MONSTERS (2010) Movie Review

MONSTERS (2010)

Review by Michael Montenegro

I recently watched MONSTERS as an early release on my FiOS Video on Demand; it's USA theatrical release is scheduled for October 29th. I went in to watching this movie with moderately high expectations since they are marketing this movie as "2010's DISTRICT 9".

However, let me be the one to burst that bubble! In order for that comparison to be accurate DISTRICT 9 would need to remove 95% of their alien scenes, have the lowest common denominator plot devices and turn out to be a love story masquerading as a "monster" movie.

MONSTERS' premise is that 6 years ago NASA found the possibility of intelligent alien life in our solar system. They launched a probe and instead of landing safely it crashed in the middle of Mexico and the region was quickly inhabited and over run with "strange creatures." The area was walled off and became the Infected Zone, with sections of Mexico (and presumably America) bordering the Infected Zone constantly under attack from said creatures.

Now that sounds like a great idea for a movie about giant monsters! Sadly this is NOT a movie about giant monsters, it's a love story?! That's right, I watched and waited patiently for my big pay-off alien showdown and all I got was two of the most flat and uninteresting characters trekking across Mexico together and falling in love at the end. The offending characters are Andrew Kaulder, a photographer for a major US publication and Samantha Wynden, the "runaway bride" daughter of the publisher of said publication.





Samantha is caught in and slightly injured in an altercation between military forces and a wandering creature near her hotel in Mexico, where she is hiding out from her father and fiancee. Apparently her emotions around getting married are so confusing she runs to creature-infested Mexico presumably on daddy's dime to think things over. Really?! Not some tranquil far away European nation or some private island that fits your characters' background? Nope she picks the most ghetto areas of Mexico where alien encounters and devastation run rampant.

Enter our photographer Andrew, who is tasked by daddy dearest to find and bring his daughter back safely to the US. He's hesitant at first since leaving the area to escort "Ms. Whiny rich girl with problems" home will likely derail his opportunity to get some real shots of these creatures, which is his job and the whole reason he's stationed down there in the first place. But after a somewhat "stern talking to" over the pay phone from daddy he agrees to get her to the harbor and on the last ships to the states.

Arriving at the harbor they find there's only one company selling tickets for the last ship out and of course the price of admission is a steep one. They negotiate a little and get two tickets on the ferry leaving at 7am the following day. So what better to spend the night before your last shot of leaving the area for 6 months then shack up in a shady flee-bag motel and go out drinking like it's Cinco De Mayo!





We all know drinking leads to feelings and a "connection" but it doesn't lead to anything physical with unattached to Whiny rich girl so Andrew, being a guy, finds a local lady to end his night. The next morning Samantha, upon discovering Andrew's passed out bed mate, runs away upset and Andrew gives chase in his boxers to "apologize?"

If you're confused by this don't worry, it's natural. So of course after working this apparent "tiff" out Andrew returns to find... the tickets and their passports have been seemingly stolen by his now absent lady of the night. Oh no!! Who could have foreseen such a plot twist?! Oh right anyone who has half a brain and knows the movie isn't even halfway over and they haven't entered the Infected Zone yet!

They try to reason with the uncaring ticket guy who simply explains the price has now doubled! How could they possibly afford double... if only one of them had a super rich and connected father... but that only happens in the movies! So the the only option left is to go through the Infected Zone with "Mercs-for hire" and to cover the cost our heroine hands over her diamond engagement ring. Gasp!

Well at least now I'll get to see the creatures attack people and run amok right?! Wrong! Our intrepid duo navigate the Infected Zone with their "guides" coming to rest for the night and hearing stories told around campfire of why the area is refereed to as Infected. Turns out the creatures mate and the female lays her eggs in the form of glowing toadstool growths on tree trunks all over the jungle.





The group's night is interrupted by a radio squawk of an obvious attack in the area. As they try to escape the danger the first truck out of the two is picked up by some dark tentacles and dropped. Gunfire and screaming ensues and through a broken and flipped over truck window we see our first real, all be it quick, glimpse of the creatures. Back lit only by the moon we see basically a big Octopus on what appears to be stilt like legs, yep... that's all these new breed of Monster movie makers can imagine for us.

So now alone Andrew and Samantha push on toward the "promised land" of America. They reach a very old temple and climb to the summit and look out across the jungle and see a massive wall signaling the border of Mexico and America. The scene, which could have had a really interesting effect, is ruined by the next few pieces of dialogue in which, with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the head, drives home the point that America is something we take for granted while inside and how it's so different looking at her from the outside in.

Wow! So on top of a love story it's also addressing the issue of illegal immigration! What can't this movie do... oh right, show me Giant Monsters being Giant Monsters!

Thankfully we're reaching the end of this dribble. So as our couple reach the seemingly deserted and abandoned border wall, seeing only emptiness and hurricane like destruction, it appears all is not safe in America. They wander into the night finally finding a run down yet still functioning gas station equipped with lights and a working phone and pay phone. They quickly call the 911 and are told to stay put and a military unit is in the area and en-route to pick them up.





Now this has promise, our heroes are alone in the dark, the military is on the way and all signs point to a nice decent action sequence to close out the movie. Again Wrong!

