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Venom: The Last Dance (2024)
I Cried Like A Baby!!! The Best Venom Is An Emotional Ride.
Tom Hardy's good bye to Venom.
Venom: The Last Dance was an emotional ride as we follow our beloved Anti-Heroes, Eddie & Venom, as they're now fugitives & Enemies of the State after the incidents in the last Venom movie, Let There Be Carnage.
This is the best Venom movie so far, it aims high & hits high with a big heart as well as big FX. A buddy movie as it's central story arc, but also with a huge Alien Invasion bubbling up into this mega Blockbuster movie that i totally enjoyed.
There's one mistake that i didn't like in this, otherwise pretty perfect end to the Venom Trilogy, & that's when Eddie says to Venom its been a whole year together!!! Maybe that's the films time-line but in reality it's been six years since the first film & Tom Hardy has visibly aged, so that line felt totally wrong in my opinion. But that was the only bit i didn't like.
This Venom film totally embraced it's Alien Invasion roots & we get a movie that feels very familiar, like the dozens of Alien Invasion movies of the 90's (Independence Day, Mars Attacks, Body Snatchers, The Arrival & many more) this Venom film felt old school just like those 90's Alien themed movies. We get familiar underground labs in Area 51 (& 55), we get tough military personnel & scientists & a desert landscape. This Venom movie really felt nice & familiar. Characters & situations all felt familiar to those old school 90's Alien movies & i loved that about this Venom film. I also got vibes of the awesome 90's Guyver films, maybe that was just me but i felt vibes & thought of Guyver.
Tom Hardy wrote the story & i felt he put his heart & soul into this movie & gave Venom a send off that felt emotional & complete. Hardy brings a lot of warmth to his performance once again as Eddie & his chemistry & banter with Venom is still intact. I love those two characters.
Unlike the recent BeetleJuice sequel that had lots of moving pieces & storylines that didn't come together properly, this Venom movie comes together perfectly by it's outstanding ending. I'm not ashamed to say i cried on a few occasions because i felt the heart & emotion that was in the story & certain moments that really hit me in the feels. This is probably my favourite Tom Hardy movie, or atleast right next to Mad Max Fury Road.
Tom Hardy is a movie legend by now & he perfectly embodies Eddie & Venom with another astonishing performance for us to treasure.
The CGI is top notch, as expected with it's huge budget, & we get a new threat from deep in space. A different kind of monstrous Alien is on Earth to hunt down Venom. The threat here feels big & the movie carries a lot of emotional weight to it. Still, there's plenty of fun bits, humour & wacky moments, like Venom having the time-of-his-life turning a horse into a super fast machine of power & a fun dance sequence where Venom really shows off his moves. There's new characters introduced like a fun hippy family that is travelling to visit Area 51 before its destroyed forever & a tough military captain & an emotionally scarred scientist, all good performances. This is a big Blockbuster Alien Invasion Popcorn Movie but with a lot of Heart.
We also get to see other Symbiotes in action later on in a fantastic epic battle scene near its powerful ending.
The Last Dance is action-packed with buddy banter, fun action & a big beating heart.
Just go & enjoy Tom Hardy's Epic End To A Fantastic Trilogy.
The first Venom was an awesome 8/10.
Venom Let There Be Carnage was a solid 7/10.
Venom The Last Dance is a fantastic 9/10. In my opinion of course, but i do enjoy the whole Trilogy.
I will never forget you Venom.
Crime Lords (1991)
Fun, Old School Cop-Thriller B-movie Entertainment
Rugged B-movie actor Wayne Crawford directed & starred in this DTV B-movie Cop Thriller, that has a sense of humour.
Crawford is also great in another DTV B-movie flick, Headhunter (1989).
Wayne Crawford was definitely a good B-movie star, with a fairly big filmography with fun titles like: White Ghost, Snake Island, Diary of a Hitman, Headhunter, & The Evil Below. Seems Wayne was a staple of DTV B-movie cult cinema, hey i really think he was a very likeable gritty & grizzled everyman, in the same style of B-movie leading men as: Fred Ward, Tom Atkins, William Katt & Robert Ginty.
Crawford plays Elmo Lagrange, a tough, grizzled Los Angeles cop who is fed-up with how his life is going, he's split up with his wife & is living in a camper van, & is fed up of not getting anywhere within the police department,He's mainly assigned to stolen car duty .
Elmo is pushing 40 & now gets a new hotshot partner, Peter Russo (a decent, cocky & confident performance by Martin Hewitt) that is the complete opposite of himself. They argue & don't really get along, until they have to.
The two mismatched (Lethal Weapon style) cops are on the case of LA's car jacking crime wave & end up in an explosive situation.
The dangerous situation puts our two cops out of work, whilst under investigation within the police department, so the now ex-cops decide to continue their investigation by heading over to Japan.
In Japan they're way out of their depth & in over their heads, theirs a fun fish-outta-water vibe to this crazy cop thriller.
Our hero cops get mugged, lose their passports & have no guns, & are now targeted by a high-up Japanese crime syndicate. The same crime syndicate that our hero cops went up against back in Los Angeles & caused them their jobs.
I got fun, if low-budget, vibes of Classic 80's films like Black Rain (1989) for an example, & for the most part the film is fun & entertaining, mainly due to Crawford being a fun screen presence, as he's such an ordinary everyone type who just happens to be a cop. I felt vibes of Tango & Cash a little & other better cop flicks, but Crime Lords is definitely a decent little early 90's buddy-cop action thriller.
James Hong stars as a high up crime boss, its always good to see him in Japan themed films, great in Big Trouble In Little China (1986).
Yes this is a lower-budget film but i did like it, I really liked the grizzled Wayne Crawford, he's a screen presence similar to that of the late-great Fred Ward.
There's action & shootouts & humour spread out throughout this crazy cop adventure. Crawford literally becomes a homeless guy living in the wet, dank & dark back streets & alleyways of a Japanese city. I actually really felt for his character because he is so out of his comfort zone & has nothing to help himself with, no gun or cash or any friends out there.
The film actually looks really good & Japan is explored & filmed as a huge busy place full of crime & mazes of alleyways & back streets full of wacky characters. Our two mismatched & separated cops are lost in a world they don't know & up against a powerful crime lord, will they finally get their criminals or will they be EXTERMINATED.
Good late-night cop thriller fun.
Wayne Crawford was a very good B-movie actor from the glory days of Video stores.
The Mule (2018)
MONEY MEANS NOTHING BUT TIME MEANS EVERYTHING!!!
Extremely old Hollywood Legend Clint Eastwood stars & directed this emotional true-life drama about an 90 year old man who becomes a drugs Mule for a cartel.
Clint Eastwood is legendary, the man is a Mythical movie star the likes of which we will probably never get again.
We all grew up watching Eastwood movies on TV or on video, because the guy has always been there in the background as we've grown up. Clint was always loved in my family, everyone loved a good Clint thriller or western & i grew up watching him & loving many of his films from his huge, epic filmography.
I was mostly drawn to Eastwood's cop thriller films, the Dirty Harry's mostly & The Rookie (my fave) but also top quality suspense thriller's like his Play Misty For Me & Absolute Power & Blood Work, to name a few.
Anyway, i could go on & on about the impact Eastwood had on me & pretty much everyone, including the movie world, but i won't.
Eastwood is a legend.
The Mule stars Clint as the really, really old Earl Stone, a guy that lived for his flowers & plants that was his passion but he missed out on so much of his own families lives.
I have always said that being there, present, is more important than chasing money & it seems that is the underlying message of this powerful film.
Money means nothing but time means everything.
It was a bit of a sad shock seeing how old & frail the legendary Eastwood now is but that's life.
Earl loses his job & ends up, at the age of 90, working for a drugs cartel by driving & delivering packages. Whilst on these journeys Earl still tries to enjoy the small things in life, like a delicious pulled-pork sandwich & a nice cold beer, & listens to his old favourite songs, he's a true old timer through & through. Eastwood delivers a powerhouse performance full of little nuances & nice touches. This performance is up there with his Gran Torino performance.
Old Earl enjoys his road trip journeys & delivers on time, he gets respect from a cartel boss (a great-to-see-him performance from the great Andy Garcia) but later on a tougher cartel gang takeover & things get way more dangerous. The FBI are on Earls trail, two very good performances from Bradley Cooper & Michael Pena) & on top of the dangerous situation with the Cartel, Earls ex-wife gets seriously ill, a powerhouse performance from Diane Wiest) & Earl makes a tough decision, is it the right one for once? Will the Cartel want Earl dead? Will the feds catch up to Earl? So many questions.
Although not an action-packed thriller, The Mule is a small character piece drama with some thriller elements that add a boost to things. I enjoyed just watching Clint in such a mellow chilled mood that gave his character Earl a lot of natural charm, even if you don't agree with many of his decisions he's made with his life. But in life as humans, we all make mistakes & live with regrets.
The cinematography is gorgeous, with dusty old backroads & cozy diners & an Eastwood on top form charming form. The music is also a bonus here as we get old school feelgood tunes like Dean Martin for an example as old Earl cruises peacefully to his next drop off.
There is a dangerous threat that is a constant in the background of all this as the Cartel grow tired of Earls couldn't-care-less attitude. Clint is the focus of this based on real life story & he's such a good-natured screen presence to take this ride with. Earl cruises in his pick-up truck & navigates with ease between the cops & the crooks & he's a delight.
But with all the good times to be had, Earl even gets with way, way younger ladies gross!!!, there's still a thumping heart beat that drives the movie & that's regret.
Earl is full of regret & has lived life how he wants even if it meant not being around for his wife & kids. Earl starts to get big money & can buy anything he wants, now he works for the Cartel delivering drugs, but he can't buy more time!!!
There's definitely an emotional weight to this drama & when the emotional parts hit they hit hard.
I cried at times & i thought Clint was amazing in his role & he directed the hell outta this beautiful looking crime drama.
