Tag: film review

B Movie Glory: Uwe Boll’s Bloodrayne

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

There’s no excuse for films as shitty as Uwe Boll’s Bloodrayne. I know he’s a notoriously slipshod filmmaker and he somehow manages to get the rights to all these awesome video games which he then butchers with kindergarten level gong shows like this, but this one is especially bad. Now, before he goes and reads this and wants to come fight me like those other critics (he owns a restaurant a few blocks from where I work, so I gotta be careful lol), I should say that, contrary to popular opinion, he has in fact made some good films. Attack On Darfur and Assault On Wall Street come to mind as two solid dramas where he actually took his craft seriously and made something worthwhile. But Bloodrayne? Holy shot this movie sucks the big one and doesn’t even have the courtesy to swallow after. It’s loosely based on a pretty cool medieval vampire adventure game from years back, but resembles an episode of Xena Warrior Princess made by preschoolers. The protagonist is hottie vampiress Kristanna Loken, who was the kickass female Terminator in T3, and also gets to kick some ass here, between steamy porno scenes with other vampires. The only cool bit is a stunt sequence where she gets to fight a giant ogre thing and bash its head in with a gigantic war hammer. The cast is absolutely stacked here, as is strangely the case with most of Boll’s films. Michael Madsen and Michelle Rodriguez look hella out of place in Middle Ages garbs playing fellow warriors, Ben Kingsley is rigidly constipated as the big baddie, Meat Loaf has a laughable cameo as some kind of Shakespearean pimp, Billy Zane hilariously shows up as a despot, and the list goes on, including the likes of Udo Kier, Michael Paré and Geraldine Chaplin. I wanna be fair to Boll, as the guy clearly has a lot of passion for trying to get films made and simply being productive, and like I said before, some of his output is actually really decent. It’s just whenever he tries to adapt a video game the resulting product turns out hopelessly disastrous. It’s the same case with Alone In The Dark, House Of The Dead and Far Cry, and the guy keeps going. Bloodrayne is a cartoonish, awkwardly staged, terribly acted EuroTrash dumpster fire, something no one should have to sit through just to see their favourite actors embarrass themselves. I can’t believe he went on to make like three sequels.

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: Control

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Control is a clunky psychological thriller that gets away with feeling realistic by the skin of its teeth thanks to four terrific actors who are so good that they somewhat cloak the incredibly silly narrative. Built around a high concept psychiatry experiment, Ray Liotta plays a vicious career criminal psychopath who is recruited into a secret government program by hotshot Doctor Willem Dafoe. Dodgy mood altering pharmacology is used to try and augment Liotta’s antisocial, violent behaviour and increase empathy levels, thus making him a productive and well adjusted member of society. It seems to work at first, he gets a steady job and meets a nice girl (Michelle Rodriguez cast wonderfully against type). But demons catch up with al of us, and the drugs start having side effects, which complicate the whole thing. Liotta is combustible in the role and gives it his all, he has few genuine lead roles but whenever they throw him one he always shines. Dafoe is incapable of a false note and makes his character work, while Irish veteran Stephen Rea makes creepy work of Dafoe’s sinister superior doctor. They’re all great, it’s just the story that falls into silly territory, especially with a huge WTF twist right at the end that takes the wind right out of the film’s sails and feels completely unwarranted. Come for the actors, stay awhile for the actors, make of the script what you will.

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: Java Heat

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Java Heat is an odd one, and by odd I mean Mickey Rourke as a weirdo terrorist with an accent that doesn’t sound like anything from any region anywhere. It’s pretty standard action flick set in Jakarta Indonesia in which an American undercover agent (Kellan Lutz) teams up with a local Muslim police inspector (Ario Bayu) to take down ruthless international baddie Malik (Rourke), who’s involved in everything from gun running to jewel thievery to human trafficking. International really is the key word for Mickey’s approach to the role, this guy could be anywhere, sounds vaguely French sometimes, wears a crisp white pinstripe suit that seems to get cleaner with every bloody car chase and grimy street side shootout, and barks out poetic threats in a garbled tone that gives his performance a Rourke flavour all it’s own. The film is pretty substandard, Lutz is about as good an actor as a traffic median and the story is all been there done that. But Rourke, man. It’s no secret that for whatever behavioural reason he keeps getting put in the doghouse of B movies after several hopeful high profile comebacks (remember The Wrestler?), and it’s fascinating to see what little projects he does here and there to grab a buck. Although not toting his trademark little chihuahua here like in some flicks, he’s obviously been allowed to to go rebel renegade with stylistic choices as far as the role is concerned, and naturally is the most memorable thing about this. Java Mickey for the win.

