yosemite National Park with Kirk climbing Mount Capitan.  During their camping trip, their leave is canceled because of an emergency situation on the planet of Nimbus III.  Representatives of the Federation, Klingon, and Romulan Empires have been captured by a renegade Vulcan named Sybok.  Sybok, as it turns out is Spock’s half-brother who decided that emotion was the key to self-knowledge, not logic.  After being betrayed by the representatives, who were…”brainwashed” by Sybok, he takes control of the Enterprise, and sets a course to the center of the galaxy, where he believes that God will be found.  The overall story here is a bit of a mess, if I’m being honest.  There’s some really interesting ideas here that don’t get fully fleshed out.  Shatner wanted to make a movie that was more akin to The Motion Picture, but with as much action as brains.  Paramount didn’t agree, so the script was forced to be re-written during production, which means there was a lot of inconsistency in the film.  Plot holes abound, and things felt stitched together.  The overall story was a narrative wreck.

On top of the lackluster storyline, the visual effects in the movie were incredibly poor.  Lame stop-motion animation and completely unfinished effects gave the film a ridiculously cheap look, despite impressive set and costume designs.  The painfully obvious blue-screen effects make you want to pour bleach into your eyes.  These were some of the worst visuals in a movie that really needed a bigger budget for.  Star Trek was also known for some its scientific accuracy in terms of theoretical ideas.  The whole “Great Barrier” sequence was odd, but to be fair to the film-makers at the time, we had no way of knowing what was at the center of the galaxy, so the Great Barrier was kind of interesting idea that looked silly as hell.  Obviously since then, we’ve learned that the center of the galaxy houses a massive black hole and millions of red giants and other massive stars.  Not exactly what I would call a vacation spot.  Also, there’s a scene where U’hura dances to distract Sybok’s henchman.  So stupid.  Oh, and I can’t forget “God.”  Oh, this was just badly executed.

Let’s talk about what DOES work.  First of all, the pacing is pretty fast, but that might be because of all the questionable edits.  Jerry Goldsmith returns to score the film with his legendary theme from the original film.  The music is too good for the movie, to be truthful, but you can never say that Jerry Goldsmith half-asses his work.  The other thing that really works here are the characters.  Most of them, anyway.  The movie focuses on our three main characters, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy and their relationship with each other.  It’s actually fairly well-written, despite a painful fart joke at the beginning of the movie, but you can definitely sense the comradery between the three, as they’ve been through a lot together.  We’re introduced to a new Vulcan, Sybok just before opening credits, but he’s revealed to be Spock’s half-brother, Sybok.  I really liked this character because while he’s the antagonist, he’s not a villain.  He’s not evil.  He’s driven by a single goal, knowledge.  But while he doesn’t want to hurt people to achieve his goal, he’s willing to cross some lines to get there, as a zealot would.  What makes him so interesting is not just his relationship with Spock, but his apparent ability to help people with their pain.  There’s a scene on the observation deck where Sybok wants to explore people’s pain.  We get to see a side of McCoy that we never have before, and DeForest Kelley gives one of his best performances in the entire franchise.  We also get to see some issues with Spock.  This scene is Star Trek at its best, it just should’ve been in a better movie.  That brings me to William Shatner as the director.  This was his feature film debut as a director, and you know what?  I thought his direction was really strong.  He brought out some excellent performances, including that of Laurence Luckinbill who played Sybok.  It’s just a damn shame that Paramount didn’t let him make the movie he wanted to make.

While a lot of people would place the blame at William Shatner’s feet, I feel that Paramount is mostly to blame here.  They saw the success of The Voyage Home and its sense of humor and they wanted more of that in The Final Frontier, which went against what Shatner was trying to accomplish.  They didn’t have faith in his ability to deliver a successful movie.  As I mentioned earlier, there were a lot of re-writes and re-shoots that ended up taking place that just made the film feel more disjointed and rushed.  Look, I’m not going to go out there and say that Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is some misunderstood masterpiece.  It’s not.  I wouldn’t even classify it as a good movie, but I feel that there’s stuff in here that’s really good and outshines a lot of what Paramount has produced over the years.  Of course, the film also had the misfortune of being released in 1989 against behemoths like Paramount’s own Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Tim Burton’s Batman.  There was NO conceivable way that Star Trek V was going to succeed during that summer.  Reactions from the critics and the negative word-of-mouth kept people.