Meg 2: The Trench (2023)
A B-movie With A Big Budget. Just Enjoy The Awesome Underwater Action.
Action Legend Jason Statham is back as diving & underwater professional Jonas Taylor, he's like a James Bond type of action hero & a definitely one of Statham's best characters.
The Meg 2: The Trench puts Statham's underwater missionary Taylor with a bunch of new, & old, characters that set out to explore the deep oceans mysterious Trench.
The Trench is unexplored territory, or so they think, so Taylor & a team of explorers go deep down into the Trench & discover a world of monsters & an illegal drilling & mining corporation that is disturbing the Trenches atmosphere & creatures.
I think i enjoyed this Meg film as much as the first film. This sequel feels even more pure B-movie fun than the first film.
This time directed by British cult film maker Ben Wheatley (Kill List, A Field In England, In The Earth) although you really wouldn't have known it, as none of his gritty & dark style is here. But that's fine because director Wheatley was probably just so happy to have a big studio Blockbuster budget to play with.
And Wheatley goes all out with massive Megaladons, lizard-type creatures, massive man-eating octopus & many other deadly deep sea monstrosities that put the humans in danger.
There's an awesome beginning sequence where we get a prehistoric opening with Dinosaurs vs Giant Megs, & its a glorious (CGI of course) opening scene of ferocious flesh & teeth.
The cast are all fine in their typical B-movie parts, it's Jason Statham of course that steals the show, & he should as it's his movie.
Statham is all cool hard-ass action hero & he's perfect for B-movie action & fantasy films.
I know The Meg 2 was hated on & blasted at but i like most films that the critics usually hate & i don't like the films they love!!!
The underwater action is done so well with bottom of the Trench exploring whilst wearing awesome High-tech diving armour (like old school action figures) & armed with cool guns. There's not just awesome sea monsters (that do look awesome, even though completely CGI) we also get a conspiracy containing a human drilling corporation that's stealing stuff from the Trenches floor & will kill anyone who witnesses their illegal actions. We get a monster movie with awesome B-movie monstrous action & a Conspiracy Mystery & a Good vs Evil human battle. As we know in real life there's always some evil humans that want to destroy or take what they can from anything or anyone.
But really this pure big burden B-movie is simply just that, a Big Budget B-movie!!!
You should know what to expect from this type of movie & i really enjoyed it for what it is, a fun underwater action B-movie creature feature with Action Legend Statham leading it all.
Inside Out 2 (2024)
A Terrible LGBT ANIMATED DRAMA!!!!
WOW!!!
INSIDE OUT 2 was seriously dull, like a drama instead of a kids film.
The new characters made zero impact, Anxiety was the focus & was way OTT, so much so the annoying character ruined the movie.
The hockey team was embarrassing, all "LGBT" members, because the industry is pushing that nonsense on children!!!
I'm actually shocked at how badly done this silly sequel was.
The first film was a nice, touching family movie but this sequel was a dreary drama with annoying characters.
The animation is fine of course, mega budget, but that's truly about it.
I'm shocked that this has become a box office epic!!!
Rising Sun (1993)
Snipes & Connery Make A Decent, Odd Buddy-Cop Duo In This LA Noir Mystery.
Wesley Snipes is awesome, that's a fact.
Snipes was huge bk in the 90's & i was lucky enough to grow up watching his movies on video, like Passenger 57 & Demolition Man & Money Train & Drop Zone, just to name a few of the actors great films.
Rising Sun was a movie i do remember, we had it on video at my house, but i don't think i ever sat & watched it properly.
Now I've got it on dvd & finally gave it the attention it deserved.
Rising Sun is a very good Buddy-cop thriller with an interesting, & odd, duo with old skool veteran actor Sean Connery (Outland, The Rock, The Untouchables) & young, rising hot star Wesley Snipes.
One rainy night in Los Angeles a Special liaison officer (Snipes) is called in to investigate a murder of a call-girl at a huge high-tech Japanese building. Also he is
accompanied by a Detective (Connery) with unusual knowledge of the Japanese culture. Both men are tasked with finding out who & why this lady was murdered & what follows is a decent mystery cop thriller with a touch of old school Noir.
Why was this lady killed? Why was she killed? & who is behind her muder? These questions lead our two cops on a journey through cultural differences, betrayal & lots of mystery. There's a whole Japanese empire that is rising up in Americas own Los Angeles, like a hidden-in-plain-sight underworld & it makes for a damn interesting murder mystery. There's definitely a comfort in watching these old skool 90's thriller's today in 2024, it transports you bk to a better & more simpler time.
Snipes was great a doing these types of Detective Mystery Thriller films bk in the 90's, i love his Murder At 1600 & Boiling Point, & Rising Sun fits in with those.
I love films with the old ancient Japanese or Chinese culture as a backdrop/setting for a movie & this one is deep into all that mysticism.
Our mismatched cops learn to work together & enter a hidden "Shadow World" right within their stomping grounds of Los Angeles. We get ancient ways, futuristic technology & confusing loyalties as our hero cops navigate the shadowy goings-on of the Japanese people living in LA.
Gotta say i loved how Los Angeles is portrayed here, with a gorgeous rain soaked night time look that puts you right into the mystery & felt like such an old fashioned Noir Detective story. This Detective thriller is also helped by a lovely music score that feels full of mystery like its cinematography. Both great elements that help make Rising Sun an underrated cop thriller from the beautiful 90's.
We also get a good supporting cast with the likes of the always great, Harvey Keitel (Red Dragon, Reservoir Dogs, From Dusk Till Dawn) as a cynical & no-nonsense Detective. Also we get Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (the guy was in everything during the 90's) & Mako (TMNT, An Eye For An Eye, Conan The Destroyer) & Tia Carrerie (a popular actress bk in the 90's).
Rising Sun is good late-night cop thriller entertainment with a nice LA Noir atmosphere.
All in all, Rising Sun is a very good & relaxing Detective Mystery & good Buddy-cop thriller with top performances from Connery, Snipes & Keitel.
The Box (2009)
Possibly One Of The Worst Films Ever Made!!!
OMG......
THE BOX.
Absolutely ridiculously stupid, incredibly dumb & excruciatingly BORING!!!
A really, really well off couple, played boringly by Cameron Diaz & James Marsden get a visit from a stranger, played by Frank Langella (with a terrible, cheap & fake looking CGI burnt face) who gives them a box with a button on it.
If this, supposedly "struggling couple" press the button they will get a million dollars in cash but someone, somewhere will die.
The film is terrible.
We're supposed to feel sorry for this married couple because apparently they "live Paycheck to Paycheck" as said by Cameron Diaz at one point.
That is lies & makes zero sense as her husband, Marsden, works for NASA!!!
They have a huge posh house with a TV in nearly every room!!! Oh & this is set in the 1970's. So to be able to afford even one TV would mean they're doing fine!!!
Anyway the boring story goes on & on, & the townsfolk are weird, Aliens maybe? I don't know? It was so boring i lost interest.
This was seriously so badly thought out. I suppose atleast the 70's look was decent, but that's it.
Definitely hits the mark for one of the worst films out there. Should atleast make the list.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
A Solid 7/10 Sequel, Not Great But Not Terrible. Messy But Still With Plenty To Enjoy.
This legacy sequel was always going to be a tough one going up against such an absolute childhood Classic 1988 original.
Let me tell ya, BeetleJuice (1988) is one of my all-time favorite movies ever!!! In my top 10 list. The first film is a Classic, a Nostalgia-filled Masterpiece from my childhood where i had it on Video. I had the action figures & i loved the fun, colourful animated series. So yeah, BeetleJuice means a lot to me, it's one of my comfort films.
Now, this very, very late sequel wasn't bad, but it also wasn't great.
They definitely waited way, way too long to do this sequel.
Some legacy films work & some don't, this one has its moments of greatness, but not enough in my honest opinion. Awesome gothic film maker Tim Burton tried to make a film with that same energy that made the original so much fun, but because Michael Keaton is so old now he just can't do it like he did before. Sad but true.
Keaton tried but he was too stiff & too old, but he was fun when on screen, which wasn't a lot.
This sequel is set thirty-odd years later & the Deetz family come back to the old "BeetleJuice house" for the funeral of the, birdwatching & explorer, father (originally played by Geoffrey Jones RIP). We get three generations of the Deetz family with Winona Ryder returning as a grown-up Lydia who now has a teenage girl, who is very similar to how she was at that age in the first film. Delia is back & once again played perfectly by Catherine O'Hara again. Older Lydia now is a host of a supernatural TV show called Ghost House, where she can use her spiritual abilities to contact the dead. Delia Deetz made it as an eccentric artist & has her own art gallery in New York City & Lydia's teenage daughter Astrid, played by Jenna Ortega, is a troubled spiritual girl like her mum. The performances are pretty decent, especially from O'hara, Ryder & Keaton. Anyway the cast are bk at the original films small town setting, this time set over Halloween season. Tim Burton definitely nailed the spooky season look & atmosphere, i can see this sequel becoming a Halloween favorite. There's a guy that wants to marry Lydia, he's a boring crappy character that we didn't need. There's also a bunch of different storylines all going at the same time & it gets very messy & makes the film feel like it was rushed, just to get the film made finally!!! There's a load of characters added this time, BeetleJuice's ex-wife (Monica Bulucci) who is a soul sucking serial killer & Lydia's dead husband pops up here & there, & the Deetz half eaten & dead birdwatching dad is finding his way around the BeetleJuice ghost world, & there's the ghost worlds dead actor turned police Captain, played by a fun Willem Dafoe, & a teenage boy with a dark secret & more. There was too many characters & too many storylines all crammed together & it felt hollow at times & messy. Still, there's stuff that does work & is very enjoyable. Willem Dafoe is awesome but needed more screen time & the Halloween vibes is gorgeous.
But, I honestly got a feeling that they made this sequel just to finally get a sequel made. But its still a decent trip into the BeetleJuice Ghost World. Maybe this film with grown on me when it hits dvd.