What we see on the final moments of MONSTERS is not one but two creatures, again back lit by sporadic lightning flashes, who stumble upon the gas station and come together and mate. They apparently lock tentacles and glow with bio-luminescence then walk away making almost whale like calls. As they walk away the military unit of twin Humvees show up and take our couple away separately. That's right, the final image we as an audience of MONSTERS see is our couple looking longingly at each other, knowing they can never be, that their just from two different worlds. Fade to black. The End. WHAT!?!

The level of anger and sheer disappointment I felt at a movie that was billed as a return to the Giant Monster movie was epic! What we have here is a movie about two people from different worlds coming together and eventually falling in love with each other with the backdrop of creatures roaming around the jungles mating. The perfect words I can find to describe this movie are "Wasted Potential". However if the idea the entire time was to make MONSTERS a love story then why call it MONSTERS?

I can't in good faith recommend this movie for any fan of legit monster movies. The ratio of monster to human drama is completely off balance. If you're looking for a love story that has an indie feel with very little monster parts this is the movie for you. But if you're a fan of old school GODZILLA or BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS movies stay away, unless you like to be teased and taunted with no payoff.

Michael Montenegro is an avid Horror/Sci-fi movie fan. He is also a hardcore comic reader and artist having graduated from The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art. He currently resides with his fiancee, two cats and a ferret in NJ.

THE BLOB (1988) Movie Review

THE BLOB (1988)

In a small sleepy town in Colorado, a giant meteor has crashed in the foothills only to be discovered by a homeless hermit, who learns the hard way not to poke a gelatinous goo seeping out of a rock. The town's sole rebel Brian and the high school's star cheerleader Meg also get a taste of what this blob can do when they come across the ever growing Jell-O Mold From Hell. With each victim that it dissolves and consumes, the Blob grows in strength and size. When Brian decides to make a self-preserving dash on his motorcycle, he crosses paths with a military containment brigade that seems to have arrived on the scene too quick and too well prepared to be just a coincidence. Meanwhile, the townsfolk are being rounded up under the pretense of a bacterial outbreak, and The Blob, growing stronger still, has made its way into the sewer system. And it is pissed off!

Like a younger and often ignored sibling to John Carpenter's THE THING, this remake of a cheesy 1950's b-movie has a distinct privilege of expanding upon and improving the original source material. Coming from director Chuck Russell (NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3, THE MASK) who also wrote the screenplay along with Frank Darabont, the communist-allegorizing original film is updating for a cynical anti-authoritarian and anti-government 1980s audience with an additional warning against the Cold War arms race thrown in for good measure. Unlike the original, in which a mysterious "red" entity comes from the skies and threatens America's heartland, here Russell and Darabont provide an origin to the beloved goop that is much worse than any external force could hope to create.

Continuing with the connection to Carpenter's creation, Russell out does the original monster as he makes his Blob faster, more dangerous, more powerful, and perhaps unstoppable. Along with a horde of special effects creators, Russell employs just about every trick available at the time to bring the Purple People Dissolver to life. Surprisingly, aside from a few just a layering shots, the effects hold up quite well over twenty years later, with miniatures, puppets, and matte shots all coming into play. On top of the Blob itself, the creature's new way of "eating" leaves some quite gory and gooey messes in its wake, and as it grows bigger and gets deeper into the town, the new ways it learns to find victims leads to some quite over-the-top ends to the secondary characters.

Speaking of characters, THE BLOB gets a few actors early in their career as they cut their acting chops in the horror field. Kevin Dillon steps into the shoes of Steve McQueen as Brian, whose rather wooden and goofy turn here is right at home with the b-movie styling, though it was probably not conscious on his part to play it off that way. The wardrobe choice, fitting somewhere between Bon Jovi and Adam Ant, definitely does not shout "rebel", but boy can he throw a half-empty beer in anger! Watch for future Baywatch babe Erika Eleniak as a potential date-rape victim, Bill "Chop Top" Moseley as a soldier, and is that everyone's favorite female torture prodigy Shawnee Smith getting second billing as cheerleader Meg? You bet it is!

For whatever reason, and perhaps it is because this came out before the "everything must be remade" mentality in Hollywood, Russell's re-imagining of the 1950s drive-in sci-fi film is often forgotten in the argument to defend or defame remakes. THE BLOB is a highly entertaining piece of 80s schlock that has fun with the source material, takes time to poke at the then current cookie-cutter slasher films, and makes sure that you know none of the characters are safe by employing my favorite expect-the-unexpected tactic of killing a kid. While no masterpiece in any sense, Russell's sophomore effort in the horror/dark-humor hybrid genre certainly deserves more than it is has gotten and should be used whenever possible as an argument of how a movie should be remade, and more importantly what should be remade.

Latest Trailer for MONSTERS Released

The latest trailer for upcoming MONSTERS has been released via Hulu.com:




Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe was launched to collect samples, but crashed upon re-entry over Central America. Soon after, new life forms began to appear and grow. In an effort to stem the destruction that resulted, half of Mexico was quarantined and dubbed the Infected Zone. Today, the American and Mexican military still struggle to contain the massive creatures. MONSTERS picks up when a jaded US journalist (McNairy) begrudgingly agrees to find his boss’ daughter, a shaken American tourist (Able) and escort her through the infected zone to the safety of the US border.

