Category: Reviews

Released: June 2019

Director: Simon Kingberg

Rated PG-13

Run Time: 113 Minutes

Distributor: 20th Century Fox

Genre: Action/Science Fiction

Cast:
James McAvoy: Professor Charles Xavier
Michael Fassbender: Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto
Jennifer Lawrence: Raven/Mystique
Nicholas Hoult: Hank McCoy/Beast
Sophie Turner: Jean Grey/Phoenix
Tye Sheridan: Scott Summers/Cyclops
Alexandra Shipp: Ororo Munroe/Storm
Evan Peters: Peter Maximoff/Quicksilver
Kodi Smit-McPhee: Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler
Jessica Chastain: Vuk

2019 will be remembered as the year when things came to an end, at least in film and television.  This year, we saw the conclusion of the current iteration of the MCU with Avengers: Endgame.  We also saw the end of the epic HBO series, Game of Thrones.  Other film series are also coming to an end.  Star Wars will see the final chapter in the Skywalker sage come to a close in December with The Rise of Skywalker.  The final film in the Rambo films will debut in September with Last Blood.  Some of these franchises have survived for decades.  One of my favorite film franchises in the past 20 years has been X-Men.  I’ve been watching these films since the original film in 2000.  It’s a franchise that’s seen its fair share of ups and downs, just like any film series.  I’ve been a huge fan of the rebooted films since First Class.  Days of Future Past was a fantastic entry that combined both generations of films, but things started on a downward spiral with X-Men Apocalypse.  Well, we now have the final film in the rebooted series: Dark Phoenix.  Does the film bring the current iteration of the franchise to a solid and satisfying conclusion?  In short……..no.  Not even close.

The opening of the film sees young Jean Grey with her parents as she inadvertently causes an accident that ends up with the death of her mother.  Professor Charles Xavier takes her to his school so she can be safe and learn to control her power.  In 1992, a space shuttle is launched but encounters a mysterious cloud of energy, so the X-Men are called in to help deal with the situation.  They succeed in saving the crew of the shuttle, but only because Jean Grey is using her power to hold the craft together when the energy cloud hits her full force.  She awakens at the school with little memory of what happened, but soon she begins to manifest a new kind of power which brings the unwanted attention of otherworldly visitors.  This isn’t the first time that film-makers tried to bring the Dark Phoenix story-line to the big screen.  It was last attempted 12 years ago with X-Men: The Last Stand.  How did they manage to screw up that story-line TWICE?  I’ll tell you how:  By handing directing, writing, and producing responsibilities to Simon Kinberg, who wrote the story for The Last Stand, funnily enough.  The decision give a film of this size to an untested director was an extremely bad move.  They couldn’t give it to Brian Singer, who has been dealing with….legal issues, but they couldn’t be bothered to give it to the guy that directed First Class?  Dark Phoenix is one of the most poorly thought out and executed films I’ve seen in a long time, and with this being the last film in such an iconic franchise, it feels like I got slapped in the face with a cold, wet fish.  There are continuity issues abound.  We first saw the Phoenix manifest itself in Jean Grey in the previous film, but why was that never mentioned again?  The subplot with aliens coming after Jean for her power seems very tacked on and pointless.  The whole thing feels poorly put together.

The bad writing goes far beyond the main story-line.  All the characters in Dark Phoenix are conspicuously one-dimensional, which bugs the hell out of me, because these characters are some of my favorites in the series.  I don’t know how Kinberg managed to do it, but he managed to make me hate Professor X.  I’m not lying.  The character is a goddamned jack-ass in this film and his motivations for doing what he did to Jean are completely illogical.  What’s worse, is that they pulled the same crap in The Last Stand.  They made the character unlikable in that one too.  Jean Grey doesn’t do much beyond complaining that she can’t control her power.  Everyone else is pretty much pushed to the side and not given a whole to do.  The villains in the film are easily the worst I’ve seen in a comic book movie.  Marvel’s MCU may not have had the greatest villain line-up, but they were at the very least entertaining and more than one-dimensional.  Here?  Aliens.  In the comics and the animated series, the X-Men have come up against multiple alien races over the years, but those races were at least interesting.  Here, they are nothing more than one-note shape-shifting baddies with a predictable motivation:  World domination.  SERIOUSLY?!?!  Magneto, in the previous films and mediums, at least had a legitimate reason for doing what he did, but these aliens?  You could swap them out with a bunch of power-hungry Russians and the results would still be the same.  The acting is what kind of saves the movie for me.  For as much as I dislike Professor X in this film, James McAvoy nails it again, as does Michael Fassbender.  I’ve actually liked Sophie Turner’s….turn as Jean Grey and she still does a pretty decent job here.