Another major negative was the killing off of Delia Deetz, she was the show stealing step mom once again & gave the best performance here, & was killed off really stupidly by two snake bites!!! Really crappy way to kill off one of the best BeetleJuice characters. Catherine O'Hara was fantastic as Delia!!!
As ya can tell i liked bits & bobs of this film, i liked the Danny Devito cameo as the ghostly janitor & i did like Willem Dafoe's police Captain, but he needed more of a story to be involved in, here he pops up now & again & that's it.
Monica's soul sucking serial killer out for revenge against BeetleJuice didn't get the screen time she needed to really have any impact on the movie at all. A shame because she had such an awesome introductory scene (putting herself together with staples) but then she was just an after thought. So nuch going here that it was just mental, but not always in a good way. I did like, well loved, the opening credits sequence which was exactly the same as the iconic originals except for a modernised version of the beautiful BeetleJuice score by Danny Elfman (once again) & the town is at night this time & rain soaked, but i got a hit of Nostalgia & made me cry a little. So there was decent stuff in this spirited horror comedy but also a lot of a mess that was so uneven. To be honest i did miss the characters from the first film, but of course they couldn't all be here in the sequel, so really this film really made made me appreciate the original even more (if that's possible). A big positive here though was the fact Tim Burton used old skool practical effects instead of a heavy use of CGI, he kept it old skool. Strange though is also the fact that even though this sequel has a much bigger budget, it still doesn't look as good as the smaller budgeted original?
The use of a baby BeetleJuice lost its impact because it was used twice for a gag?
Another silly bit was the "Dance & song possession" scene in the church near the end, it just felt like a sad, flat & hollow attempt to recreate that Classic dinner table dance & song possession scene from the original. In other words the original BeetleJuice is just untouchable, a pure Masterpiece. The sequel did try & it did have it's moments of inventive fun here & there but the originals quality was so impactful that any sequel would suffer under it's weight.
Big positives , The cinematography was gorgeous, the spooky Halloween setting was pure Tim Burton perfection & the use of vibrant colours & the music was all great.
There was a good little animation sequence near the beginning which was very well done & i did like the Soul train stuff. The shrunken heads stuff was a bit OTT, like the film wanted to create their own franchise mascots (like the Minions) so that kids would love them.
Look, this sequel is fun & has a bunch of cool ideas & stuff in there but you also cannot ignore all the messy stuff, because there's too much going on. Still plenty to enjoy, especially the spooky Halloween setting.
Something's Gotta Give (2003)
Really lovely, Really Sweet & A Feel Good Time.
I usually don't like Romantic Comedies or "Rom-Coms" i mostly find them sickly & too far fetched.
This nice film actually made me emotional, if only life was like this.
But i love Jack Nicholson & I've heard about this movie so many times, about how great it was, & my mum loves this film & finally i watched this with my lovely wife.....We Both Loved It!!!
Something's Gotta Give, is simply a lovely, sweet good-hearted feel-good comedy about finding true love when you're old & feel like life has passed you by.
Jack is fantastic as Harry & Diane is fantastic as Erica, two older people who live completely different lives but come together unexpectedly & fall for each other.
There's such a warm & comforting feel to this lovely comedy that hooks you right into the magic of the romance. Making pancakes, late at night in the kitchen never seemed so sweet!!! I loved the late-night funny & super sweet moment Jack & Diane share together. I'm a night person so i loved how these two were night owls & had most fun in the twilight hours.
I felt feel-good whilst watching this flick & i loved the characters & cast, we get a really nice guy performance from Keanu Reeves as Nicholson's good natured doctor, a really kind & decent character. Also nice to see Jon Favreau pop up in a little part. Amanda Peet stars & more.
I won't go into the plot, just sit back & be swept up in the niceness of the movie.
There's lovely scenery, a big beautiful beach house & lots of lovely, fun & humourous situations.
Something's Gotta Give is good-hearted & feel-good fun.
The look, mood, music & feel of this movie will make you happy.
Kickboxer 2: The Road Back (1991)
Truly An Excellent Superior Sequel That Deserves To Be A Cult Classic!!!
Yes i loved the first film starring the legendary Action Star Van Damme, but i gotta be honest here & say that Kickboxer 2 (1991) is the best film of that B-movie, video era franchise.
B-movie royalty, director Albert Pyun made such a damn good, good-hearted & surprisingly powerful follow-up to Van Damme's Cult Classic, & i loved it from beginning to end. This sequel is set a year after the first film & continues the Sloan family story.
Made on a low-budget (but you wouldn't know it because the film looks fantastic) Albert Pyun crafted an underdog story full of heart. Van Damme's Kurt Sloan character is killed off screen by loser fighter Tong Po (& the crippled brother Eric is killed too i believe by Tong Po) & that now, we find out, leaves the youngest sloan brother, David (played by an excellent Sasha Mitchell) who is keeping the Sloan memory alive by still keeping The Sloans Gym open in a rundown Los Angeles neighbourhood. Set one year after the events in Thailand in the first film, but here it's all set in sunny Los Angeles & it's filmed beautifully, giving the film a real live-in urban feel, thanks to Cinematographer GEORGE MAROODIAN, a Pyun regular.
The gym is really struggling financially & that gets David pushed into a corner, he doesn't ever want to fight but ends up having to in order to save his gym. David fights B-movie martial arts warrior Mathius Hues, & wins. But those events creates disaster (the Gym gets nearly burnt down & there's a very tragic casualty) & David is beaten & shot & ends up in hospital vowing to never fight again.
Then warrior master Xian (Dennis Chan) from the first Kickboxer (he trained Van Damme's character) & wants to help David get back on his feet. Xian wants to train David & get him back to fighting condition to save his soul really. Once back in the ring it's battle against his sworn enemy, Tong Po, the evil fighter that murdered his two older brothers. There's trickery & deceiving that gets David in a Face-off with Tong Po & it delivers some of the greatest fight scenes ever!!! Especially amazing fight sequences for a B flick, that's why this film is such a gem, because it feels so much more bigger than it actually is.
Kickboxer 2 is a small movie, a low-budget B-movie, but it's so packed with a good-hearted nature about rising up, looking to the future & fighting back. How much you can get knocked down but keep getting back up. I got vibes of Rocky at times & Sasha Mitchell is perfect as the new lead star of the franchise. Sasha is a tall muscular guy with a real California "Cool Dude" attitude & voice & genuinely comes accross as a nice, warm good-hearted guy. Sasha definitely blooms in this movie as a rising B-movie action lead for martial arts movies & so glad he continued for a couple more Kickboxer films.
This superior sequel still has the feel-good vibes of the first film, with cool & (a little cheesy) songs & a terrific score that complemented every scene. I felt a genuine heart to this movie, a true underdog story with a good message & a stacked cast of characters & actors.
We get Dennis Chan back as Master Xian, & this time he's ever better & more fun than he was in the original. He is a character that's full of heart & wisdom & made me laugh at his forgetfulness when he's trying to tell an inspiring story.
We also get, Peter Boyle (Red Heat, Outland, The Shadow) & John Diehl (Stargate, Mo'Money, Stripes) & Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Rising Sun, Mortal Kombat) & Vincent Klyn (Cyborg, Nemesis, Double Dragon) &
Mathius Hues (Dark Angel, Death Match, TC 2000) & Michel Quissi (Kickboxer, Kickboxer 3, Bloodsport) back as iconic evil fighter villain Tong Po. A fantastic cast that you'll recognise from many big films & many B-movies.
I could go on & on about how super surprised i was that this little B-movie sequel turned out to be so damn good.
At times i felt such emotion for the characters & i was genuinely moved at times & shocked by some of the brutal stuff that happened. Kickboxer 2: The Road Back doesn't hold back on the brutality of these fights, & things get very bloody & very brutal, even more so than the first film.
Sasha Mitchell never moved on from the realms of the low-budget B-movie genre but whatever he did star in he was decent. I'm so glad he made a couple more Kickboxer sequels because it was so nice seeing his character David Sloan again.
But as i said, Kickboxer 2 has a big heart & carries an emotional weight that you don't usually get in B-movies. Director Pyun definitely put his all into this production & gave us something special.
Kickboxer (1989)
What A Film!!! Feel-Good 80's Martial Arts Goodness
Van Damme the man is a legend of Action Cinema & most of his old 80's to early 90's films are classed as top shelf Cult Classic's!!!
We all grew up with, & loved Van Damme movies!!! The muscles from Brussels was a video era action legend & deserves the recognition. Most of Van Damme's movies were late-night staples of our childhoods & he gave us some reat treats. My all-time favorite of Van Damme's is his dark Apocalyptic sci-fi action thriller CYBORG (1989) & i also loved his AWOL, DEATH WARRANT, DOUBLE IMPACT, HARD TARGET, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER & MORE!!!
I know a couple of his biggest, & most loved, movies were his martial arts flicks known as, Bloodsport & Kickboxer, both legendary old school 80's action films.
Recently re-watched Kickboxer (Now in 2024) & i can happily say that the film is ridiculously excellent 80's entertainment.
From the feel-good music to the gorgeous Cinematography, i got nice Nostalgic comfort-viewing vibes from this great old school action adventure.
I truly thought that Van Damme gave a great enthusiastic & good-hearted hero performance, a real underdog training to be an ultimate warrior to fight for vengeance for his crippled brother. Van Damme was Awesome & had a boyish, nice guy charm to his Kurt Sloane character.
All the training scenes & montages were great fun with a good piece of music to boost the excitement of the sequences. I loved the whole soundtrack throughout the entire movie.
I loved the gorgeous scenery of an ancient looking of a far east backdrop (Thailand) & we get a truly memorable & iconic main villain in the terrifying Tong Po. That savage warrior always scared me when we first see him at the beginning, kicking that wall whilst getting ready to head out into to the ring & destroy Kurt's kickboxing champion brother, Eric.