MONSTERS premieres on Video On Demand, iTunes, Xbox Live, Playstation Marketplace, Amazon and Vudu on September 24; in theaters on October 29th.

FUTURE-KILL Movie Review

FUTURE-KILL (1985)

In the near future, a new class division has been created in the cities, the uptowners and the downtown mutants, who look more like people that listen to way too much Adam Ant rather than biological abnormalities. These mutants stage elaborate protests against nuclear weapons, and have been the focus of several newscasts. Oblivious to the suffering that happens downtown are a bunch of fratboys who, after a botched college prank, are asked to go downtown and kidnap the leader of the mutants, Eddie Pain. Lurking downtown however, is a mutant named Splatter (Edwin Neal), who is all too familiar with suffering, and loves nothing more than to dish it out. When the boys locate Pain and Splatter, Splatter's twisted logic leads him to murder Pain in a power move, and then blames it on the innocent fratboys.

As word gets out of Eddie Pain's death, the mutants begin a citywide hunt for the now on-the-run fratboys, who are hopelessly lost. During their sprints from alley to alley, the fratboys come across Julie, a local mutant who is being attacked. The fratboys save Julie, and in exchange, she begrudgingly agrees to help them find a way out of the downtown city. When their paths cross with Dorothy Grim (Marilyn Burns), another mutant who has decided that Splatter must be killed if the mutant cause is to succeed, the group arms themselves and head into Splatter's lair for one final confrontation.

FUTURE-KILL uses the basic storyline premise of THE WARRIORS, and infuses ideas generously borrowed from THE TERMINATOR, REVENGE OF THE NERDS, THE ROAD WARRIOR and Penelope Spheeris' SUBURBIA, with a none-too-subtle stance against pending nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. First time director and co-writer Ronald W Moore (who incidentally never made another movie after this) pieces together a hodge-podge of physical gross-out comedy, weak suspense set-ups, a few good gore moments. The cracks are filled with prerequisite 1980s cliches including blue-washed lighting, a synthesizer score and an utterly pointless yet still fun sequence in a nightclub where a live band plays not one, but two full songs as the fratboys dance and mingle with the mutants.

For most, the main selling point of the film will be a chance to see the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE stars Edwin Neal and Marilyn Burns on screen together again. The two don't actually spend that much time together on screen, and Burns' role is more of an extended cameo rather than the co-star billing she gets. Neal, who was extensively involved in the film's creation, is obviously having a great time on screen in his full armor outfit, and Burns' looks damn sexy in her low-cut leather n' metal combat gear.

FUTURE-KILL is a prime example of low-budget 80's indie exploitation, which is big on heart, poor on execution, and whose poster, an art piece created by H.R. Giger specifically for the movie, promises a character twice as cool as any that make it on screen. 1980s b-movie horror and sci-fi junkies should enjoy this one as long as you know what you're getting into, but make sure to watch it with a few friends and a twelve pack; it makes for is easy cannon-fodder and talking back to the screen.

PIRANHA 3D Movie Review

PIRANHA 3D

Review by Mary Rizzo

Jaws with piranhas + boobs.

Fell asleep halfway thru.

With a background in American Studies, pretty much the only thing Mary Rizzo is qualified to write about is popular culture: food, fashion, ads, movies and so on. While she splits her time between nonprofit management, teaching, writing and baking bread, her ultimate goal in life is to get to ride in a deep-sea submersible.

GRINDHOUSE Blu-Ray Full Specs and Artwork Revealed

A little ways back rumors began circulating the GRINDHOUSE was finally coming to Blu-ray completely uncut. Now the full details and artwork have been revealed. It appears all extras from the single-movie releases PLANET TERROR and DEATH PROOF have been ported over, plus over two hours of brand new content, much of which focuses on the faux trailers.

An exhilarating homage to the titillating B-movies of the 60s and 70s, Grindhouse, a double billing featuring Academy Award winner Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof and Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror bursts onto two-disc Blu-Ray on October 5 from Vivendi Entertainment and The Weinstein Company. Debuting for the first time in high definition and in its original theatrical exhibition format, the presentation starts with the deliciously over-the-top horror flick Planet Terror, followed by an intermission featuring three gritty trailers and concluding with the ultra-intense vehicular slasher film Death Proof. The set features over two hours of brand new bonus material including a 10-Minute Cooking School feature with Rodriguez, five features on the trailers including an extended trailer and making-ofs, deleted scenes and much more.

