dilapidated_mind Reviews

Terminator Salvation (2009)

Terminated

[5/10 · 4 June 2009]

I originally wasn't going to comment on this movie, but after seeing some of the higher ratings contained here, I feel that I have to. Saying that this is a good movie if you disregard "the reality" ala the previous movies in the franchise, is like saying AIDS would be amazing if it didn't kill you, hurt at all, and everybody won money afterwards. That is not "the reality" of the case, neither is it the reality for the movie, TS, whose sole purpose is to exist as just another example of the movie industry shitting all over a good franchise in the hope of making fast bucks.

This 'visual feast' of a movie left me with a crude case of indigestion, as I found myself shovelling through thick layers of cgi looking for traces of believable acting, a good plot and scenes with any real bite. Instead I was greeted with a dud missile, a shaky cam vision of a future that was complete with jocular references to previous titles, wannabe heroism, and a story which is thin, unfilling and exists only as a series of devices in order to lead to more; sweet, sweet cgi etc. etc.

Basically most cinema goers will know what they're in for (and can get the same from the new 'Transformers 2' a few weeks down the road). Is it a rolla' costa ride? Sure. Will you enjoy it? Maybe. Is it a movie that will bring you back once the nostalgia of a cinema viewing has gone? Negative.

Marketable; but in short, forgettable.

Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992)

nothing special

[3/10 · 20 February 2007]

Although I am a horror fan I didn't enjoy the first Children of the Corn film much, so my view might be a little biased. Although having said that the movie did have its good points, the children were good actors/actresses, the violence was realistic and in moments semi chilling. Unfortunately this sequel shares none of these traits.

*spoilers*

The first death scene is quite surprising, I mean the guys are killed by corn, well that is dodgy. In the Stephen King short story the corn was there to serve as the vector for the children's pagan blood lust. They were killing to make it grow, though it is fantasy/horror it makes more sense than killer corn leaves that can smash through glass by simply being blown in a gust of wind believe me. Not only that but this scene reminds me so much of The Omen it's unbelievable, and what's with the Friday the 13th sound effects and Predator visuals? Hell this monster in the corn even has Return of the Jedi force powers!

And what's with the old woman's demise, crushed to death by her own house? Now that is quite original, and when I was first told of this by my Cousin I pictured it vividly. Someone slowly being crushed under their own house, nobody finds the body, nobody even knows she's dead, until finally the smell of muddy hair, rotted flesh and mushed bones greet the next visitor on that hot summers morning.

Maybe I was putting too much thought into this segment because yet again this is a scene ruined by cheesy references to other films. The lady goes under her house after her precious cat. When she is directly in the centre the children surround it, take the cat out and release the device raising it from the ground. The house slowly starts to come down on her and she wiggles backwards trying to escape. The children just stand there trying to look creepy, she almost gets out, why aren't they kicking her to force her to crawl back under? In the original at least the kids were violent; in this they just try to be mysterious. Well luckily for them she is too old to escape certain death and the house reaches the ground level crushing her lifeless… and leaving her legs poking out from underneath. But even that isn't enough for the cheesily poor script writers, who wrote in that her last words should be "oh what a world!"? seriously they need to be slapped. All realism is thrown out the window at this point, that is if you hadn't done so already what with the Journalist mentioning in a almost tribute manner "Jones Town" just to be controversial (or maybe its just that all American news reporters are inconsiderate slimeballs) and the "killer predator in the corn" bull.

And how many times is the word "corn" used in this film anyway? Every time uttered its like a needle being drilled into my brain. Just stop already we get it.

The Dr who was being nice to the children earlier on in the film gets the worst death ever, and I mean worst, luckily he gets a lolly straight after. I wish I could tell you more but unfortunately I fell asleep, well it was 5am so it could have been that, but let's put it this way I'm an insomniac.

This film does have its good scenes, mainly when Danny is arguing with his dad, the teenage wit and angry demanding parent though stereotypical is realistic and at least gives the movie some sense of reality before it generates into the monomania of your average American teen horrorfest.

If you're a fan of the original maybe you should ignore my small analyses, it's possible you might like this. I mean the Freddy films became a bit silly, humorous, comic book and people still enjoyed them (I know I'm one of them) But the fact of the matter is, if your looking for a serious, creepy, dark horror film then your best bet is to stay away from this horrid sequel.