The estimated budget for this film is said to be around $200,000,000.  Why the hell doesn’t it look like it?  I’ve noticed that since First Class, some of the make-up effects and CGI have gotten worse.  Look at Mystique, for example.  Compare the make-up on her character to that of Rebecca Romijn in the original X-Men trilogy?  The difference is night and day.  The actual outfits that the heroes wear are also ridiculously cheap-looking.  The CGI in certain parts of the film, especially on the train sequence at the end are laughably bad.  Some of them are even worse than in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  Yeah, I said it.  This is the worst-looking X-Men I’ve ever seen.  Action-wise, it’s clear to me that Simon Kinberg had no clue what he was doing.  The cinematography is all sorts of wrong, the framing is off, and there’s a bunch of shaky-cam during certain scenes that really feel out-of-place.  The worst sin that this movie committed, though, was that it was boring.  For a film that doesn’t even run two hours, it felt like twice that.  The musical score by Hans Zimmer is pretty damned good, though.

Apparently, there were a lot of extensive re-shoots in the film, especially the third act, because it felt too much like another Marvel film.  Honestly, this film needed more re-writes and a better director.  I can forgive X-Men: The Last Stand for having a lackluster story, because it still ended up being a fun action flick.  I could even forgive X-Men Origins: Wolverine for being too ambitious and failing.  It least it tried and I can respect that.  Dark Phoenix doesn’t even try to rise above the banality of its own generic story, and that’s what the whole movie is:  Generic.  The Dark Phoenix story-line deserves better than what it got here.  With Disney in full control of the property now, maybe something can happen, but it’s going to be a while before we see another X-Men.  It’s just as well.  I hate to come down so hard on a film that I wanted to like so much, but I have to be honest: Dark Phoenix is NOT a good movie.  I’ve heard people saying that Phoenix is the worst X-Men film yet, I would agree.  I honestly hope that maybe we get an alternative version of the film like we got with Days of Future Past, because this version of Dark Phoenix is one that shouldn’t have risen from the ashes.

My Final Recommendation: 4/10

Released: June 2018

Director: Mercedes Bryce Morgan

Run Time: 104 Minutes

Not Rated

Distributor: MGM/UA Studios

Genre: Science Fiction

Cast:
Ellie Gall: Catherine Langford
Connor Trinneer: Professor Paul Langford
Aylam Orian: Dr. Wilhelm Brucke
Philip Alexander: Captain James Beal
Shvan Aladdin: Wasif

I’m a huge fan of science fiction, be it comics, video games, movies or television.  There’s just something absolutely incredible about the genre that sets my imagination on fire.  Whether it’s Star Trek, Star Wars, or 2001: A Space Odyssey, these films offer a unique glimpse into the ideas and imaginations of the people that make them.  2001 is by far my favorite science fiction film of all time.  It’s taken me some years to realize, but hey, better late than never, right?  I love smart science fiction in particular like 2001, Annihilation, and Arrival.  These are amazing examples of smart science fiction.  That being said, I also enjoy some really silly science fiction like Armageddon, Independence Day, and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai.  They don’t necessarily have to be smart to be entertaining.  One of my favorite pop-corn sci-fi movies during the 90’s was a little flick called Stargate starring Kurt Russell and James Spader.  Goofy as hell, but it had some really interesting ideas with some pretty good visual effects and some pretty clever dialogue.  It was a lot of fun.  The film ultimately inspired a television show, SG-1, which would run for almost 10 seasons, with two live-action spin-off series, Atlantis and Universe.  There were also a number of direct-to-video movies that were half-way decent.  So, imagine my surprise when I look on Amazon Prime for something to watch, and I come across this little title called Stargate Origins: Catherine.  I had literally never heard of this one before, and very few science fiction movies go under the radar.  There’s a reason for that.  Origins is complete horseshit.