I found Kickboxer to carry a big heart throughout the film & i can totally see way this movie is loved so much & is considered a Classic.
There's some great little character performances scattered throughout this film with everyone enjoying their roles.
Some standout, great roles were: Dennis Chan as Master Xian, who trained Van Damme's Kurt to become the ultimate warrior. Xian was a great mysterious, ancient warrior type & he's even better & more fun in the sequel (Kickboxer 2).
Also Haskell V. Anderson was excellent as playful but heartfelt Vietnam vet Winston Taylor, a guy that has a past with old buddy Xian & is the life (& party) of this movie. Winston is a great little character befriends Kurt & takes him to Master Xian. Winston always tries to see the brightside of things & live for the little pleasures of life. The actor never got another fun, or juicy role as this in his entire career, so enjoy his gem of a performance here!!!
Also gotta mention the excellent, intimidating & just scary-as-hell villain here, Tong Po played perfectly by Michel Quissi, the guy brought this Thailand warrior to life in a terrifying way & created an iconic movie villain that everyone remembered.
They really don't make'em like this anymore!!!
There's something so special about these old 80's, & early 90's, films that can't be replicated today. I think it's the old cameras & film stock (instead of today's digital stuff) & that old dark & mysterious look that this film has is so damn Awesome, great cinematography.
And of course the final showdown is legendary warrior fighting stuff.
Kickboxer is brutal but not in an OTT bloody way, there's always an old fashioned adventure feel to it all. Of course there's some nice 80's cheesiness, hey i love it, especially when Van Damme does the Classic Dance scene lol, but the music always rocks.
Also i must say, check out the excellent sequel Kickboxer 2 The Road Back (1991) directed by B-movie legend, Albert Pyun. Although not starring Van Damme, the sequel is an excellent continuation of the Sloan family, where we meet the third younger brother & a return for evil Tong Po. Honestly the sequel is as good, actually it's the best of the Kickboxer films. Don't get me wrong, i love Van Damme's Kickboxer & that's why i have ranked both Kickboxer 1&2 as a very high 9/10. A perfect double bill & two of the greatest of the martial arts genre.
In fact Kickboxer is soaked in 80's goodness & i love it.
A Bug's Life (1998)
A Great Follow-up To Toy Story. A Lovely Charming Little Adventure.
Way back in 1998 we got a lovely new computer animated movie called, A BUG'S LIFE & it was such a fun movie & nice follow-up to the groundbreaking instant CLASSIC known as TOY STORY (1995).
John Lasseter & co of Disney-Pixar studios worked hard to create another loveable computer animated comedy adventure for the whole family to enjoy & i think they absolutely pulled it off.
Back in the 90's full on Computer animated movies were still in their infancy, unlike today in 2024 where evey animated movie is made of CGI. Back in 1998 A Bug's Life was another great adventure with little creatures again, this time bugs instead of Toys, & on an adventure full of crazy characters & a stacked cast doing great voice work. Also the animation is beautifully colourful & the storyline is simple, so sit back & enjoy this little feel-good, friendly adventure.
I always preferred A Bugs Life over ANTZ, both of which came out the same summer of 1998. I did like Antz but i liked A Bug's Life more, i saw both at the Cinema.
A Bug's Life is about a little blue ant named Flik, who gets into deep trouble with his silly inventions, but his heart is in the right place, he just messes up often. One time his ant colony are gathering food for their bullying, nasty superiors: The Grasshoppers, an evil bunch that use ants as slaves for their greed. Their leader is Hopper voiced brilliantly by a sarcastic & nasty Kevin Spacey. Flik causes his colony to lose all the food they've gathered for ages & that puts him & his fellow ants in a dangerous situation with the Grasshoppers, Flik sets out on a mission to make it right.
Little ant Flik stands up to the Grasshoppers gang but then has to back up his idea of fighting back, so goes on a quest to gather a bunch of "warrior Bug's" but he hires a bunch of flea circus show Bug's that pretend to be tough warrior Bug's & all sorts goes wrong. This is a funny little movie with lots of lively, fun & colourful characters & a moral heart about the oppressed rising up to make a stand.
A Bug's Life features a star-studded voice cast with the likes of David Hyde Pierce, Dennis Leary, Kevin Spacey, John Ratzenberger, Brad Garrett, Julia-Louis Dreyfuss & Roddy Mcdowell, just to name a few.
You will recognise a few voices from Toy Story.
A Bug's Life is definitely still one of the best from Disney-pixar animated studios & as it is, it stands as a one-off single movie, it never got a sequel or a franchise, but that just makes it all the more special in my opinion. A Feel-Good fun flick.
I loved the toys they did for A Bug's Life in McDonald's, great memories & lots of Nostalgia for this wonderful, good-hearted adventure.
About Schmidt (2002)
A Beautiful, Soul-searching Comedy-Drama with an Outstanding Performance By the Legendary Jack Nicholson.
I've finally seen, ABOUT SCHMIDT & i loved every minute of it!!!
We all know that Jack Nicholson is one of the greatest actors in all of Cinema History & his performance here as Warren Schmidt ranks up there as one of his greatest performances.
About Schmidt deals with all real life stuff, grief, loneliness, regret & everything that makes us human. Although a bit depressing & dark, this film still has a feel-good factor to it because it shows you it's never too late to start Living.
About Schmidt is a lovely sweet story about a man who is totally lost in the world (we can all relate to this at times in our own lives) as he has recently retired from his insurance job & also suddenly loses his wife, & this loss knocks him sideways.
Warren is in his late 60's & now only has a single daughter in all the world that he cares about. Now, Warren is at a crossroads in life, he's old, jobless, wife less & has no porpoise, so is kinds lost everyday. With a sadness & bitterness inside, he decides to try to live life now he has nothing holding him back & therefore decides to go on a road trip in the huge 35-foot motor home he has just sitting outside his house. Warren & his wife both bought the vehicle to one day go travelling together but with her sudden death its just a solo journey now.
Warren truly goes on a soul-searching journey as drives accross America to visit his soon-to-be-married daughter. There's another obstacle in Schmidt's path, he can't stand his daughters boyfriend Randall (played hilariously & excellent by a redneck looking Dermot Mulroney) & this leads Schmidt to stay with his new "Family" of sorts from his daughters fella, & they're a weird bunch that Schmidt is not happy about. There's rich comedy gold from Schmidt's facial expressions when meeting the family.
We get one of Cinemas greatest leading ladies with the great Kathy Bates, who plays the outthere, hippy-like mother of the groom, Randall, Bates is pretty fantastic in everything & is wonderful here, & has some great hilarious scenes with the awkward Schmidt as he stays at her crazy home in a rough neighbourhood.
There's so much great stuff in this beautiful comedy drama, we get a lovely soul-searching road trip on his way to Kathy Bates house. Schmidt stops at different places along the way & even visits his old neighbourhood & home. Schmidt finds he hasn't really lived until now, he sleeps out at night under the stars in a lovely, sweet scene when he's on top of his vehicles roof & talking to his dead wife whilst looking up at the night sky , it's a real sweet moment.
The movie is expertly directed by Comedy-Drama specialist Alexander Payne, who uses colour to tell his story. All the beginning scenes are shot in muted, depressing & dull colours that gradually moves to strong bright colours when Schmidt gets on the road & we finally see some lovely sunny scenery, the cinematography is handled beautifully to tell this story.
I liked how Schmidt narrated his story in the form of writing letters to a child he's helping in a poor country, those letters gives him some meaningful porpoise in his lost life & he finally starts to show some emotion. I feel the character Warren Schmidt has just gone along in life, day by day doing the same boring routine over & over again & has just let life pass him by & with his retirement & marriage ending, that was his big wake-up call. This is a movie for anyone really, i believe it will help with growing old & in dealing with life. I think About Schmidt is a little treasure, a little jem that is worth revisiting from time to time to & appreciate its richness of ordinary living.
Some of the stuff Schmidt says in his letters is spot-on about life & it touches the soul. About Schmidt is a heartwarming little journey that is so nice taking because your on it with Warren Schmidt.
Kung Fu Panda (2008)
Kung-Fu Panda is so Awesome!!! Big Action, Big Comedy, Big Adventure, Big Heart & Big Panda.
Chubby, slacker panda Po get chosen as an ancient prophecy, The Dragon Warrior, & must train under the patient guidance of Shifu master. But everyone is unsure if Po is really the right choice as the "Chosen One" so Po must prove himself worthy of the title.
Kung-fu Panda is simply Awesome, such a fun piece of action comedy entertainment that's full of adventure & the beauty of ancient Chinese/Hong-Kong culture. Comic great, Jack Black is perfect as insecure Po & totally dives into the character & becomes Po. Jack has done so much comedy stuff, films & voice work, so he knows how to do this stuff with his eyes shut lol & yet he makes Po a lovable character that is so enthusiastic about Kung-fu & Food. Po is like a big kid, he has action figures of the furious five, that are his heroes & is in love with Kung-fu action & when he gets picked to be the leader of the group, well his excitement is beyond measure.
The voice cast is fantastic with standouts like Dustin Hoffman as master Shifu, he is hilarious & legendary in this role, or atleast his voice is. The humour mainly comes from the crazy relationship of Shifu & Po as they bicker & argue whilst training , the training montage is one of the best scenes in the movie, it looks beautiful. Actually Kung-Fu Panda is definitely one of the best looking movies from the incredible DreamWorks studio. I'm a big fan of DreamWorks as they gave us greats like, Bee Movie, Shrek, Shark Tale, Monsters vs Aliens, Over The Hedge, Madagascar & more, most of which became mega Blockbuster franchises.
Kung-Fu Panda boasts brilliant action sequences showcasing it's stunning animation & style, the entire movie is beautifully designed. There's a stacked cast doing great, fun voice work here with the likes of Ian Mcshane as an awesome villain, Seth Rogan, Jackie Chan, Angelina Jolie, James Hong & many more rounding out the awesome Furious Five Warriors & the other supporting characters.