Special Features:

Disc 1 – Theatrical Exhibition:
* Grindhouse Feature (Planet Terror)
* Intermission Cards
* Don’t Trailer
* Werewolf Women of the S.S Trailer
* Thanksgiving Trailer
* Grindhouse Feature (Death Proof)

Disc 2

Planet Terror
* Robert Rodriguez’s 10-Minute Film School
* The Badass Babes of Planet Terror
* The Guys of Planet Terror
* Casting Rebel
* Sickos, Bullets, And Explosions: The Stunts of Planet Terror
* The Friend, The Doctor, and the Real Estate Agent
* Planet Terror Poster Gallery

Death Proof
* Stunts On Wheels: The Legendary Drivers of Death Proof
* Quentin’s Greatest Collaborator: Editor Sally Menke
* The Guys of Death Proof
* Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike
* Finding Quentin’s Gals
* The Uncut Version of “Baby, It’s You” performed by Mary Elizabeth Winstead
* Introducing Zoe Bell
* Double Dare Trailer
* Death Proof Extended Music
* Death Proof Poster Gallery

Plus these all-new bonus features:
* Robert Rodriguez’s 10-Minute Cooking School
* The Makeup Effects of Planet Terror
* The Hot Rods of Death Proof
* From Texas to Tennessee: The Production Design of Death Proof
* Trailers
* Extended Werewolf Women of The SS Trailer
* View Extended Cut Of Werewolf Women of the SS -Trailer with Commentary by Director Rob Zombie
* The Making Of Werewolf Women of the SS Trailer
* Extended Don’t Trailer
* View Extended Cut Of Don’t Trailer with -Commentary by Director Edgar Wright
* The Making of Don’t Trailer
* Don’t Storyboard/Trailer Comparison
* View Don’t Storyboard/Trailer Comparison with Commentary by Director Edgar Wright
* Don’t Storyboards Still Gallery
* Don’t Poster
* The Making of Thanksgiving Trailer
* New York Times Talk with Quention Tarantino and Lynn Hirschberg at Comic Con 2006 Featuring the -Directors and Cast of Grindhouse
* Grindhouse Trailer Contest Winner Hobo With A Shotgun

You can read my original review of GRINDHOUSE from when it first came out back in 2007.

SyFy and Roger Corman Present SHARKTOPUS!

How does one up a Mega Shark and a Giant Octopus? By merging them together into one spectacular creature - Sharktopus!

The U.S. Navy has commissioned a group called Blue Water to genetically engineer a half-shark, half-octopus to help combat Somali pirate ships. Then things go wrong.

SHARKTOPUS, which features THE DARK KNIGHT's Eric Roberts, will air on the SyFy Channel at a still unspecified date.

International PREDATORS Trailer Shows the Bloody Goods

The international trailer for PREDATORS, which gives us a preview of all the gory mayhem that will untold when the film hits theaters in the United States on July 9th, is the ultimate apology for ALIEN VS PREDATOR and ALIEN VS PREDATOR: REQUIEM. Featuring bad-ass posing from the bad-ass characters including Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Danny Trejo and Laurence Fishburne and plenty of skull-and-spine tearing promises a bloody good time.

Synopsis: Predators, a bold new chapter in the Predator universe, shot under the creative auspices of Robert Rodriguez, stars Adrien Brody as Royce, a mercenary who reluctantly leads a group of elite warriors who come to realize they've been brought together on an alien planet... as prey. With the notable exception of a disgraced physician, they are all cold-blooded killers - mercenaries, Yakuza, convicts, death squad members - human "predators" that are now being systematically hunted and eliminated by a new breed of alien Predators.

PREDATORS is directed by Nimrod Antel (VACANCY), produced by Robert Rodriguez, and features Derek Mears (Jason in the FRIDAY THE 13TH remake) as one of the main Predators.

Sarongs-a-Plenty in Cinematic Titanic's DANGER ON TIKI ISLAND

There's two things that I am nigh-obsessed with, that being Tiki bars (and all the good potent drinks that come with it) and Joel Hodgson-era Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

These two cultural institutions come crashing together in DANGER ON TIKI ISLAND, the latest Cinematic Titanic release.

Strange things are happening on this remote island in the Pacific, where a Peace Corps volunteer, a researcher and his love-starved lady arrive to find that nearby atomic testing has mutated some of the plants. It that weren't bad enough, a monster terrifies the villagers in its lust for blood. The man-beast must be stopped - but how?

This film was a staple at drive-ins in its day. Now experience it live with Cinematic Titanic.

BRAINSCAN (1994) Movie Review

BRAINSCAN (1994)

Michael (Edward Fulong) is the high school weirdo, a horror and video game fanatic who spend his time dwelling in his bedroom reading Fangoria and spying on the girl next door. When he receives a new video game in the mail, Brainscan, he is dubious of the game's claim that it is the ultimate in fear. The game, and interactive CD-Rom that you play in your subconscious while hypnotized, forces you to act and think like a killer. After Michael plays the game, in which he murders a strange for no apparent reason, he discovers that someone in his neighborhood was killed in the exact same way.

It is then that Trickster, a punked-out digital demon, literally emerges from the monitor to explain to Michael just what he has gotten himself into. Trickster acts as mentor, tormentor, and guide for Michael, as he pushes him to continue to play the game, and thus commit more murders. An out of town detective, Hayden (Frank Langella), is on the case of the murders though, and his intuition is pointing straight at Michael. To survive, Michael must play, but at what cost to his humanity and sanity?

It is 1994. Freddy is dead, Jason is in Hell, Michael hasn't been seen in Haddonfield in over five years. The corporate world of horror needs a new gimmick-driven character. Enter Trickster, brought to the screen by complete unknown and eager-to-please T. Ryder Smith. This glammed-out, video game playing, alternative rock loving, quick-witted fiend is the perfect boardroom created hybrid for the early teen crowd to champion as their new hero. And in a time when interactive gaming and virtual reality was just getting off the ground, what better way to win his way into the hearts of the youth than as some demented master of ceremonies to a deadly digital game of life and death? I guess someone forgot to mention that movies based on games (SUPER MARIO BROS) don't do so well, and movies about people playing games (THE WIZARD) fare even worse! And as for video game playing bad guys (Freddy's "power glove" antics), well lets not speak ill of the departed.