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: Gun

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Gun is one of the countless disposable B grade flicks that 50 Cent insists on starring in, for some reason. I mean, the guy got rich, he didn’t die trying, he’s set up for a few lifetimes and he just won’t quit showing up in direct to DVD genre stuff, it’s amusingly weird and I’d love to one day ask him why. Maybe he just really enjoys acting, in which case I say go for it, but maybe with an agent who’s a bit choosier at the script roulette table. This one also stars Val Kilmer, a similarly afflicted actor who’s recently been slumming it, but the two aren’t half bad here as a powerful gun runner (fiddy) and his old prison buddy (Vally) who’s looking for a job. What the big guy doesn’t know is that Kilmer is has actually been tagged by the Feds as an informant, which turns the situation into a powder keg of betrayal and secrets that could get lit any minute. The real scene stealer here is James Remar as a dogged vice detective who has been consumed by the task of taking them both down, he puts actual grit and feeling into the role and seems to be a guest star from a way better film. Others include beauty queen Annalynne McCord as a dangerous rival arms dealer, a quick cameo from Danny Trejo playing his usual brand of aggressive thug, and strangely enough John Larroquette as well, who I swear I haven’t seen in anything since Richie Rich back in the 90’s. You could do worse for this kind of fare, but it’s nothing special.

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory- Rise: Blood Hunter

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Rise: Blood Hunter is what you get when you take the sexy female vampire Underworld shtick and suck all the moody, gothic stylistics out of it, leaving something that doesn’t quite have an aesthetic it’s own at all, and feels awkward. It does have one thing going for it though: Lucy Liu. She gives Kate Beckinsale a run for her money in terms of physicality, sex appeal and stunt work, but it’s too bad she wasn’t given a film that rose up to meet her talent. She plays a reporter here who wakes up on a morgue slab one day and realizes she’s been turned into a vampire by the very same satanic cult that she had prior been investigating. Loaded with souped up powers, she begins a bloody journey to exact revenge on them one by one and put a stop to their nocturnal shenanigans. There’s a subplot involving a cop (Michael Chicklis) who’s looking for his missing sister, but ultimately it’s a series of violent, dimly lit confrontations as Liu hunts the cult down to their nasty leader (James D’Arcy is a bit too pretty boy for such a built up villain. There’s supporting work from Holt Mccallany, Carla Gugino and random cameos from Nick Lachey, Marilyn Manson and the great Robert Forster who’s talent is wasted on a bit part that any extra could have done in their sleep. You’ve gotta hand it to Liu, she’s a fountain of star-power and presence, but not even she could carry this beyond SyFy’s movie of the week syndrome.

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: Slow Burn

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Slow Burn is just that, one of those dreary, stylized neo noirs about a low rent private investigator (Eric Roberts) who is on a case but seems only half interested, probably because the plot meanders around making little sense or holding less interest than a ruptured hull does water. Roberts is always engaging so it’s not all bad, plus there’s some eclectic cast members supporting him and an appearance from young Johnny Depp in what was one of his first roles, probably filmed in between takes of A Nightmare On Elm Street. Roberts is hired by a kooky New York artist (the great Raymond J. Barry) to investigate Depp’s stern rich parents (Beverly D’Angelo and Dan Hedaya), who may have some vague familial ties or be involved in a decades old scandal. Or are they? Do we care? Does it matter? It certainly didn’t matter to any potential distributors, as there seems to be literally no North American DVD release, I had to watch one of those choppy ten part YouTube versions. It’s interesting to see Depp and Roberts together in a few quick scenes, they are two legends of cool and it’d be nice to see them in something else together again. Overall though this is a particularly slow burn, and not a very enthralling one at that.

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: Critical Mass

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Seldom does a film so blatantly rip off actual footage from another one like Critical Mass does, a two bit Speed/Die Hard spawn that lifts scenes right out of James Cameron’s Terminator 2 with no shame and little attempts to cover it’s tracks. Remember that scene where Arnie stands on the roof with the mini gun and blasts endless clips into cop cars? Well this one intercuts super terrorist Udo Kier holding nothing but an MP5 or something similarly small, yet the editing still shows that same massive amounts of destruction that the T-101’s high power cannon would cause. On top of that, they *clearly* show the Cyberdyne Systems signs right in frame several times. Wow. Points for no fucks given, but none whatsoever for effort or originality. Kier is actually fun as the arch radical maniac who wants to hijack nukes to blow shit up for some vague recycled ideology, but he’s always great in any role, no matter the pedigree of film. Treat Williams plays an ex military turned security guard tasked with stopping him, and you can guess where it goes. Cheap, shameless, without a brain in it’s head.