Arachnid (2001)

A fair review

[1/10 · 29 August 2006]

Arachnid is the sort of movie you stumble upon at 1am surfing the televisial graveyard slot looking for a movie that's so bad it's good. And once it ensnares you in it's clustered, tepid badly strung plot thread it injects you with mind numbing, paralysing venom

Plot:

Pilot crash lands on island. He spots an alien. Alien is killed by squiggly monder. Squiggly monster proceeds to attack him. Over 2 months pass. Some research team shows up to research into why the people are being attacked by spiders. They believe a new strain on spiders is on the island. Spiders eat the crew. One of the spiders is crew leaders father. Spiders are alien spiders...

If all this sounds messy to the point of damaging your immersion do not worry - The directors camera/microphone can be seen falling clearly into plain sightshortly after the crew lang anyway and it will continue to do so throughout the film.

If the script and directing are this lousy what a bad movie really needs is some truly horrific cheesy acting to back it Sadly all it can offer is mere below average underacting throughout. The numerous times characters in this film are unconcerned that a member of their team is dying maked you wonder if the entier cast is collectivly made up on sociopaths and serial killers. All of this would be bad enough. But wait, there's more, finally we get to the main featue - the spider.

I would advise you unlucky folks who have stayed the course to this point in the movie to have shots ready if you want to find any hope of appreciating this movie for the special effects. It is the most average, uninspired, run of the mill, dull, stock, witless example of cheap, flimsy cgi I have witnessed in a long time. It almost offers the torch to every other bad element in the movie and let's them shine by comparison.

Almost.

Sadly, the worst thing about this movie, as stated earlier, is that it is so mindnumbingly below average it doesn't even register at a level of bad that can be considered funny. And that really is bad.

Nothing here works or makes sense of any kind. When the creature is shot all the bullets bounce off with no effect whatsoever. Later, when the movie is nearing the close, the lead picks up a gun and before you can say curtains squeezes the trigger and gaining a critical hit with every last bullet entering producing spider gunk.

The redeeming factor? There isn't one.

Carmilla, the Lesbian Vampire (2004 Video)

Old guy vs Vampires and Zombies

[3/10 · 7 May 2005]

The above seemed a much more appropriate title when me and my suicidal underlings decided to watch this masterpiece of modern bullshit.

Erotic, scary, suspenseful, well thought out, these are all the things this film fails to be.

It is however incredibly funny. The slow sound effects and bad dubbing add to this to make one of the greatest comedies I have seen in recent years. And yet this film doesn't even offer and attempt at humor and that is one of the movies grand achievements, it becomes a comedy without even trying to amuse.

Throughout the film, an old guy who looks amazingly like Santa Claus goes around ploughing over zombies and smashing vampires into the ground. This made me fail to believe the films title, if this was vampires vs zombies why were vampires and zombies not fighting? Oh well, whatever, besides there were more flaws to this rental than the title.

Such as this one; there has been a virus sweeping through America creating zombie like beings who go around acting a lot like your average tourist. However there are only four zombies in the entire film. Another problem is besides one shop the entire set is deserted. Surely you'd see zombies roaming about in the woods or in the background a bit? It honestly seemed like they just drove around in a circle of forest over and over again since they didn't have a high enough budget to film in a wider location. It was that or the director didn't want to waste his precious time filming in different areas of wood. He was to busy sitting in a trailer jerking off to be bothered with such trivial matters.

Seemingly the director had so much fun doing this that he didn't have enough time to hire a big enough cast or even an editor. And so he told the eight members of the cast to dress up as different people and try not to act inconspicuous, whilst I assume he changed his name and began randomly snipping at the film reels "editing isn't a hard job anyway right?" The only reason this "movie" found it's way into our bag was because somehow we got it confused with Freddy vs Jason, strange how these things happen isn't it? And the only way we made it though the night was by strapping gas masks on and bolting them to our skulls to avoid the stink of this nauseating mess.

Oh yes we did laugh at the end, but I'm sure one does that a lot when he has lost his sanity...................

Thunderpants (2002)

The very definition of crap

[1/10 · 10 April 2005]

Oh god, I've seen some bad films in my time, butt no pun intended this is by far one of the smelliest.