Eddie Furlong, sorry Edward Furlong, once again glooms and dooms across the screen hoping to keep some form of name recognition. After becoming the idol of many as the master of a Terminator, he quickly tried the patience of his fans with PET SEMATARY 2, and used up what little he had left as he voice-cracks along here. Granted, he has the perfect appearance for a character such as Michael, which is the best thing he has going for this flick. Frank Langella, who brings an air of professional acting to the otherwise fairly inexperienced and young cast, uses his steely gaze and distinct voice to command each scene he is in. Even when he is supposed to be playing a good guy, Langella's unique screen presence still slants him toward evil. His omnipresent force against Michael, as well as being one of the few adult characters of importance, also sets up an underlying rebel-against-authority undertone.

Director John Flynn, whose multi-decade career has skirted along creating the lesser known flicks of Hollywood's action mainstays, brings a professional eye to the production, but whose age serves as a detractor against the youth/pop-culture oriented script with a specific target audience in mind. His camera pans constantly across Michael's stuff, including Fangoria, comic books, and horror posters. Every bedroom in the movie has multiple Aerosmith and Metallica posters. Trickster energetically blasts Primus during his introduction scene. Flynn is just trying way to hard here to say "look, these characters like what you like! Associate with them!" And sadly, his coup-de-grace being his loving homage to the giallo genre during Michael's POV murder using a knife while wearing black gloves, probably went over everyone's head during the film's theatrical run. The script also treads into some "thinking" territory as it attempts to make a half-hearted discussion about how horror movies are just entertainment and escapism, which for a flick like this is just preaching to the choir, and again serves to only make the viewer associate with the character through like-minded beliefs.

BRAINSCAN has not aged well since its release. The laughably ludicrous and impossible gaming set-up still stings real gamers today as much as it did then, the infantile computer generated images are blatantly obvious and offer a glimpse of a latex-less horror future to come, the insulting ending is a slap in the face cop-out, and the "I hope this makes money so there can be a sequel" coda reeks of marketing influence. Like flannel and tribal heavy metal necklaces, some movies are better left in the early nineties, where a fuzzy recollection can remember a one-time cable TV viewing of this movie in a much more favorable light.

ALIEN AGENT Movie Review

ALIEN AGENT (2007)

A dying alien race has been searching for a new planet to inhabit so that they may live. Their sights have been set on Earth, a perfect environment for their species to continue to thrive. Under the guidance of the conquest-hungry Saylon, his rogue military team has infiltrated the masses of Earth, and have begun building a wormhole with stolen technology that will bridge his planet to Earth so that his troops may conquer the planet and his species will have a new place to call home.

But there is a small group from Saylon’s planet that do not want to vanquish the inhabitants of Earth, and they have sent Guild Warrior Rykker (Mark Dacascos) to stop Saylon’s plans. Armed with a sawed-off shotgun and rounds powerful enough to kill his kind as well as a brutal array of hand-to-hand combat techniques, Rykker is the only one capable of stopping the insidious plan! And with a little help from a local teen who has become smitten with Rykker, he might just get lucky enough to destroy the wormhole and defeat Saylon’s army of mercenaries and assassins before it is too late.

Read my full review on The DVD Lounge

DRAGON WARS (aka D-WAR) Movie Review

DRAGON WARS(2007)

According to Korean legend, every five hundred years a woman is born with the mark of the dragon and inside her a spirit energy that can create a celestial dragon. In the heavens, two sects of dragons and their worshippers wait patiently for this woman to be born. And every time she is born, a war breaks out on Earth to take her soul.

In Los Angeles, a young woman by the name of Sarah is the latest reincarnation of the Yoo Yi Joo, and the evil dragon wyrm Buraki wants her spirit! But Sarah is not alone, for she has a lone protector, Ethan, the last reincarnate of the Yoo Yi Joo's defender. As the Buraki, as well as his followers and their army of lesser dragons, tear through the city, Sarah and Ethan are able to stay one step ahead of them. But as Los Angeles begins to crumble, Sarah becomes more and more convinced that she will have to meet her destiny head on.

Read my full review at Geeks Of Doom!

ALIEN SIEGE Movie Review

ALIEN SIEGE (2005)

Governments around the world have entered into a shaky truce with an alien race called the Kulkus, who have demanded eight million humans to be given to them in order to save their race. In exchange for these souls, the Kulkus will provide highly evolved technology that will ensure the further advancement of the human race. In the United States, which must give up almost a million of their own citizens, the Kulkus have given the job of turning over the selected humans to the military, who have turned to martial law to keep the peace and process the selected.

But in the shadows, a resistance group who refuses to believe they are no longer the highest member of the universal food chain have been slowly building in numbers, and plan to stop the harvest of humans from advancing any further. When Dr. Stephen Chase's daughter is chosen by lottery to be turned over to the aliens, he becomes the newest member of the resistance, and his involvement with studying Kulku technology may just be the key the resistance needs to finally strike back!