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: The Librarians aka Strike Force

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Exterior, Miami Beach. A hardened mercenary (everyone’s favourite tough guy, William Forsythe) has just returned the kidnaped daughter of a businessman, and the guy says “I don’t even know what to call you guys.” Forsythe’s Simon replies “Just call us the Librarians… lets just say we return overdue books”, with a straighter face than David Caruso’s Horatio Cain on CSI, another ludicrous Miami tough guy. Anyways, that’s the kind of knowingly asinine B Movie Glory (trademarked at this point) that we have here, but it’s a good bit of fun, to quote a certain Tarantino character. Forsythe’s off the books squad deals in locating the victims of human trafficking, and bringing the pain to those who perpetrate it. He’s joined by Prison Break’s Amaury Nolasco, martial arts star Daniel Bernhardt and former playboy bunny turned B movie maiden Erika Eleniak. Their next task: rescue the kidnaped daughter of a mysterious billionaire (Michael Parks Skypes in a cameo that contains more gravity than the rest of the film combined, not to mention more than it deserves) from the clutches of a slimy crime lord (Andrew Divoff in full villain mode). It’s routine and predictable, punctuated by off the wall one liners, porno lit sex scenes, low grade gunfight last and sloppy hand to hand combat. I still can’t get over that aforementioned snippet of dialogue though, it sums up what glorious little gems like this are all about, encapsulates the B action film and Forsythe delivers it with that knowing little smirk that’s says it all. Watch for familiar faces like Ed Lauter, Forsythe’s own daughter Rebecca, Christopher Atkins and more. Oh yeah, and Burt Reynolds shows up briefly as a shady character credited (he actually had his name removed from the roster, understandably) as ‘Irish’. His first and middle names could be ‘Not’ and ‘Actually’, because the brogue he uses here is worse than Tommy Lee Jones I’m Blown Away and Dennis Hopper in Ticker combined, it’s a perplexing, cringy cameo. Hilarious stuff.

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: Captured

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

In a home invasion scenario, where do the lines between stalker and victim get blurred? For cat burglar Robert Breed (Andrew ‘Wishmaster’ Divoff) and hotheaded real estate tycoon Holden Downs (the great Canadian character actor Nick Mancuso), this question leads to a nocturnal game of cat and mouse when the former makes the ill fated decision to bust into the latter’s garage one night and pilfer an expensive automobile. Little does the intruder know, but Downs is a bit of an unhinged basket case and, after several other break ins, has equipped his ride with a self locking, impenetrable steel cage that basically turns it into a prison for whoever is locked inside. This puts both men in an odd position as Downs hold Breed captive inside his car, torments him and projects every little frustration of his own life onto the guy until tempers are high. It’s a somewhat silly concept given the Panic Room style chamber piece treatment, but it’s the two actors who really sell it with their frenzied intensity, particularly serial scene stealer Mancuso who goes for broke with his angry Joker-esque mannerisms. This is blatantly low budget and super rough around the seams, but a serviceable thriller nonetheless, with excellent work from the two actors who make good use of the high concept setup.

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: Walled In

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Walled In isn’t scary enough to be memorable or original enough to leave a lasting impression, it’s just one of those drab, grey, middle of the road horror flicks that comes and goes as quickly and unceremoniously as a sudden breeze through the room. The only notable reason for it existing beyond background noise is the presence of a few cool actors. Mischa Barton headlines, and despite her teen star shtick I’ve always thought that she’s a really good, engaging actress. Supporting her are Vancouver’s own Deborah Kara Unger and Cameron Bright, who always add class to any venture. Their trio of involvement made it worthwhile for me, but the story and production overall is just a hazy blur. Barton plays an agent for a demolition company who is overseeing the removal of a particularly old building, with some freaky secrets laid into the foundation. Unger is the building’s super creepy caretaker who knows what’s up but ain’t snitching to anyone, while Bright is even less helpful as her weird son. It turns out there’s hidden tombs in the walls where the long dead victims of a mysterious killer were shut in, and even years later the murderer may still be lurking about the place, which should have put Barton in the hot seat for some potentially suspenseful scenes, but alas, it’s a sleepy slog the whole way through. The thing would have been more lively as a video game or something, anything more stimulating than the cable level lack of thrills and chills doled out here. Barton was good, as she always is, but other than her, Unger and Bright, this is just mud.

-Nate Hill