The film focuses around an overweight child who constantly breaks wind, he eventually gets his dream to become an astronaut with the help of his goofy and annoying friend Rupert Grint. And thats it, the rest of this annoying film just focuses on toilet jokes. And I don't mean classy toilet jokes like Dumb and Dummer I mean stupid, unfunny, toilet jokes, like Thunderpants.

Every so often (literally every 6 seconds) the paragon of gluttony breaks wind. This is usually followed by a long pause; as if the cast are waiting for the audience to laugh, that laugh never comes. In fact after the first hellish 15 minutes of this tosh I could distinctly hear groaning coming from the back of the cinema, as the 219th fart in the film went off followed by the abnormally long pause for laughter. Some people would defend this film "its just a kids movie" they would say, this may be but I don't think the 30 children shuffling in their seats and whining to their parents about how much longer the movie was on for were entertained. One child even started crying "I'm bored, I'm bored" and burst into tears when the parents demanded him to stay and watch the rest of this sh*t. No, no he wasn't entertained. The only people who could enjoy this film and I mean REALLY enjoy are Harry Potter fanboys. They would only watch it for Rupert Grint though, marvelling at him and then make up some lie when the credits roll and say they liked it for the plot, the special effects or maybe even the music score. I truly believe if it was some other kid playing the part of the geeky kid and not Rupert nobody would like this film. Except the director, and maybe even he would be lying.

FEAR THIS FILM LIKE THE BUBONIC PLAGUE

Resident Evil (2002)

Resident evil?...more like Cube 3

[4/10 · 2 April 2005]

Where to start, I am a big fan of the Resident evil series (well the first 3 anyway) and once news reached my ears that they were making a movie of the first game I was pretty excited. But then I actually sat down to watch it, and to say the least was very disappointed with the out come.

BIG SPOILERS AHEAD

The film begins in an underground laboratory owned by the corporation Umbrealla inc. The lab is hidden deep within the basement of a mansion. Some asshole releases the virus the scientists are working on which can reanimate dead cells. The scientists get contaminated.

Now when I saw this I thought fine its not 100% accurate but hey it still has the potential to be a great movie.

NO

The computer within the lab goes psycho, sealing all the rooms off under quarantined regulations, then it begins wiping out all the scientists. Some woman wakes up who has lost all her memory. Deciding the time is right to go for a walk in the cold while wearing nothing but a highly revealing red dress she sets off on her journey, minuites later an army team burst through the windows and join her in her quest to do... not much. About 25 minutes further into the movie this team comes to a large hallway. The hallway leads to the computers core where they can shut it down. And low and behold the computer kills off 2/3 of the cast with its lasers faster than you can say "danger Will Robbinson danger" The survivors shut the computer down; zombies come out, and the team being of the greatest intellect decide the best way to execute the undead is by leg shots and shouting "Stop" a good 14 times. Team intelligence then decide they shouldn't have tried to switch the computer off, and so they switch the computer back on. Near the end of the film we are introduced to the ultimate biological weapon resembling a single licker, no I'm not kidding, they also incorectly name it a Hunter, where the hell is Tyrant you might ask? It's not as if it was an important part of the series, Tyrant virus and all. Our film draws to a close as the "ultimate killing machine" discovers its huge weakness it touches train tracks and promptly explodes.

*yawn*

The film has few plot twists which I wont spoil here. Most of the enemies from the series don't show up, in fact, the majority of the film concentrates on the evil computer not the creatures. Not even zombies.

This movie would have been much better if it WASN'T called Resident Evil, but something else, anything else. Really, it bears little relation to the video games anyway besides the virus's and corporation's name and I still feel this film was only called Resident Evil so Paul Anderson could sell his hand me down script and market it towards a wider crowd (maybe this could be attributed to Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within as well). The point is if this movie was called Cube 3 he could still get away with it. In fact this film probably is Cube 3, just named Resident Evil to attract fans of the series to watch this very average zombiefest.

Oh well it can't be as bad as Street Fighter the movie.

The Ninja Squad (1986)

This film hurt me

[1/10 · 20 March 2005]

The pain I endured during the viewing of this film was unbelievable. I didn't exactly have high hopes for this film, in fact I watched it merely because I was in need of a laugh. But unfortunately for me, my brain could not have sustained worse damage had I repeatedly ran head first into a brick wall.