Read The Full Review at Geeks Of Doom!

RENAISSANCE Review

RENAISSANCE (2006)

It is the year 2054. Mega-corporation Avalon, whose primary products promise "youth and beauty", has permeated themselves into most aspects of modern life. When one of their star researchers, Ilona, is kidnapped, Karas is put on the case to find her. His rough and gruff means of data extraction and detective skills are both a contrast to the beauty that the city of Paris wants to show, and a mirror reflection the city's underbelly. As Karas interviews those that are associated with Ilona, and the hidden truths that her very worried older sister Bislane finally reveal to Karas, he comes to the suspicion that Avalon may in fact be behind Ilona's kidnapping, or even one of her closest friends. He also becomes acutely aware of just what Ilona was researching, and what it could mean for civilization's future.

From debut director Christian Volckman, who spent seven years bringing his creation to the screen using rotoscoping animation (the process in which live actors and actions is animated; think the recent A SCANNER DARKLY or A-Ha's classic "Take On Me" music video), comes this highly-stylized black and white sci-fi noir. Taking many of its visual cues and technology inspirations from the reigning champion of sci-fi nor, BLADE RUNNER, as well as inspiration from Frank Miller's high-contrast artwork in his Sin City graphic novels, Volckman has set out to create an animated feature film for adults with a love of near future envisioning and speculation.

Volckman and his animation designers have set out to imagine what will happen to the visual appearance of Paris over the next fifty years. The result is a lovingly rendered vision of a sleek, clean, and beautiful cityscape, with walkways and entire rooms made completely of glass, giving the city and open and welcoming atmosphere, while still retaining a sense of history, as the Eiffel Tower is still a center piece of the city . Technology gets a huge bump in this vision of the future as well, as computers, cars, police equipment, and medical instruments get a very realistic advancement from today. We can see the technology that they are using as a distant descendant of what is in use in our modern world. Surveillance and video recording also gets a massive future imagining here. Taking cues from the already Big Brother-esque camera installations all over many major around the world, in Volckman's future Paris, cameras and microphones are everywhere, with huge control rooms overseeing all of the information being taken in.

This is one of the truest examples of a "black and white" film, in that there is absolutely no grey scale in use to bring the vision of the future to life. White rain falls against a black sky, characters disappear within the inky abyss of shadows, pure white light cuts through otherwise pitch black dance clubs in throbbing blasts. Extraordinary attention is given to the human characters, and though the expressions were originally made by a real person, you forget on multiple occasions that you are watching an animated version of those emotions. The artistic talent that is backing up Volckman's world here is breathtaking, and at many times the movie almost does appear to still retain its live action origins. Backing up the visualization is an equally impressive audio accompaniment.

The soundtrack assists most of the scenes quite well, enhancing the mood and atmosphere. The blips of the technology, as well as the ambient background hum of the city, provide a layered dull hive buzzing of a very real and living city. Also along for the ride in the English language dub of the film are several prominent names. Daniel Craig provides the lead voice of Karas. Jonathan Pryce and Ian Holm are also on hand in smaller supporting roles. And unlike some celebrity-voiced films that have been seeping into the theatres recently, these actors take a cue from real voice actors, and create characters with their voices. Their names are there for a bit of publicity, but if you didn't know it was them, you wouldn't be able to guess who was speaking.

The story narrative itself takes a backseat to the visual flair rocketing across the screen, and at many times Karas' investigations seems to exist solely to bring the viewer into the multi-layered social spectrum of this future Paris. There has been a lot of time and effort put into creating a very realistic and operating city, and Volckman intends to show it off. His "camera" swoops and sways through the city as it follows Karas, pulling off otherwise impossible angles, zooms, and crane shots, and bleeding through solid objects in continuous motion. An exhilarating car chase, which zips through most of the city over the course of a few minutes, is a highlight of the movie. The story is nothing groundbreaking, with many aspects of the classic detective motif merely updated and adapted to reflect the future world, but it is at least engaging, and seems quite plausible given the future setting, and has just enough mystery and subtle clues that will have any armchair sleuth trying to keep up or figure out the riddle.

Once again, an animator has taken a bold step is bringing down the concrete wall that separates animation as a genre (read "kids entertainment") and as a medium to tell a story. And here it is used perfectly as a medium to tell the story and bring a future Paris to life. Japan has long known the full range and potential that animation holds as a medium to bring compelling and entertaining cinema to the screen. And with recent works such as RENNAISSANCE and the ever advancing CGI getting closer and closer to photo realistic rendering, that wall is slowly chipping away both here in America and Europe. There will be a day, sooner than later, where these films will be seen not in festivals, art houses, and home theatres but in a multiplex. And that will be a day worth going to the movies.

FANTASTIC FOUR (1994) Movie Review

THE FANTASTIC FOUR (1994)

Early in the last decade of the second millennium, Roger Corman created a movie version of The Fantastic Four comic book that was nigh-unwatchable, never meant to be released and was only made so the rights' holders could keep it longer (unbeknownst to most of the cast and crew).

Here, Reed Richards and Victor Von Doom are working on collecting cosmic radiation during their college years. When the experiment fails, Victor is presumed dead in the accident, and Richards commits his life to completing the project. Ten years later, he succeeds in creating a spaceship, and enlists college chum Ben Grimm to fly the shuttle and brings along Sue and Johnny Storm to help navigate. Meanwhile, Doom is still very much alive and bent on destroying Richards. When the Reed..s mission fails, the four are bombarded with the rays, and soon discover they have been given their famous super powers. When Doom learns that the four are still alive, he kidnaps the four to conduct experiments on them, and then sets out on a plan to recreate the experiment and hopefully to acquire all four powers in himself. Oh, and the underground-dwelling thief The Jeweler works himself into a subplot too. Pretty good for a film that clocks in at just under ninety minutes.

Let's get down to the bad and hokey shall we? If there was any proof needed that superhero costumes on paper do not directly translate to costumes on celluloid, this is it. Doom almost gets away with it, but the classic blue costumes of the four look ridiculous. Richard's trademark white temples look painted on with whiteout. The fully transformed Thing is obviously a heavy foam and latex suit (ever see rock ripple like fabric?). And the special effects here are just laughable. From Richard's stretching (how do normal clothes stretch when he does?) to Storm's invisibility (how do you get invisibility wrong?) to Johnny's climactic full-body flame-on (video games look more realistic) this is student-filmmaking at its best. Seriously, some of the fanfilms coming out nowadays look more professional than this.

What this film does have though, is heart, and a true desire to literally translate a comic book into the film world, which does give it a little wiggle room and forgiveness can easily be given. Remember, this was made in the age of Dolph Lundgren's THE PUNISHER, the direct-to-video CAPTAIN AMERICA and the X-Men TV spin-off GENERATION X among others, and filmmakers and producers had yet to learn and capitalize off of Bryan Singer's X-MEN and Sam Raimi's groundbreaking SPIDER-MAN. Highlights to watch for include the Fantastic Four moniker being clumsily bestowed, the out-of-nowhere catch-phrase "it's clobbering time" being uttered at least three times, and a zero-to-sixty in five seconds romance between Grimm and the blind Alicia Masters.

If you enjoyed PIRANHA over JAWS, MUNCHIES over GREMLINS, and CARNOSAUR over JURASSIC PARK, you could very well be in for a treat. So make this a double feature with the recent big-budget release, and decide for yourself which is more fantastic-er. Sadly, and however you may feel about Roger Corman, it is probably this one.

EQUILIBRIUM (2002) Movie Review

EQUILIBRIUM (2002)

In the 21st Century, in the aftermath of World War III, the leaders of world make the conclusion that mankind would not survive a fourth, and take the extreme measure of removing from man's life that might which provoke war - feelings, thought and emotion. A drug, Prozium, is invented to keep the masses at bay, and a new arm of the law, the Tetra Grammatron Clerics, is created to police sense crimes and destroy anything that might invoke said senses.

John Preston (Christian Bale) is a Senior Cleric, who follows his orders to the letter, kills those that are guilty of sense crimes without hesitation, and commands the destruction of anything illegal. That is, until one day when he accidentally breaks his daily dose of Prozium. That one missed dose is all it takes, and the sensory and emotional world he has fought so hard to destroy creeps into his mind. He begins a double life, continuing to be a Cleric by day, while seeking out the resistance that fights to bring down the controlling government at night. When he finally discovers the resistance leaders, they ask him to kill Father, the all-knowing, all-decision making head of the government, which will set off a chain reaction that will allow the resistance to take over. But with another Cleric already suspicious of Preston's activities, he may be arrested of sense crimes before he can start the coup d'etat.

The film's basic premise pulls from the themes and imagery from the great dystopian novels of the twentieth century, gladly borrowing from A Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, and 1984, as well as the Nazi Germany's power of persuasion to bring the twenty-first century a new tale of science speculation and dystopia. Director and writer Kurt Wimmer has certainly done his homework, and spins a tale that, much like its inspirations, is just real enough and close enough, that it could happen if society lets it. Some of the more impressive nods Wimmer applies is the drug Prozium, a reference to A Brave New World's Soma, the burning of books and art a la 451,and the huge "big brother" video screens and the drab grayish uniforms of the common folk of 1984. Anyone familiar with these novels or their film adaptations are bound to see more similarities.

Societal constrictions are not the only element that is given a sinister overhaul. Organized religion and devout faith are also given a good muckraking. From the head-figure dubbed Father (a synonym for God) to the Clerics who enforce the social religion with pain and death against those who do not conform, to the unwavering faith that everything is being done in best interest of mankind. To paraphrase from the movie "whether we agree on what the Father says is not the issue, but our willingness to obey and to have faith in him is".

Christian Bale, who is in almost every scene of the movie and easily carries the film, is exceptional as John Preston. Bale plays the duality of the role perfectly, and uses his face to express everything the character is about. At the beginning, he is rigid and emotionless. His face is a blank slate. Once free of the Prozium though, he switches gears and even as he continues to show that rigidness, his slight changes shows the pain of having to willingly suppress his new found freedom of emotion. Bale also performs most of the demanding action sequences himself. It would be hard to dismiss that this movie was one of the main contributors to Bale donning the cloak and cowl in BATMAN BEGINS.

In the film, the Clerics use a martial art called Gun Kata, a form created entirely by Kurt Wimmer that incorporates guns, both as a projectile and physical weapon, into hand-to-hand combat. This weaponplay is brought into the movie several times throughout and adds from some exciting action set pieces that gives the viewer a breather from the oppressive government overtones. And here is where the main fault, if it can be called that, of the movie lies. The movie is marketed very much as a super-action film, and those expecting just that could be easily turned off by the heavy messages that take up a bulk of the film. Likewise, those who may be lulled in by the dystopian tale could find the action sequences a little too brutal.

Dystopian futures are one of my favorite genres, and for some same reason that I like westerns, though the build up is quite different. In each, all it takes is for one individual to take a stand against that which they see as wrong, and not only having the courage and determination to make things right in the eyes of that character, but the ability to be able to see those changes through. It may not be the best way, and many innocent lives are usually lost during that struggle, but it is a price I would gladly pay.

ROBOCOP (1987) Movie Review

ROBOCOP (1987)

It is the late nineties in Detroit. Crime has reached an all-time high. The police, try as they might, are powerless to put a dent in the downward spiral of the city. OCP, a corporate conglomerate, who has recently taken charge over local law enforcement, takes the next step in an attempt to reclaim the city and puts into operation RoboCop, an experimental officer that uses the mind of recently killed officer Murphy and puts it into a hulking robotic body. RoboCop is sent out into the streets to clean it up, but when he comes face-to-face with the psychopathic criminals who executed him, it begins to fire up memories of his past. From RoboCop's data crunching CPU comes the faces and dreams of Murphy, which were thought to be erased. As the rest of the police force goes on strike, RoboCop sets out on a one man war to put an end to the corruption that plagues Detroit.

Audiences were lured in to the theatres with the tag line "part man, part machine, all cop" and the expectation of highly-stylized violence. What they got was a cynical look, gingerly sprinkled with dark humor, at the future of America - a future littered with big business, unstoppable crime, complete corruption of the system, and shallow consumers eager to eat up whatever they were told to buy. Most successfully made movies will hint at what it will be about within the first five minutes of the movie. Director Paul Verhoeven, working from a script and story by first time writers Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner, chooses to spend his first five minutes watching television and in the boardroom of OCP.

Verhoeven, using a plot not unlike FRANKENSTEIN as a creation struggles to find independence and free thought for the backdrop, completely skewers the media here, as violence is sensationalized by an almost inhuman and completely unsympathetic broadcasters, and spoonfed in easy to digest sound and video bites. The plot is also moved along via interspersed news broadcasts of RoboCop's exploits. And what news broadcast would be complete without commercials? Verhoeven takes time to look at products of the future, which includes an American car that proudly gets 8.2 MPG ("big is back!") and the Battleship-esque game Nukem ("get them before they get you!"). What is truly frightening about this look into the future is that present-day television has far surpassed Verhoeven's jaded take on it.

However, ROBOCOP does offer its viewers the base violence and gore that viewers eagerly expected from the hedonistic and blood-drenched action pictures of the 80's. It is ironic that while the film condemns those attracted to violence it also serves up some of the most graphically grotesque effects to come out of the era. These were so graphic that ROBOCOP was threatened with an X unless it was trimmed. These now legendary shots, which include Murphy's decimating murder by multiple shotguns wounds and a chillingly real bullet to the head, and the extended slaughter of a boardroom executive by the hulking robot ED-209, were almost completely erased during the film's theatrical run. Whispers of these rumored full scenes floated through had to wait to be seen until home release on laserdisc and later on DVD courtesy of Criterion and currently MGM. And even after twenty years, these have hardly aged, thanks to the superior efforts of film's special effects team.

It is this crew that also brings the heroic RoboCop to the screen, and what a fantastic job they do. In an age where a Commodore Amiga was used for digital effects, in-camera practical effects were what was needed to bring science-fiction to life. Created by wizard Rob Bottin, who previously worked on THE THING and would later go on to TOTAL RECALL and FIGHT CLUB among others, the RoboCop suit is a marvel to look at, and has a real-world functionality to it that does not seem that far-fetched. The results of his hard labor would land him several award nominations, and a win for special effects from the Academy Of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Film.

But without the physical acting and presence of star Peter Weller, it is just a costume. Weller, who only spends about ten minutes of the film as a human, ties the entire world the film takes place in together. If he is not believable, everything else falls apart. Fortunately, Weller pulls off an amazing performance, evoking emotion, expression and thought process through gestures and facial expressions. When his face, which is cover for most of the film, is finally revealed, Weller turns his eyes into heartbreaking wells of sadness. He has been forced into this role, and must come to terms with what he has become.

The blending of science-fiction, graphic violence and social commentary would become a trademark of the Netherlands imported director, who was previously known only for his erotic outings in the 70's, if he was known at all. The director even turned down this movie at first, only later reconsidering at the behest of his wife. It is strange to think where, if at all, the ROBOCOP phenomenon and even Verhoeven's career would be had he not listened to her. Thankfully, the final outcome has left the world a thoroughly entertaining slice of cinema that is as relevant today in the middle of a media-obsessed culture with corporate-government hybrid running things as it was when first released in the midst of Reagan's years. The more things change, the more they stay the same.