This is one of my favourite, & most watched animated movies, along with Shrek, Shark Tale, Madagascar, Bee Movie & others (that ain't from DreamWorks).
A part from gorgeous Cinematography, the scenery & landscapes are stunningly beautiful & a fun music score & some truly incredible martial arts action, there's lots of heart too. There's a sweet story of a nobody becoming a somebody, a chubby loser becoming a deadly warrior, an insecure Panda becoming the confident Dragon Warrior. Po must train to become the legendary Dragon Warrior in order to protect the Valley & it's citizens from an old threat that will soon be Unleashed. Crazy fun ensures.
There's lots to enjoy with this fun, fantasy action comedy adventure with a top notch cast for kids & adults to enjoy. I watched this many, many times with my kids so i feel a little connected to it & have a little Nostalgic soft-spot for the film & will always love this first Kung-Fu Panda adventure.
The Hard Way (1991)
A Great Action Buddy-cop Comedy
The Action Buddy-cop Genre is my favourite of all Cinema genres, i love Cop films as i grew up watching all of them.
I adored the Lethal Weapon films & the Robocop films & i had all these on video bk in the 90's. Some of my favourite cop films were: Cobra, Lethal Weapon 1&2, Tango & Cash, Stakeout, Another Stakeout, Dragnet, Serpico, Demolition Man, Red Heat, K-9, K-911, Beverley Hills Cop Trilogy, Robocop 1&2, Cop, Black Rain, Drop Zone, Murder at 1600, Money Train, Die Hard Trilogy, Bad Boys films & many, many more. I just love Cop films!!!
I discovered this gem, THE HARD WAY, on video bk in the late 90's i believe, as my mum got a video of it from a charity shop & i just loved it. My mum loved James Woods (so did i) & of course everyone loved Michael J, Fox so getting these two stars together in a cop film was so exciting.
Michael J Fox is such a sweet, nice guy (in real life & in the movies) so you can't help but like the guy & we all grew up watching his Back To The Future Trilogy. I also loved him in the underrated horror comedy thriller, The Frighteners!!!
Here Fox plays a hot young mega Blockbuster movie star named Nick Lang who is just releasing a Blockbuster sequel to his hit movie but is sick of playing likeable nice guys & wants to change his image by playing a gritty tough new role as a bad-ass cop. Lang wants to team up with New York's toughest cop: John Moss, played by James Woods. Lang has the idea that if he shadows Detective Moss for a couple of weeks he will delve deep into his character & nail the part for his next big movie. Of course Detective Moss doesn't want anything to do with this movie star but his boss makes him work with Lang. There's such a fun , lively energy to this buddy-cop flick that makes you smile & it feels like a perfect late-night movie, some films just sit well in that time.
John Moss is definitely one of my favourite movie Cops.
There's so much fun stuff packed into this hilarious action comedy that feels ahead of it's time. The Hard Way is similar to Robert De Niro & Eddie Murphy's early 2000's Buddy-cop flick SHOWTIME. Obviously SHOWTIME copied The Hard Way & both films are ridiculously underrated.
James Woods is hilarious as John Moss, a guy that has an explosive temper & is full of issues that stop him opening up about stuff, he's such a bad-ass that it jeopardises his relationship with a beautiful lady he really likes played by Annabella Sciorra (The Hand That Rocks The Cradle) & there's some fun stuff between these three as their relationship get mixed-up together. The comedy gold comes from Woods reactions to being stuck with Fox, his explosive temper & how stressed out he gets with him lol, some great conedy here. Woods is so uptight as Moss that his reactions are hilarious.
Woods is such an explosive personality & he gets to really play with that in this movie. Woods has that quick talking & witty way of getting his point accross & he's hilarious as Moss. I've always loved Woods in John Carpenter's Vampires, Cop, The Specialist, Casino & many more incredible performances.
James Woods is one of those powerhouse actors that i feel is underrated.
Our two arguing Buddy-cops are up against a serial killer that is hunting random people's around New York City with his custom-made super handgun, the killer is dubbed the "Party Killer" & is played by Villain regular STEPHEN LANG (D-Tox, Don't Breath 1&2) & it's another good menacing performance by Lang. I liked the setting here in a rough & gritty New York City where we visit urban ghettos & busy downtown streets all within a hot & sweaty New York summertime. The film looks great.
The film is filled out with damn good supporting players like Delroy Lindo (Congo, Gone in 60 Seconds) as Moss' police Captain who is a huge fan of Nick Langs (& this gives way to some very funny moments) & Luis Guzmam (this guy is in everything) as Moss' police buddy & a very young rapper turned actor LL Cool J (Deep Blue Sea, Mindhunters, SWAT, Halloween H20) as another cop.
Also a great old fashioned jazzy music score by Arthur B. Rubinstein, like an old Detective score.
The Hard Way was directed by the great, yet underrated, JOHN BADHAM!!! This guy specialised in making brilliant Cop films like the Classic, Stakeout (1987) & it's excellent sequel, Another Stakeout (1993) & the Awesome Snipes vehicle Drop Zone (1994) & the Cult Classic Roy Scheider vehicle Blue Thunder (1983). All great films that i love. Also Badham made other Classic's like Saturday Night Fever (1977) & Short Circuit (1986).
Badhams The Hard Way is such a fun piece of action cop entertainment as movie star Lang worms his way into all aspects of Moss' life, even staying at his place & following him everywhere. There's a real sense of pure FUN with this movie & everyone involved seems to be having so much FUN.
A movie that is a pure product of it's time the beautiful 90's & for that reason it's a nice piece of Escapism to better times in life & cinema.
Drop Zone (1994)
People Forget How Good Snipes Was Back In The Day!!!
Wesley Snipes was a huge star bk in the 90's, his mega Blockbuster glory days, & he made so many excellent movies with most of them being Classic's, or atleast to me anyway.
People forget how good Snipes was bk in the day!!!
Drop Zone to me has a nice Nostalgic comfort-viewing feel to it as i did watch it on old vhs bk in the 90's & loved everything about it & even now in 2024 it still holds all that niceness together for me. Zone isn't an ultra-violent movie so the action feels fun & adventurous & Snipes is much more a grounded everyman rather than a brutal bad-ass fighter, Snipes even comes off rather funny & goofy at times as he tries to fin in (undercover of course) with the Adrenalin-junkie environment of Skydiving. Zone is simply a perfectly fun summertime action flick that is drenched in 90's Nostalgia. Drop Zone is an exciting mix of Passenger 57 & Point Break, funnily Snipes starred in Passenger 57 & Busey starred in Point Break, now they're together in Drop Zone!!!
Snipes gave us 90's favourites like: Murder at 1600, Money Train, Demolition Man, Passenger 57, Blade, Drop Zone, Boiling Point, New Jack City, White Men Can't Jump, Rising Sun, The Fan, U. S Marshalls & more!!!
Snipes was an actor i definitely grew up watching as my older brother loved him & had most of his movies of video.
In fact i remember Wesley Snipes & Robert De Niro being my bros favourite actors, that's why he was so excited for those two teaming up in the underrated, The Fan.
Anyway, Drop Zone is an awesome pure 90's action cop thriller directed by the awesome John Badham who made some great movies, & specialised in cop films with Stakeout, Another Stakeout, Blue Thunder, The Hard Way & Drop Zone. All excellent movies.
Wesley Snipes plays a cop transporting a computer genius hacker on a plane to a prison when it's hijacked by terrorist skydivers resulting in his cop partner & brother being killed. The authorities don't believe that the hijacked "Jail break" happened so its up to Snipes Marshall Pete Nessip to uncover the truth by going undercover within the skydiving community to find out if the hijacking could happen at 38,0000 feet & who could pull it off.
Snipes is great once again & plays his cop role very different from say Passenger 57 or Boiling Point, because here he's very venerable, often comical & not bad-ass like his other characters. Nice to see Snipes play a more grounded & relatable character or cop as he's way out of his comfort zone & knows it, but must keep pushing to find the truth.
I loved these 90's Extreme sports types of action thriller's with cool names like: Terminal Velocity & Point Break, to name a couple. The 90's definitely made the best thriller's in the cinema history in my opinion, or atleast the most fun & gorgeous looking.
They had mostly great two word titles like: Executive Decision, Under Siege, Unlawful Entry, Terminal Velocity, Point Break, Shadow Conspiracy, Falling Down, Demolition Man, Judgment Night, Boiling Point, U. S Marshalls, Chain Reaction, Hard Target, Universal Soldier, Desperate Measures, Internal Affairs, Striking Distance, Double Impact, Double Team & many, many more.
Drop Zone is a finely crafted adventure, thriller with action & lots of cool skydiving sequences & gorgeous scenery of sunny & tropical looking Miami & Washington DC. & lots of sky-high photography that captured the magic of being that high up & looking down on the world.
We have a great cast here with 80's & 90's legend GARY BUSEY as the leader of the skydiving terrorists, & BUSEY is legendary for his work within the action genre of the 80's & 90's. Busey was in everything bk in the day like Lethal Weapon, Point Break, Under Siege & Predator 2, just to name a few. BUSEY is his wonderful angry, mouthy & excitable self once again & made another memorable bad guy character, he's always a joy on screen in these old skool films.
We also get Yancy Butler (Hard Target) who is a professional Skydiver & instructor that befriends & helps Snipes throughout the movie & she's very good here.
We also get a lovely Nostalgic & pure 90's action score by legendary movie music composer HANS ZIMMER. The score reminded me a bit of Bad Boys (1995) & so did some of the gorgeous colourful Miami cinematography, Drop Zone came out first i beleive. Zimmers score is has a lovely electric guitar sound that brings an almost emotional & Nostalgic flavour to it all.
Drop Zone is simple a really cool 90's action thriller that is full of adventure, fun & humour, if you love 90's films, especially 90's action genre stuff, than you will love Drop Zone.
I was lucky enough to have grown up watching Drop Zone & all these types of movies, they definitely don't make'em like this anymore.
Drop Zone is a CLASSIC action film from the 90's.
Bad Lieutenant (1992)
MADE ME ANGRY!!! A POINTLESS FILM.
Harvey Kietel is a brilliant actor & here he gives a brilliant intense & powerful performance of raw anguish & despair as a New York City Detective who is on a downward spiral of self destruction.
The acting is excellent, the direction is excellent but in the end the film felt empty, hollow & pointless.
The annoying themes of religion just angered me, it's insanity to believe in such absolute fairy tale nonsense & here atleast the film shows how stupid religion, beliefs & Jesus all is.
A stupid young Nun is brutally raped in such a sick & disturbing way by a couple of low-life scumbags & because the pathetic Nun is mind-warped by religion, she FORGIVES them!!!! WTF????
The film angered me sooooooo much, religion lets the most evil people of the world do the most sickest stuff to people & "Jesus" & "God" forgives it all?????
WTF!!!! That's why evil people hide behind religion & why so much horrendous crimes are committed in the name of god or religion. Religion is EVIL.
The most annoying part is the fact the druggie Detective played by Harvey actually finda the two evil pieces of shi# that raped the forgiving Nun & he escorts them to safety!!!! WTF????
He gives them money & puts them on a coach to get out of the city!!!! WTF.
I WAS SHOCKED BY THE RIDICULOUSLY PATHETIC & ABSOLUTELY POINTLESS ENDING.
Kietel is a vile character but is interesting to see how far he's gone & i laughed at how pathetic & useless he was, he did NO police work or investigating at all.
Such a shame because the film had a decent gritty urban look & a top notch performance from Harvey, but in the end it was all for absolutely nothing. I wanted savage vigilante justice, this is why the Death Wish films are the best for some Vigilante justice.
This film just felt ugly, soulless & pointless in the end.
Dollman (1991)
Another Fun Little B-movie From Albert Pyun, Good But Not Great.
Albert Pyun (RIP) definitely didn't get the recognition he deserved.
Albert Pyun put his all into his mega low-budget movies, he went hard against impossible odds as producers & the studios nearly always cut his budget during production & where most directors would've walked, Pyun kept going & fighting to bring something to the screen. If you're interested in the B-movie great Director Albert Pyun i suggest you get a copy of the awesome detailed book: RADIOACTIVE DREAMS THE CINEMA OF ALBERT PYUN.
I have always been a fan of Albert Pyun without even realising it as i grew up watching his Cult Classic CYBORG (1989) on video & loved the look & style of the movie & it's music. CYBORG is also still my favourite Van Damme movie & i thank Pyun for creating that dark futuristic action thriller & giving me one of my favourite movies that i watched many times on video, & even now on dvd.
I'm also a fan of Full Moon Features from the glory days of the 90's with their B-movie greats like Puppet Master 1&2 & Demonic Toys amongst others.
So I've finally seen Dollman, a combination of those greats of the B-movie universe, Albert Pyun directing a pure cheap DTV B-movie for Full Moon films & the results are pretty much as expected, cheesy genre fun made on a nothing budget, but is still enjoyable.
Now i had always heard about Dollman but never got around to find it & see it until recently & was it worth the wait? Well, Dollman is enjoyable for exactly what it is, a very, very cheap B flick with a B movie character actor leading it all. The B-movie genre legend Tim Thomerson (Trancers, Nemesis) stars as a Dirty Harry type of tough & rugged, no nonsense cop on another planet that gets transported through a wormhole in space & ends up in the early 90's Gangster infested neighbourhood of New York City. Tim Thomerson is great in the role (very similar to his Trancers character) & is always a joy on screen in B movies, loved him pretty much everything. Thomerson plays Brick Bardo, the Dirty Harry from another planet, that is chasing his arch Nemesis, a mutant cyborg head called Sprug that floats around (its mental lol) he's a terrorist that needs to be blasted by Bardo's most deadliest hand gun in the universe. Anyway these two rivals end up in a wasteland (used in Pyun's Nemesis) that is supposed to be a part of a very rundown gritty Bronx neighbourhood. But the budget doesn't allow for a real life looking rundown gritty Bronx neighbourhood, so we get a few street shots of New York but most of the flick is set in an apartment & the same wasteland setting that stands in for an urban ghetto, & is reused in Nemesis.
The gimmick here is that now hard nut space cop Brick Bardo is now the size of a Doll here on earth. He goes about blasting the street gangs to bits, but The budget doesn't allow for any real footage or special effects that convince us he's tiny, just some off kilter camera angles but hey IT'S mega low budget. The special effects aren't that special, laughable at times, but this is pure B movie stuff that is often bizarre & has a sly sense if humour. The Beginning looks really good when set on the planet of Auturos in the distant future. The futuristic planet stuff all looks good & reminded me of Pyun's Nemesis,in cinematography & mood. I got nice dark sci-fi vibes of Blade Runner & Terminator & Split Second & Trancers, those types of shadowy, dirty & gritty run down futuristic worlds, well the beginning of Dollman i felt that. I would've liked to explore Brick Bardo's home planet some more. Atleast we do get to see hard-ass Brick Bardo try to clean up the south Bronx neighbourhood by blasting gang members whenever he comes accross them, just the film spent a bit too much time with talking in Lopez' apartment. I suppose underneath all this cheesy sci-fi cop "n" crims bloody action there is someone being said about how normal people have to survive these savage neighbourhoods & urban decay & that's why our other main character is that of Debi (Lopez) who lives in a run down cramped apartment with her little boy & is constantly being harassed by the local thugs & drugs gangs. How can you navigate all that chaos & live a normal life bringing up a kid? It would be hard & it's portrayed as hard. Debi goes to work to feed herself & her little boy & does what a mother would do & it's played well.
So yeah there is some small fragments of real life drama sprinkled accross Dollman. We even get to hear that Brick Bardo's wife & child are dead (Murdered by his arch Nemesis) & that has hardened Bardo into an even more bad-ass. We also find out Debi's husband & father to her little boy is dead, he was shot in the neighbourhood, & was a gang banger himself, sad life in the ghetto.
Brick Bardo & his crashed spaceship are taken bk to an apartment in the war zone neighbourhood of the Bronx, by a local lady named Debi, played fine by a committed KAMALA LOPEZ, who is constantly fighting off the gangs of the ghetto. Speaking of gangs of the ghetto, the leader is played by Villain specialist JACKIE EARLE HAYLEY (Watchmen, Robocop remake, Maniac Cop 3) as local gang leader Braxton Red, who gives an energetic & fun bad guy performance in this trashy & scrappy little flick.
Dollman spends a bit too much time in the scrappy apartment of Lopez & there's lots of talking but not enough action. The action comes nearer its ending (the film is a very short 78 mins) but when it does come it's fun in its extremely low-budget way. The action is bloody goodness at times with huge blasts from Bardo's extremely powerful gun. The action of Dollman is based on the urban Vigilantism in Death Wish 3 (1985), but its not quite as good as that movie or its urban action. I mean Death Wish 3 is a Bronson Cult Classic.
B movie & DTV Director ALBERT PYUN did try with Dollman but once again the idea is there but the budget isn't. Pyun couldn't create a world that looked gigantic to Tim Thomerson without the means to do so. Just camera angles are there to try to convince us Dollman is the size of a doll but truthfully it doesn't work at all, but as said it's a small B movie created on a miniscule budget & for that it's just a lean mean trimmed down fantastical action flick. As i said, the shooting blasts from Dollman's handgun, which is the most powerful hand gun in the universe, are done very well with massive explosive blood-soaked blasts & limbs blown off. When i think about it now as i write this i can't help but really like Dollman, it's a fine pure B-movie piece of entertainment, the type you would watch well after midnight & enjoy its moody sci-fi cop atmosphere. There's a few recognisable character actor faces sprinkled throughout this oddity, a few Pyun regulars like Michael Halsey (Postmortem, Mean Guns) & Vincent Klyn (Cyborg, Nemesis, Kickboxer 2).
Dollman is definitely watchable, it's got a charm that comes from its very early 90's look & a damn decent lead in Tim Thomerson, so Dollman is a fine B movie but it's no Cult Classic.
The look, cinematography is fine, unfortunately most of the time we see a boring wasteland with a gang of hoodlums standing around with machine-guns & smoking & looking stupud & non-threatening.
Dollman deserved a few million to pull off a truly good movie with that fantastic concept but atleast we have a Dollman movie, even if it so frustratingly could've been so much better.
Dollman is still a fun an easy late-night B flick so it gets a solid 7/10. You cannot help but enjoy this sci-fi action flick, small in scale but big on heart.
Sting (2024)
VERY POOR & VERY DISAPPOINTING. CRAP.
I loved the Classic, Arachnophobia & i totally enjoyed, Eight Legend Freaks & i loved the low-budget DTV creature feature, Spiders (2000) so i like killer spider films & i was excited for STING.
I was so disappointed by Sting, the film concentrated too much on a boring, weird family drama about a brat twelve year old girl who finds & keeps a strange spider in a jar.
The spider is an extraterrestrial creature & wants to hunt, kill & eat.
The setting is good, a frozen over snow-covered blizzard of a New York City where a tenement building is the place where the small alien spider crashed into. The Spider looks fine (typical & obvious looking CGI) & it grows into a decent looking alien spider but it all feels wasted because the film is mostly boring & concentrated on a bland family drama.
If Sting came out in the early 90's it would've been made by a fun company like Full Moon Features maybe? & it would've been a fun creature feature with the tenants having to team up to survive. The folks of the tenement building would've been wacky fun characters & the film would've been a fun late-night survival horror & not concentrated on boring family nonsense.