Over the decades, there was this idea that the odd-numbered Trek films were the worst.  I’ve always felt that THAT idea was bullshit.  I loved the original movie, I even loved Star Trek III.  Well, guess what?  I actually enjoyed Star Trek V as well.  Maybe it’s because I’m a far more forgiving fan than most, but I’ve always felt that Star Trek V deserved another look.  I ruffled some feathers on social media when I said I actually prefer The Final Frontier to The Voyage Home.  I don’t mind humor in my Star Trek, but The Voyage Home was way too much of a comedy for me to handle.  Granted, it was successful and it brought in non-fans, but I didn’t particularly care for it.  Now, the original crew would get a proper send-off with The Undiscovered Country when Nicholas Meyer came back.  So…is Star Trek V the worst Star Trek movie?  No.  Generations is much worse.  That movie’s handling of Captain Kirk was SHAMEFUL.  Yeah, I guess I’m really in the minority on this one, but you know what?  I’m okay with that.  Come at me.

Of all the superheroes that have gotten movies over the past 50 years, the one that really got the short end of the stick was Todd McFarlane’s Spawn.  For those who may not be familiar with Spawn, the comics centered around a man named Al Simmons, a soldier that was betrayed by his employer and sent to Hell, where he makes a deal with the Devil so he can see his wife, Wanda, one last time.  After 5 years, he returns to Earth as a Hellspawn with barely a memory of who he used to be.  He encounters a former Hellspawn, Cogliostro, who tries to help him turn away from evil.  He also encounters a demonic Clown who can transform into the demon known as the Violator.  Spawn is one of the darker comic book “superheroes” out there.  His abilities include teleportation, wielding chains, immortality to a certain extent, and shapeshifting among other things, and that’s just the supernatural side of things.  When he was alive, Simmons was an expert marksman, martial artist, and former special forces operative.  The first Spawn comics were released in the early 90s, and were fairly well-received, just not by mainstream fans.

In 1997, New Line Cinema, in association with Todd McFarlane released a live-action film of the infamous character.  The reception to that movie was, shall we say, less than stellar.  Personally, I enjoyed it a lot.  It had a pretty solid cast which included John Leguizamo as Clown, Martin Sheen as Jason Wynn, and Nicole Williamson as Cogliostro.  Leguizamo and Sheen chewed the scenery like it was nobody’s business, and it was fun to watch.  Honestly, the real smart casting here was martial arts actor Michael Jai White as Al Simmons.  White had the charisma and physicality to match, which made him the perfect fit for the character.  The problem?  The script was awful and the CGI, especially during the Hell sequences was awful.  As a PG-13 movie, Spawn also suffered from not being able to have the dark and violent edge that made the comics so memorable.  There is certainly some inventiveness to the visual effects, and the actual Spawn suit is amazing.  I like what they did with it.  The movie bombed at the box office making only 88 million dollars on a 45 million dollar budget.  So, between the box office results and the negative reception to the movie, a sequel just wasn’t going to happen, at least not a direct sequel.

So, I said all that to bring THIS up: According to Superhero Hype, Todd McFarlane has announced that he’s going to try and make a new Spawn film, even without the aid of Hollywood studios.  Here’s the problem.  McFarlane’s been trying to get a new movie off the ground for over 20 years.  The disastrous release of the 1997 film has turned a lot of people away.  There have been a lot of different concepts of what the new movie would end up taking.  One would focus more on two detectives with Spawn being more of a background force than a main player.  The whole reason for making a movie about Spawn, is that we could see what he’s capable of on the big screen.  Todd McFarlane wants to make a new Spawn film.  Great.  Here’s the problem: McFarlane has NO experience directing a movie.  The only experience he has as a film-maker is in the writing department.  Even then, it’s a very short list.  He claims that he has investors willing to help fund his movie.  I can’t imagine any investor worth his/her salt that’s going to give an unproven film-maker enough money to resurrect a character that’s been abandoned in the film industry since 1997.  I don’t see it happening.  Now, making it a low-budget movie is a good idea, and Blumhouse Productions is the best bet for a film of this sort.  Their specialty is low-budget movies and they’ve done pretty well.  So, I hope that McFarlane and Blumhouse can really work it out, because I’m totally down for a new Spawn.  As for who would play Al Simmons: I don’t know if Jamie Foxx is still up for the role.  I would honestly like to see Michael Jai White get another shot at the character, despite White not really liking the movie that he was in.

Spawn 2 has had an incredibly rough time getting off the ground.  I’ll believe it when I see it.  It’s one of those projects that may never see the light of day.  Spawn also doesn’t have the kind of following that’s going to make it successful.  When most people think of Spawn, they think of either the 1997 movie or the animated HBO series that followed.  But the reputation of the 1997 movie is going to very hard to shake.  So, will another Spawn movie happen?  Honestly, I don’t know.  I wouldn’t put money on it, and it’s a shame.  Spawn is a very interesting character with some truly memorable villains.  But nobody wants this again: