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 Ghaz wrote:
I haven't seen the film that this is from, but it brings back memories of the old cartoon and is one of my favorite film soundtracks...

Spoiler:

Oof. That hit me right in the seven-year-old.

Pacing is a little fast, but I definitely remembered more and more of that as it went on. I didn't think I remembered much of anything beyond the intro of the main theme.

@Ghaz: Oh, that is a good one.

@Mad Doc Grotsnik: That Robocop. I'll pay attention to the soundtrack next time. But I got a lot of admiration for that film in general. It's so compact and efficient. Like a robot police officer.

When I'm feeling a little funky, then there's always this soundtrack...

Evil Dead Rise

Pretty decent horror flick. Didn’t rewrite the book or offer much of anything new, but it was a fun ride. Gory, savage and some laughs throughout.

I respected that the movie got right down to business from the jump. Crazy opening, a little exposition to get us familiar with the cast and boom, demonic hijinks ensue.

Worth a rent, maybe.

The Matrix:- Resurrections

Meh.
I could overlook it being entirely unnecessary if it brought anything new or exciting to the franchise but it doesn't. It's also weirdly subdued compared to the earlier films, lacking any real oomph in it's rather sparse action scenes.

Best off just sticking with the original trilogy.

D&D movie (Honor among thieves)

Flaccid.

Just... underwhelmed entirely by it. It was entirely tropes from beginning to end, all played exactly by the book. The actors were playing meat puppets with 2-3 character traits (rather than fleshed out characters), riding in a straight line through boring (and fake looking) landscapes, and a bizarrely unimaginative standard plot with a scattering of creature cameos.

The good stand outs were the background things that they didn't shout out (like the Tears of Selune, the little asteroids around the moon).

The really bad stand outs were the non-human species (like the tabaxi, dragonborn and bird-people) which were bizarrely substandard fursuits with no costume or CGI work done to make them look even passable. No idea what happened there, beyond perhaps the final fight eating all the FX money.

We just watched that as well a few nights ago.

Michelle Rodriguez, her performance at first bugged me then I realized this was her audition to play Drax the destroyer.

The fights were flashy but nothing got me excited because they were too energetic and something about that bothered me. I have no idea why. I did like the plot they came up with to get into the vault using the tools at hand which was fun and I liked that they establish rules for their universe and stuck with them.

It was a fun throw away movie and visually better than the movies that came before it.
I could take it or leave it. But I wouldn't say don't watch it if if it's the only thing to watch or some reason that day.
On a side note this is my youngest nephew's favorite movie, he's 7.
What I don't like is that it's too clean. Which I don't like but it's eventually the modern world not the ancient world so I guess it works.


Sakura Killers - 1987.
Not what I expected at all. At first I thought it was going to recycle a bunch of footage from Ninja Warriors based on the opening but it did not. Not even close. The plot wasn't that far off. The bad guys stealing research and using it for their own ends but the characters were very different more in line with the US specal opps unit from Pray for death.
The best character is easily the Col. Who never leaves his ranch in the States and is seemingly set upon by Ninjas every few days. He easily smokes them every time they show up. for him they're just a nescience, like roaches or something. And I love the concept of some shadow organization of spies that are ever in the background keeping the world or at least the US safe from organized evil doers. Very 80's, kinda fun.

The ninja action was a little weird as our heroes use flash bombs costume changes after becoming trained to fight like ninjas but they use Oni masks which was a silly but fun and unexpected change to a ninja movie.
It's cheesy fun.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3

J’adore.

A film so good, it sent me French for a moment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bumblebee

So. It is indeed possible to have a Pretty Decent Live Action Transformers Movie.

But other than “hurr durr Bay am the hack”, what actually makes it standout amongst its predecessors?

1. Bit of Stan Bush. Just a snippet, but welcome all the same.

2. The overall visual design, the Transformers aren’t just big blurs of steel coloured robot. Bright, Primary colours let us tell one from the other during fisticuffs.

3. My God! Cameras Totally Can Zoom Out, which means when it is fisticuffs we can actually see quite clearly what’s going on.

4. Angela Bassett. Just like Danny Trejo, you always get points for Angela Bassett.

5. For nerds of a certain vintage? Honest to goodness “wasn’t broken, didn’t need to be fixed” G1 Stylings.

6. The Hoomans are hooman. Not comedy relief. Not somehow the key to it all because reasons. And sorry Mr La Boeuf, a decent actor goes a long way in that.