Also Sting is very poor for a stupid part of the film where the Spider can open its jar (it screws the lid off) & go out through the ventilation system & go kill & then stupidly, & for no reason it returns to its jar & screws the lid bk on????? WTF!!! WHY? It's so stupid, why would an Alien Spider that has been captured in a glass jar return to its prison & screw the lid bk on? So dumb, i couldn't believe it at all. The creature would've just stayed in the air vents, no need whatsoever to return to its little jar. DUMB stuff like that ruined it, well it was also ridiculously boring with no good characters at all. The director should've studied the Classic ARACHNOPHOBIA (1990) that was full of fun, interesting & likeable characters.
Sting could've been awesome, it had a cool set up & then went down from there.
I couldn't care less if any of the characters survived & that's definitely not good for a horror!!!
Doctor Mordrid (1992)
DOCTOR MORDRID is such a Nice Little Fantasy Gem That You Can't Help But Like It.
Being a fan of most of Full Moon Features from the early 90's I've always wanted to see they're low-budget version of Marvels Dr. Strange & now i have.
Doctor Mordrid is simply a fun piece of light fantasy fun.
I enjoyed this little fantasy flick, Don't care what others say.
Mordrid is definitely a fun take/version of Dr. Strange & it's a very nicely made movie with such a comforting feel to it all. I felt that nice early 90's vibe of other Full Moon films like my favourite of there's, Demonic Toys.
Genre & B-movie legend Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator, Fortress, The Frighteners, Castle Freak, Cellar Dweller) is perfectly cast as ancient magician & Protector of earth Doctor Mordrid, who lives in New York City & owns a huge post tenement building & gives lectures in the subjects of the occult, supernatural & the unbelievable. Jeffrey Combs is really good in this mysterious role as our lonely immortal hero & he reminded me of a Bruce Wayne/Batman & The Shadow type as much as Dr. Strange. Mordrid has a huge beautifully designed apartment that is rich in detail of ancient artifacts, old books & all things centuries old & interesting like he's living in a museum of all things wonderfully strange from the past. I could tell that although low-budget director Charles Band put his heart into his passion project, Doctor Mordrid. The products design is gorgeous especially in Mordrids richly detailed apartment & when he visits another dimension world that is floating, all created beautifully. Our timeless hero is constantly on guard & watching for signs of the return of his arch Nemesis named Kabal, played by 80's & 90's genre great BRIAN THOMPSON (Cobra, Fright Night part 2, Hired To Kill, Moon 44, In The Cold of the Night) who has promised to return to Earth & destroy it. Kanal is evil & fun & the hulking pumped-up Thompson is having fun playing this barbarian of an evil ancient magician warrior. Both Mordrid & Kabal are immortal & have lived for centuries & always in battle with each other, it's perfectly simple & comforting comic-book fantasy stuff.
What i like about Full Moon films is the fact they always have a small bunch of characters, usually some wacky ones, that are in a single location for most of the movie & they encounter something very strange or supernatural or evil & here we get an apartment building with some wacky neighbours that inhabit Doctor Mordrid's building. Mordrid does venture out though into a very quiet & unpopulated "NYPD" building, because of the budget there's hardly anyone around but it adds to the movies relaxed & quiet mood. There never seems to be many people around in Full Moon Features universe. I do wish we got a sequel or two, they made loads of Puppet Master & Trancers films but no more Mordrid? I want more adventures.
The music score is absolutely beautiful by Full Moon regular Richard Band, he scored those wonderfully playful scores to Demonic Toys & Puppet Master. All the Bands came together to make this fun slice of Nostalgic fantasy fun, Charles Band & his father Albert, directed it & brother scored it.
I felt they really tried to make this a good little movie, they shot it in Los Angeles but set it in New York City, so we get a few NYPD cars to show where its set & that's about it but it doesn't hurt the movie. They pulled off a nice looking movie with the budget they had to work with.
There's some nice old school stop-motion & some nice special effects scattered throughout but it's not full of action but it's always interesting.
Also Yvette Nipar is very attractive & decent as a police advisor on the occult & stuff & she makes for a nice duo with Mordrid's eccentric professor.
All in all Doctor Mordrid is a really nice movie & one of Full Moon Productions best.
I also like Dollman, Puppet Master 1&2, Trancers 1&2, Demonic Toys & more.
I also grew up watching Charles Band's Empire Pictures films, before he made Full Moon Features, with the likes of Troll, Dolls, Arena, Robo-Jox, Ghoulies 1&2 & more.
Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor (1994)
Really Enjoyable 90's Martial Arts Action-Thriller By Legendary Cult Movie Maker Albert Pyun.
Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor (1994) is the 2nd sequel that cult movie maker Albert Pyun has made for the Kickboxer franchise. Previously Albert made the cult sequel favourite Kickboxer 2: The Road Back (1991) where we're introduced to the brother of Van Damme's character. We got the Awesome Sasha Mitchell, a huge tall guy that is totally believable as a hulking kick-ass fighter. Let me say this though, Kickboxer 2 is an absolute Cult Classic!!! Definitely one of Albert Pyun's best films (up there next to Cyborg & Nemesis) as a genuinely excellent movie, be it B-movie & low-budget, just a damn good film & my favourite of the Kickboxer franchise.
Kickboxer 3: The Art of War was a decent & enjoyable sequel that put Sasha's champion fighter David Sloan against kidnapping sex traffickers in Rio. Part 3 was a good solid sequel & i liked it, but part 4 was even better.
Kickboxer 4 is about an imprisoned David Sloan that is set free by the government to compete undercover in a bloody fighting tournament in Mexico hosted by his old enemy Tong Po.
We find out his enemy Tong Po had David framed for murder & locked-up & if that wasn't bad enough Po has captured David's wife & has her imprisoned at his warrior compound in Mexico. David is set free to go fight his way through Tong Po's tournament & take him down once & for all & rescue his wife. It's typical 90's cheese at times & i loved that because it's a direct-to-video product of it's time. Sasha Mitchell is excellent here once again as good-hearted David Sloan, the man where trouble haunts him always. Sasha is such a big tall cool & handsome guy & is totally believable as he grabs, kicks & punches his way through bad guys. Sasha is a decent actor & a nice presence of goodness in a dangerous world of bloodthirsty warriors. Awesome cult movie director ALBERT PYUN (RIP) was a talent, a very underrated movie wizard that wasn't appreciated enough in my opinion when he was alive. I've always been an Albert fan since growing up watching & loving his Cyborg (1989), still my favourite Van Damme movie, on video way bk in the day.
Albert made lots of movies mainly with tiny budgets but he always put his heart into it & that gave us video era gems like Dollman, Kickboxer 2, Kickboxer 4, Adrenaline: Fear The Rush, Nemesis, Mean Guns & more.
Albert really directed his Kickboxer 4 sequel like a proper 90's direct-to-video martial arts actioner with thrills & kills & erotic thriller scenes & a new style of main villain Tong Po here, who is more like a Bond villain here but alot of fun in his evil ways. Also Pyun regular & B-movie fan favourite, Thom Mathews has part as Tong Po's right-hand man & it's always good to see that guy because he's been in so much good B-movie stuff: Return of the Living Dead, Friday the 13: Jason Lives, Crazy Six, Nemesis, Blast, Mean Guns, Bloodmatch & many more.
There's a nice feel of Bruce Lee's Enter The Dragon here with the big warrior fighting compound where a bloody tournament with take place. Obviously Albert was a big fan of that 70's martial arts Classic.
The action scenes are incredibly well shot, with the best being when David enters a bar on his way to the tournament in dusty Mexico, here he sticks up for a little blond teenage girl (who is also a fighter on her way to Tong Po's tournament) where Sasha takes on everyone in the bar & expertly & in full control takes them down with incredible fighting techniques & skill. That bar sequence is the best fight in the movie as it shows off Sasha's incredible fighting skills.
Kickboxer 4 is a well told pure 90's action thriller revenge story that was popular in the 90's with low-budget productions & a cool martial arts fighter leading it all.
The film is well directed by Albert Pyun who seemed to really wanna make a typical & proper martial arts action movie that was destined to hit the shelves of Blockbuster video in the action genre section.
Kickboxer 4 is a slick, good looking movie with plenty of 90's cheese & plenty of fun bloody fighting sequences & some good characters to root for.
I'm a fan of this type of movie from the glorious 90's video stores times so i get a nice Nostalgic kick from these types of martial arts flicks crafted on low-budgets & made with style & heart.
Thank you Albert Pyun for all your hard work. Thank you for Cyborg, Nemesis & Kickboxer 2.
Phantoms (1998)
A Great 90's Atmospheric Horror-Thriller. A Real Gem.
Phantoms is pure 90's Nostalgia-filled, Horror-thriller entertainment with a real creepy atmosphere & a top 90's cast.
Phantoms comes outta Dimension films with following in the footsteps of hits Scream & Scream 2, with a hot cast of newish talent & in a Horror story.
Phantoms is also a fun monster movie, the likes of which the 90's did so well, with gems like, The Relic & Mimic & Virus.
Phantoms stars a young Ben Affleck (Justice League, Paycheck, Smokin' Aces, Daredevil) as a Sheriff of a small populated town Colorado, that teams up with two sisters who have just arrived in the town to discover its empty & very spooky. One of the sisters, the older one, is played by Joanna Going, who is a doctor coming to work in the small isolated town. The other sister is the younger & more outgoing sister played by the gorgeous Rose Mcgowan from Scream. We also get Liev Schreiber of Scream 2 fame as a weirdo police officer & old school Classic British actor Peter O'Toole as a writer for an eccentric paper of fantastical news. This group of mixed charities have to work together in order to fight against an ancient creature that has risen after thousands of years in hiding. This monster is a huge mass of black slime & tentacles & can morph into anything. I was reminded of John Carpenter's Cult Classic, Prince of Darkness (1987), which was very cool.
Phantoms is dark & very spooky, it's got a chilly winter setting & with a whole town that has vanished, it's often really unnerving. Something ancient & evil has risen & wants to terrify humankind. There's a really good story here & quite creepy when you think about how easy humankind can be attacked by a powerful force, there's always a real threat that we could be wiped-out by something.