SPOILERS AHEAD 70% OF THE FILM RUINED(not that there's a plot anyway)

A man named Billy has not been paying his rent. Enter the rockard African Americans with bad Australian dubbed voices who proceed to get there asses kicked by the mighty Billy. They go back to their boss and.... that's where my IQ dropped 24 points. Anyway, Billy's mother is eventually killed and his sister kidnapped, so he sets out on a journey to "revenge" his mothers death (no I am not joking he really does say that).

Most of the film concentrates on Billy randomly going to sites with bad guys and pointing a gun in different directions to shoot his load. These sessions are followed by large intervals of talking. The talking seems to go on for hours, which is probably thanks to the gut wrenching dubbing, the silly looking characters and the annoying music.

The other untimely classic character this film introduces is Gordon

Gordon, the ninja, is challenged by the mighty Ivan the red. Ivan wants to kill Gordon so he may be crowned as "The Ultimate Ninja". If Gordon refuses, Ivan will go on a ninja killing spree until Gordon changes his mind. Obviously Gordon, being the intelligent man that he is, refuses and Ivan proceeds to wipeout every last ninja from the face of the earth. One thing Ivan should have considered is how can the ninjas praise him as this grandmaster if they're all dead? But oh well, none of the other characters use there brain in this film why should he be any different?

The main thing I noted about the characters in this film was that every one of them, especially the ninjas, were so superbly trained. No matter how many times a character was shot, slashed or stabbed they just wouldn't bleed. No blood was spilt in this film whatsoever.

Another notable is how every ninja in this movie is a Badass White American. Every time one of the ninjas died they would pull the stupidest face ever before keeling over at a ludicrous speed which had me in fits of laughter. It actually kept me watching to see if the next ninja's death would be funnier than the last. But the repetitive Billy scenes just kept coming back over, and over, and over, and I've just had enough of typing now. I would say more about this disgrace to planet earth,but even thinking about this film for too long could cause irreparable brain damage.

Rhea Gall Force (1989 Video)

I expected so much

[17 March 2005]

I first heard of New Gall Force in 2001 when I saw a trailer for it. The trailer showed mechanoids fighting the human race, rockets and lasers were being fired everywhere as the screen fuzzed and exploded before my eyes. I just had to see this anime, I was really hyped up about it. 4 years later I stumbled upon it in my friends house, I immediately stole it and ran for the door. But unfortunately as I discovered later it was not worth the effort.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

New Gall Force is split up into 3 episodes Earth 1, Earth 2 and Earth 3. I decided I wouldn't rush the whole thing, so I watched an episode each night. The plot focuses around a group of soldiers who stay on earth after the human race has evacuated to mars, the squadron of hard asses (most of them female I might add) are left to battle against the MME (cyborgs who are trying to eradicate the human race) The MME are led by the super computer Gorn who has plans for the squadrons leader Sandy Newman. It turns out these plans are to make her float in the air a bit just before the computer decides to blow itself up. The squadron begin randomly firing at the base, it collapses, the narrator gives a big anime speech about life.

The end

And that's pretty much what happens over the span of two hours and forty five minuets, no that really is it. This anime was bad, really, really bad. Even though Earth 2 had its minor moments of excitement it still can't make up for the rest of the film. There are but few plot twists one of which explains that the MME were created by the human race. This didn't exactly have me slapping my face in disbelief since every fan of anime, no wait every human being will figure this out even before watching this film.

In short this was a really badly animated film with scenes that seem to last hours. Characters just standing, staring at each other and mumbling on about nothing, and the constant repeat of the phrase "enough talk we need action" before more talking entails is enough to put you into a deep deep coma. Another problem with New Gall Force is that the characters change their personality completely every episode. This is more apparent with the main character Sandy Newman who in Earth 1 is a rough tough get in my way and your dead warrior, then in Earth 2 she suddenly becomes a hyper innocent little girl, who wants everyone to share and care. The voice acting is terrible; most animes suffer from this problem and I try not to degrade them because of it, but the voice acting on New Gall Force is so shamefully bad It will actually give viewers severe headaches. One woman in particular sounds like something crawled down her throat and slowly died there. Corners are cut everywhere, I actually think they ran out of money towards the end because the credits are slowed down for earth 2 and 3 so much that they fill 1/4 of the episodes.

The human mind can only take so much, and no I don't mean excitement.