This “film”/miniseries takes place 10 years after the opening scene in the original film.  It follows Professor Paul Langford and his daughter Catherine as they study the circular object that they discovered in 1928, the Stargate.  It seems that they are not the only ones interested in the object as the Nazis, led by Dr. Wilhelm Brucke, show up with the intention to use it to find some kind of super-weapon that Hitler can use.  What the hell is this?!  Seriously.  Who is the fucking idiot responsible for green-lighting this?  Who thought it was a good idea to explore the time between the opening 1928 scene in the film and the 1994 period?  It wasn’t something that people were asking for let alone needed to know.  So, the Stargate was discovered in Giza in 1928, and then the film cuts to 1994.  It seemed pretty straight-forward to me.  Oh, and bringing in the Nazis, because why?  I know they’re the go-to bad guys for movies that take place in the 30s, but you could be a little less obvious about it.  The story is incredibly idiotic that features Ellie Gall’s character basically doing the exact same thing that Spader’s character did in the movie.  There’s also this other subplot of Aset who has this “forbidden” child that absolutely goes nowhere.  This film is full of poor plots and ding-dong ideas that thankfully don’t go anywhere.

If the story wasn’t bad enough, it gets worse.  The acting in this…this…thing is beyond abominable.  It is that bad.  I’ve seen a lot of direct-to-video movies that have some pretty horrendous acting, but none of that compares to this drivel.  The Nazi characters are so over-the-top, they’re cartoonish.  Nazis were a lot of things, but cartoonish really wasn’t one of them.  They were truly evil in every sense of the word.  But these characters are so over-the-top and hammy, you can’t take them seriously as a threat.  Let’s also talk about the “alien” villains.  The performances with these characters make you want to punch baby Jesus, or in this case, baby Tut.  Honestly, the only ones that manage to salvage ANY kind of dignity are Ellie Gall as Catherine and Conner Trinneer as her father.  Most people will recognize Conner Trinneer as Trip from Star Trek: Enterprise.  He’s not actually that bad here.  But honestly, not even him nor Ellie could withstand the dreadful dialogue.  It’s worse than Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.  Yeah, I said it.  This whole project was clearly written by people who didn’t bother taking a class in high school or college.  It’s beyond amateurish.

The visual effects for the original film were pretty good for the time, and they still hold up fairly well.  Even SG-1 had some really solid visual effects.  Here?  It’s obvious the visual effects were NOT in the budget.  The actual Stargate effect is an extremely cheap knock-off of what they did in the main film.  Not only that, they had the audacity to use parts of the actual opening scene for this film, and cut just before we actually see Professor Langford’s face.  I understand the low-budget nature of films like this, and you have to get creative with how you approach visual effects and writing, but this was just god-awful.  I’m amazed they actually got blanks to use for the guns they used in the film.  The action sequences are high-school level of dreadful.  No, scratch that, I remember doing better action sequences for my film class in junior high.  Poorly choreographed, unconvincing and incredibly boring.  What else is boring?  The costume designs and make-up.  Holy shit.  A drunk cheerleader could do better make-up than what we see here.  The costumes and sets are equally bland.  I understand that the budget for Origins was pretty small, but that’s no excuse for hiring people that really don’t have a fucking clue about what makes Stargate so interesting.  The inconsistencies, the continuity errors, and overall complete lack of effort by nearly everybody involved, basically makes this a piss-poor fan film.  I’ve seen some fan films that are really good, but this wouldn’t be one of them.