7. Overall the cast is stripped back and the scale smaller. More time with fewer characters is almost inevitably going to let us give more of a damn about them.

I’m…I’m actually now a bit enthused for Rise of the Beasts.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Bumblebee

Doc, have you only just gotten around to Bumblebee? For viewers of our age this is a love letter to our youth. This was the transformers we should have had from the start. I'm not going to claim it's perfect, but when Stan Bush sings "You go the touch!" and it fits so beautifully with the scene, I go to jelly.

I swear I’ve seen it before, and had it on DVD. But seemingly not!

I saw Fast X again.

It was just as good the second time.

That might be the first Fast movie to get me to see it. Reviews and word of mouth have both been really positive.

I can’t say I’m a fan of that franchise. But, at the same time? The few I’ve seen have been nothing less than in the words of Pinky? Silly willy fun fun fun

Maybe it’s time I gave them more attention.

It's one of those film series that weirdly got better as it went on (the Mission Impossible series has done this as well, but for vastly different reasons).

Fast 1 is just a Point Break rip-off with cars, but with good energy from its two leads - Vin and Walker. Plus I like Michelle Rodriguez.

Fast 2 has the best title of the whole series but is a convoluted undercover cop/cartel movie that has its moments, but it's more like a generic sequel that had the Fast name slapped on it.

Fast 3 has... nothing to do with any of the others until Dom shows up as a cameo at the end. As a completely standalone film it's... ok, I guess. I thought it was dull. It does pay off in a larger way in Fast 6 and 9.

Fast 4 is where they started to get their act together, bringing the two main characters from the first film back together. It's not a great film, but having rewatched it more recently I can appreciate what they were trying to do. It also allowed them to make the next one.

Fast 5 is the Citizen Kane of the Fast franchise. It is easily the best one, has some incredible action sequences (including the vault dragging scene which is amazing!), a wonderful ensemble cast, and introduces The Rock to the series. It also transitions the show from "street racing" to "international heists and hijinks".

Fast 6, while not as good as Fast 5, is still a worthy follow-up, has more international hijinks, introduces more villains, we get our first returning dead character (won't be the last!), and Dom is slowly turning into an invincible Terminator.

Fast 7 is a monumental film from a production standpoint. Paul Walker died halfway through filming, leaving the director in an extremely difficult position of how (or even if) to finish the film without him. Watching the film, other than some sketchy compositing during the film's emotional farewell, you'd be hard pressed to tell that Walker isn't in half of it, even though his character is in all of it. I think this one is better than 6, and has my fav action sequence of the entire series (the attack on the convoy to rescue Ramsey). Plus Jason Statham rocks!

Fast 8 represented a breaking point, as it's when Vin and The Rock's beef came to a head and the two never appear in scene together (other than clever editing). It's obvious too, which gives the whole film an uncomfortable tension. Plus Dom's storyline has him betraying the team (for good reason) which just gives it a weird vibe. The action in this one is good, but it doesn't hit the heights of Fast 5/6/7.

Hobbs & Shaw is a straight up action movie staring a bunch of charismatic leads (Rock, Statham, Kirby and Elba) in a kinda-sorta related plot that is perhaps too long and too hamstrung by ego (like actor contracts that dictated how much they could be punched without getting a good hit in return). It's fun, but not the greatest film ever.

Fast 9 is an absurd film that basically does everything that people kept daring them to do over the years (they finally go to space). Yes, it's stupidly silly and over the top (moreso than Fast 8), but it is still a lot of fun. The Rock is conspicuous in his absence here. The way the team is split up in this one isn't the best, but Dom's sister has a bigger role and we get another dead character returning under circumstances that stretch credulity. This one is dumb fun, but emphasis on the dumb.

And then Fast 10 brings it all together. The absurdity is down to Fast 6/7 levels rather than 8/9 levels, there's tons of call-backs and payoffs from past films, even homages to other films in the series, lots of returning characters, another from-the-dead reveal which is insane. Plus a post-credits scene that promises to fix the problems of the last few films and hopefully give us a real complete ensemble finale (assuming the next one is the finale).

What about Tokyo Drift? Or is that the second one?