The atmosphere, mood & cinematography is top notch 90's & almost cozy in a way. The town is beautifully isolated & very creepy & the small cast do really well surviving in this spooky place. There's an awesome scene with a big supernatural moth creature that attcks the group & it's so well done, & so damn cool. The score is suitably moody & the look & feel is very Carpenter, Very X-Files & with a little Silent Hill.
Phantoms is definitely a moody, supernatural Horror-thriller that took me right bk to the 90's. I miss those days, i miss the way the movies looked bk then & how they felt. You can always tell a 90's movie when you see one, or i can anyhow.
I love Phantoms.
Muzzle (2023)
A Nice Little Character Study Drama & Modern Cop Thriller With A Top Notch Performance From Eckhart.
First off i love the old 80's & 90's buddy-cop Dog movies like James Belushi's Classic K-9 (1989) (which is one of my all-time favorite films since the video days) & it's direct-to-video 90's sequel K-911. But I'm not bothered about Hanks' Turner & Hooch as i felt it was abit too sad. But i also really liked Chuck's go at it with his 90's Top Dog & then that little Cop & Dog sub-genre seemed to die out.
Of course K-9 (1989) is the greatest dog cop film of all-time.
Then i saw the dvd cover of MUZZLE & instantly i was excited to check it out because it looked like one of those buddy-cop dog films i grew up loving.
MUZZLE stars Aaron Eckhart (the guy that was excellent as Harvey Dent aka: Two Face in The Dark Knight) & has Starred in many films including Paycheck, Olympus has Fallen, London has Fallen, I, Frankenstein, Battle: Los Angeles, In The Line of Duty The Core & many more, as a very rough & ready K-9 unit cop named Rosser, that starts to uncover a mystery surrounding his dog partners death. His original partner Ace is shot dead & Rosser loses it & that's the start of this dark & moody movie about loss, loneliness, anger & vengeance. There's actually a lot under the surface of MUZZLE, maybe a bit too much as not all of it is fully explored.
At the heart of MUZZLE is the fact dogs are real partners to cops & they mean as much to them as a human partner & This movie definitely captured that.
Aaron Eckhart seems to be revitalising his Career as a B-movie Action Star with lots of action-thriller films being released straight to dvd with his rugged face on them.
Eckhart is a capable actor with intensity & a hurt & bitter look in his eyes like a man that's seen it all & lived. So Aaron is great in this role as a tormented man that seems very lonely & very lost. His character is Jake Rosser & is a Los Angeles K-9 cop with a past in Afghanistan as a soldier that has seen it all & lived.
PTSD & a very gritty & apocalyptic looking LA are on show here in this serious thriller. Eckhart is great as he navigates his way around skid row of a very downtrodden underbelly of Los Angeles where drugs & homelessness are everywhere. The film looks great for a lower budget production & Eckhart is great on screen (although the role could've easily have been played by Thomas Jane & been just as good as their both so similar & both good actors) & his new dog partner he gets named Socks is a good actor for a dog. You see Eckhart's bitter & angry cop gets a new dog partner that has been through hell too, so both cop partners are messed up emotionally & have to learn to trust each other & get on. But the mystery of the film is abit weird & not fully explored or explained, in detail anyway. There's a new drug on the dirty, gritty downtown streets of Los Angeles & apparently Socks the dog was the crime syndicates property for sniffing out drugs or something? Or for testing drugs on? I'm not totally sure but it wasn't good either way. The bad guys of MUZZLE are never fully explored or really seen so we don't get that cool old school cop genre trope of having an awesome bad guy that our hero cops are tracking down. Some of the scenes & dialogue feel disjointed & unfocused properly. I feel there's alot cut from the movie but it didn't speed things up because the film is a slow character drama most of the time & definitely doesn't have enough action in it. There's a cop character that is an asshole & really dislikes Eckhart's cop but suddenly & surprisingly decides to help him near the final showdown at the end? That's bizarre & unexplained.
There's a nurse that seems to really fancy Eckhart that lives in his building & the relationship feels weird & there's no real chemistry at all.
Stephen Lang (Don't Breath 1&2) has a nice little part as an LAPD K-9 trainer.
At times i got glimpses of that K-9 movie feel i love, like when Eckhart is chatting to his dog in his car whilst cruising around Los Angeles but again its never fully explored to be fun & doesn't last long. I think MUZZLE wanted to be a more very serious police drama about the relationship between a police man & his police dog & in that case the film does it well but its just missing some more action sequences & a proper bad guy & better supporting characters.
Aaron Eckhart does his best with a low-key grumpy & depressed performance & he does act well. It was good to see him have to go to a psychiatrist to sort his head out as tough men never really seem to open up so those scenes are actually very important in todays mental health awareness times. Eckhart is on a mission to find out who killed his partner dog at the beginning of the movie & why? But seems no one is interested in helping him & worse is his superiors think he's losing it so he sets out to investigate on his own terms & time. There's typical cop genre tropes scattered throughout but done in more serious tone & it's definitely Eckhart that keeps the whole thing together.
MUZZLE is a decent little cop drama/thriller but don't expect old school cop action like i did because its disappointing in that way but good as a dark character piece.
I will watch it again & hopefully pick up bits i might have missed.
MUZZLE is a good watch & a decent cop film & is the very rare type of buddy-cop dog film you don't see anymore, it's a K-9 movie updated to our modern times & yeah i did like it even if it wasn't as good as i thought it could've been.
Bronson (2008)
A Powerhouse Phenomenal Performance From Tom Hardy & Absolutely Mental & Hilarious.
Legendary British actor Tom Hardy is spectacular on screen in this very low-budget stylish Biography Drama of infamous British Criminal Charles Bronson.
Tom Hardy has definitely proved himself as one of today's greatest actors & can play pretty much any role like a chameleon. Hardy is phenomenal here.
Hardy is spectacular here as beefed up nutter prisoner Charles Bronson who Hardy makes such an interesting & wild character, spot on actually as a performance of a real person I've heard.
Bronson is Britain's most violent prisoner in real life & its something he's very proud about as he's put in all of Britain's prisons & keeps coming back like a force of violent nature. This is a based on true life story & it's a crazy story that is funny, tragic & action-packed. Bronson wants fame & will do anything to get it as he gets more popular & well known throughout the prison system & the in the news. Bronson is a man with a big ego & an even bigger appetite for brutal violence & his craziness is captured by Hardy here.
Bronson tells the his story in through the 70's & 80s & how his love for uncontrollable violence keeps him from living a normal life. Bronson is unpredictable & can flip at any time anywhere & he's a scary bloke.
The film plays out his mental story in a very darkly funny way & done very theatrically & very stylish. The cinematography is excellent for such a low-budget movie & the score is awesome with it's 80s synthesiser style & suits the old school period feel of the film.
Bronson may be a brutal butter but he's still got a moral code as you see when his rage takes over for a vile pedo he can't wait to get his hands on. The guy is such an interesting & fascinating character & Hardy delivered it all in a powerhouse performance that explodes on screen.
I loved the black humour of the piece & the movie is never dull or depressing like many British drama films. Bronson is electrifying as a piece of Cult Classic entertainment & packs plenty into its short running time.
Tom Hardy totally committed to this role & is Excellent.
Bronson is compared to A Clockwork Orange often but Bronson is way, way better than that crap.
The Eagle (2011)
An Excellent Gritty, Dark & Dangerous Warrior Survival Thriller
First off I've never been a fan of Channing Tatum as to me he was a bland typical pretty boy star that was a crafted to please the woman crowd with crap like his Magic Mike movies. I also wasn't bothered about his silly Jump Street cop comedy films & i had only ever actually watched him in one movie & that was his small role at the beginning of the G. I Joe sequel "Retaliation" & that was that & made no impact on me whatsoever.
The Eagle is the first Channing Tatum movie I've seen & i gotta admit he's really good here as Roman leader & warrior Marcus who is over in England to find out what happened to his father's legion that vanished years earlier. Also the Romans beloved symbolic artifact, The Golden Eagle of Ninth statue, went missing with his father's disappearance & the Roman superiors want it back.
Tatum does give a very good-hearted & strong willed performance as a young man trying to prove himself as a warrior like his father & to earn respect amongst his troops.
I really did like Channing Tatum in this role & he proved to me he's not just a typical bland Hollywood product of an actor.
I'm still not bothered about other Tatum films but The Eagle is atleast one he made that i was actually interested in seeing (can't stand his rom com flicks).
The best performance goes to the excellent British actor Jamie Bell (Death Watch, Skin) who plays brilliantly a slave to the Romans that becomes Tatums own personal slave when Marcus saves his life from a brutal Galaditor fight. Jamie Bell has absolutely proven he's an excellent actor before & he keeps delivering powerhouse performances with each movie. Here Bell plays Esca who is has the task of getting Marcus accross the British countryside that's full of rogue warriors & brutal tribes that want Roman Blood.
What i really liked about this gritty & tough warrior thriller was the buddy element that becomes the movies backbone with Roman leader Marcus & Warrior slave Esca working together undercover whilst travelling accross dangerous territory trying to find where Marcus's father's men died & where the Golden Eagle is.
The movie looks beautiful with gorgeous Cinematography & gritty punch with the swords & bloody action scenes.
I really did find that Tatum & Bell made a compelling team & i really enjoyed the story & dangerous mission they were on.
Because these were ancient warrior times everywhere feels dangerous & everyone seems deadly & our two heroes have to navigate their way around it all.
The Eagle is an excellent ancient warrior adventure with two damn good leads that create a friendship you love.
The Eagle is a kind of (or could be classed as) sequel to Neil Marshall's Centurion that came out a year earlier in 2010. The Eagle basically follows on years later from the events of Centurion & so would make a nice double bill.
I much prefer this type of Swords & Sandels adventure to the over bloated boring epics like Gladiator or Braveheart.