Stargate is one of my favorite action films ever, and that’s because there was a ton of effort put into it.  From the set designs, which were epic to the action sequences that were inventive and the acting which was superb.  Even the smaller details like the particular dialect of the ancient Egyptian language being spoken was incredible.  The series that followed expanded on the mythology to a degree that we haven’t really seen since.  Do we get any of that here?  No.  What we get is a dry, barren, sand-heap of a film/series that really has no reason to exist.  There are very few movies and TV shows out there that can truly piss me off.  Stargate Origins managed to do just that.  It’s lifeless, dull, and quite frankly, a complete waste of fucking time.  Don’t bother.  Leave this one buried in the sand where it belongs.  This is probably the worst thing I’ve ever seen.

My Final Recommendation: It is scientifically proven that Stargate Origins fucking sucks.  .5/10

Released: May 2019

Director: Jesse V. Johnson

Not Rated

Run Time: 90 Minutes

Genre: Action/Crime

Cast:
Scott Adkins: Cain Burgess
Craig Fairbrass: Lincoln Burgess
Thomas Turgoose: Tune
Nick Moran: Hyde
Kiersten Wareing: Bez
Louis Mandylor: Detective O’Hara

Can someone explain something to me?  How is it that modern big-budget action films are no where near as good as their low-budget indie brethren?  Has Hollywood lost touch with the genre?  I think it has.  Back in the days before CGI took over everything, the only way you could stunts and fights to really work on screen was to actually do them.  Indiana Jones, Star Wars(original trilogy pre-Special Edition), Aliens, Commando.  These films had to rely on tried and true methods that involved blood, sweat and tears, often literally.  The difference between action films of today and yesteryear is literally night and day.  These days, studios and film-makers rely on computers and digital trickery to do the work of folks who literally put their lives on the line for our entertainment.  The indie film scene, however, has taken a…mostly old-school approach to action, almost by necessity as it were.  Film-makers like Jino Kang, Isaac Florentine, and Jesse V. Johnson often rely on a what-you-see-is-what-you get tactic.  Basically, if it can be done in camera, then that’s exactly what you will see.  CGI is kept to a very bare minimum.  Speaking of Jesse V. Johnson, he just released a new action thriller called Avengement.  Let’s have a gander, shall we?

Cain Burgess is a low-level thug trying get back in the good graces of the crime organization that hired him.  He had botched a job earlier and he has one more chance to prove himself, only to end up spending 7 years in prison, being attacked by inmates left and right.  Forced to adopt a form of savagery in order to survive, Cain escapes from prison to hunt down the people who screwed him over.  That’s pretty much the gist of the story.  As I have said before, sometimes the simple approach is the best option.  You don’t have any major twists or turns to get in the way of what you’re seeing, so any surprises you might have feel natural and earned.  Like Accident Man, The Debt Collector, and Savage Dog, Avengement tells a simple, yet very compelling story that focuses on the characters.  Most big-budget action movies seem to forget this aspect and it tends to stand out like a sore thumb.  Here, though, the story hinges on the characters and the choices they make, and it sets up a very intense and bone-crunching thrill-ride.  I really have to give Jesse V. Johnson some serious credit.  Not only has he managed to deliver several really good action movies with substance in the last couple of years, he does it with style.

The acting in this film is fantastic, but it is Scott Adkins that steals the show.  I’ve always been a big fan of Scott’s.  Usually it’s because of his incredible physicality and his ability to do crazy flips and wild martial arts moves.  He’s an amazing martial artist, but what I really like about the work he does for Mr. Johnson, is the fact that he’s given more room to expand as an actor.  In Accident Man and The Debt Collector, we got to see a more humorous side to the actor that we usually don’t see.  Even his turn as Boyka in the Undisputed films had more nuance and intensity than we see out of most martial arts actors.  Scott’s turn as Cain may just be a career best.  Cain is one scary dude, and Johnson basically lets Scott off the leash and as a result, Mr. Adkins delivers one of the most insane and frenetic performances I’ve ever seen.  Yet, despite the absolute savagery that Scott delivers, there are smaller and more emotional moments that Scott has when his character talks to his mother.  These are wonderful moments that give Cain a more human touch.  Craig Fairbrass plays Cain’s older brother, Lincoln, the head of the crime organization.  Craig’s character doesn’t come across as your typical slimy villain.  This is a 3-dimensional character that while not a good guy, is still human.  So, overall, the acting is pretty good.

When it comes to action in films like Avengement, it’s important for everyone involved to understand how a film like this should be framed, shot and edited.  You really get a grasp of how a film like this should be made when you watch movies from directors like Chad Stahelski(The John Wick films), Isaac Florentine(Ninja, Undisputed sequels), and Jesse V. Johnson.  These guys basically started out in the stunt side of the industry.  Because of that experience, they have a much better grasp of how fight sequences and stunts are coordinated, as well as camera placement and lighting.  They want the audience to get the best possible view, so when a stunt man/coordinator gets in the director’s chair, they know how to make it work from a visual standpoint.  Jesse V. Johnson’s approach to action is far more grounded in reality than most.  You don’t see wires or CGI squibs, but you do get to see people actually get thrown through walls and windows.  Avengement has some of the most vicious and brutal action I’ve seen in years.  Instead of seeing Scott display acrobatic skills, the fights are far more meaty and more like brawls.  It’s wonderfully chaotic, and Johnson doesn’t shy away from the violence.  People get wrecked in this movie, including Cain.  The fight choreography also comes courtesy of one Luke LaFontaine.  It’s not flashy, it’s brutal, messy, and the film’s all the better for it.

I don’t know how Jesse V. Johnson does it.  He’s managed to release more than 5 movies in the last two years and they’re all good.  There aren’t a whole lot of big-budget triple-A film-makers that can say that.  Obviously, he’s doing something right, because I’ve been a fan of his films since Savage Dog.  Johnson’s got two more movies on the way, although I expect that number to increase as the year goes on, he’s so busy.  Scott Adkins has become one of my all-time favorite martial arts actors.  Not only does he have amazing screen-presence, he’s become a much better actor in the past few years.  On the one hand, I would love to see him get a big break in Hollywood, but at the same time, I don’t think it would feel right.  Same thing goes for Jesse V. Johnson, I feel that he would be constrained by the Hollywood system.  I’m absolutely okay with with supporting these guys as indie film-makers.  That’s why, along with Scott, I want people to watch these films legally and not pirate them.  We should be so lucky to get movies like Avengement in spite of a system that screams for bigger and louder movies, when the best ones are smaller and pack more of a punch.  Are there any negatives with Avengement?  Not that I can see.  It’s well-paced and it’s well-written.  Is it better than Triple Threat?  I honestly wouldn’t compare the two.  They’re two very different kinds of action films.  Why not love both?  So, do I recommend Avengment?  Hell, yes, I do!  This is a savage, bone-crunching thrill ride that won’t let you down.

My Final Recommendation:  Somebody give Cain a Snickers, maybe he’s just hungry.  10/10.

Released: August 1991

Director: Lucas Lowe

Rated R

Run Time: 99 Minutes

Distributor: Imperial Entertainment

Genre: Action/Martial Arts

Cast:
Loren Avedon: Jake Donahue
Richard Jaeckal: Captain O’Day
Don Stroud: Anderson
Billy Blanks: Khan
Sherrie Rose: Molly
Keith Cooke: Prang

Anybody who knows me will know that I love an awesome action flick.  Whether it’s Terminator, Enter The Dragon, or Die Hard, I’m a sucker for hard-hitting action.  Action movies have changed and evolved over the years.  Martial arts movies in particular have gotten progressively more impressive in terms of fight choreography, acting, and story-telling.  The 90s was a particularly interesting decade for the genre, though.  There were a lot of great big-budget action flicks throughout the decade, but some of the more memorable films either got smaller releases or managed to not get theatrically released at all.  Now, some of the lesser known action movies that were released during the 90s included films like Perfect Weapon, Double Impact, and Showdown in Little Tokyo.  There was a very little known action flick during that time called The King of the Kickboxers that I thought I liked when I was a kid, but as an adult, not so much.

The film begins as a kickboxing champion and his brother, Jake, are brutally attacked by a ruthless martial artist named Khan(KHAAAAAN!…..sorry, I had to.), leaving Jake’s brother dead.  Ten years later, Jake is an undercover cop when he’s given an assignment in Thailand to investigate a slew of illegal movies being that involve actual people being killed.  Reluctant to take on the assignment, Jake discovers that one of the “actors” is the guy who murdered his brother(KHAAAAAN!!).  Discovering that he is out of his league when it comes to….Khan(yeah, not doing it again.), he is pointed in the direction of Prang, an expert fighter who survived his encounter with Khan.  This kind of story is part and parcel for this kind of low-budget action flick during the early 90s.  In the hands of better film-makers, it could have worked better, but it really didn’t work here.  This is about as “by-the-numbers” martial arts flick as you can get: Hero loses loved one at an early age.  Hero grows up to be a gruff and gritty cop.  Hero discovers Villain who killed said loved one is still alive.  Hero goes to train.  Damsel is captured and is in distress.  Mentor is killed.  Hero fights Villain.  Hero wins.  Villain dies.  Things blow up.  The end.  That might sound cynical, but that’s really how it was in a lot of films that came out during that decade.  Again, had it been directed by somebody like say…Sheldon Lettich or Mark DiSalle at the time, The King of the Kickboxers might have been better than it actually was.

The acting.  Oh, god, the acting.  It’s bad.  Really, really, bad.  I mean, look at that clip.  I’m not placing the entire blame on the cast here, but they went so overboard with the acting, it’s hilarious.  Loren Avedon is a fantastic martial artist and he’s done some decent action flicks, but an Oscar-winner he is not.  Nobody in the cast is.  I will say this for Billy Blanks, though.  He’s got some serious presence and is also an excellent martial artist.  If you don’t know who Billy Blanks is, think Tae-Bo.  I’ve seen his stuff before and he was very impressive during the 90s.  Keith Cooke is the only who seems to be in on the joke as Prang, but he’s clearly having a blast.  Sherrie Rose plays Molly, but is nothing more than eye-candy and a love interest for Loren’s character.  What about the fight scenes?  They aren’t terrible, but the camera-work is awful.  Prang’s fight with the thugs at his hut is one of the highlights of the film.  The fight between Jake and Khan at the end of the film is also pretty decent, but it isn’t helped by the atrocious acting and direction.

The writing by Keith W. Strandberg is awful, as you can imagine.  The dialogue is unbelievable.  Not only that, the dubbing is painfully obvious and horrendous.  I love B movies as much as the next guy, but King of the Kickboxers is just too awful for me to handle.  I think the only way you could really enjoy this movie is by turning it into a drinking game.  Seriously, grab your buddies and have a drink every time one of the actors screams or makes ridiculous faces……on second thought, don’t.  I don’t want to think that I would be responsible for one of my readers getting alcohol poisoning because I suggested such a thing.  The cinematography is garbage and the sets and costume designs are ludicrous.  Aside from some of the fight scenes, is there really anything good about this movie?  No.  I can’t even imagine why I loved this movie as a kid.  I hadn’t seen it in over 25 years, but that was because I couldn’t find it anywhere.  I think there’s a reason for that.  It’s not worth finding.  It’s on Amazon Prime Video right now, but watch the credits.  There’s a subtitle basically describing it as a DVD rip.  Basically, they are playing a pirated copy of the film, which has been out of print, so legally speaking, it’s a bit of a gray area.  Still, I would avoid it.  There are better Billy Blanks and Loren Avedon movies out there, if you happen to be a fan of those actors.

My Final Recommendation: KHAAAAAAAANNN! 4/10.