To be fair, I think I’m snobby about it for stupid reasons. Stupid reason being Oiks In “Souped Up” Ford Escorts being a nuisance on the high street with their laughable exhaust amplifiers which fooled precisely no-one I to think a performance car was approaching, blaring our whatever “Ayebeeefaaa banger” was on heavy rotation on Radio One that week, giving me a very low opinion of car enthusiasts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
John Wick 4

Got to admit. Much as I enjoyed John Wick 3, it was feeling a bit too close to shark jumping. And so it was with some trepidation I put on John Wick 4.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’ve absolutely nothing against brainless actioners. Indeed I even have a soft and squishy spot for The Expendables. However, John Wick and John Wick 2 were gloriously stripped back.

3 very, very nearly slipped away from its more grounded nature. 4 has stepped quite confidently away from that precipice.

I’m greatly enjoying it!

Power Rangers (2017)

How can we miss you when you never left?

The Rangers have been on for 30 years+ just doing their thing of appropriating Japanese shows and erasing any traces of Japanese actors or culture.

(Funny how the usual suspects never added the Rangers to their $%@+ list. Maybe because the Japanese owners sold and continue to sell them the rights to do it?
Or maybe erasing Japanese people is fine.)

Point being it's an open question if a reboot really adds anything when the latest version of the show (Power Rangers Mega Ninja Dino Turbo Steel in Space?) is on the air.

This dark and gritty reboot of the Power Rangers is more of an overcast and dusky reboot, moving the Rangers from PG to PG-13 at best. Or maybe G to PG even depending on what you think of the show.

The Pink Ranger turns rebellious and in a shocking act of rebellion cuts her hair! Like 2" off. Shoulder length. If it wasn't for the reaction shots I wouldn't have noticed. The Yellow Ranger might be bisexual but never does anything! The Blue Ranger is on the spectrum but it never impedes his ability to pilot giant mecha or fight Space Witches!

And so on.

Probably the most shocking thing is how they played with the color coding, the Black Ranger is Asian, the Blue Ranger black, the Yellow Ranger Latina! I'm sure someone somewhere thought that was subversive.

It's like they wanted to go Dark and Realistic but just couldn't do it.

Go watch Power/Rangers instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wncYbIpm6hk

I finished off the Hunger Games by watching The Mockingjay. What is really interesting to me about these films is that they are "action" films, but the heroine doesn't really play a role in the world deciding events, except as a witness to them. It is actually kind of interesting that way.

Everyone sees her and knows who she is, and sees her as a symbol. However, she isn't the one leading the armies, winning the battles, Negotiating world peace, etc. Instead, her mission is pretty much a failure that gets a bunch of people killed, and she acknowledges that fact.

In the end, there is a bit of a face-to-face showdown with President Snow, but it is nothing like what you see in a normal action movie. Plus, the ending it relatively downbeat and relatively realistic.

As an aside, every Star Wars movies starts with a pan down to something in space like a planet or a starship. In the Hunger Games, every movie begins with an attack of PTS as the trauma of the events they are part of kicks in and causes some emotional/spiritual attack. I liked that.

For a sci-fi, young adult, action series.... it was kind of light on action, down beat, and "realistic" in how these events might impact a person. Strong acting from Jennifer Lawrence and good support from Julianne Moore, Donald Sutherland, Seymour Hoffman (RIP), and others help to ground these films. Also, great set and art direction too.

I am honestly shocked at how much I enjoyed them.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Ford Escorts

These were discontinued 2 decades ago, if you've got a problem with people being anti social in them currently I suggest the nearest classic car club may have gone feral. Or you desperately need to update your references.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
What about Tokyo Drift? Or is that the second one?

That's the third one, although in the timeline it is technically the 6th one, as 4, 5, and 6 take place before it (except the post-credits scene in 6, which takes place during 3... it's very simple! ).

 Easy E wrote:
I am honestly shocked at how much I enjoyed them.

I had the very same reaction at the end of it all.

HBMC, thanks for that recap. Sounds like I might want to just start at Fast 5.



Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No

I finally figured out what this series reminds me of: that Simpsons episode where Bart and Lisa wrote Itchy and Scratchy. Sharknado feels like the writers take every “awesome” idea a grade school class can throw at them, then run with the silliest. The sub-Corman budget gives it that Threat Level Midnight charm. Then add in some actors who fully commit (Ian Ziering and David Hasslehoff, and Tara Reid half the time) and some who are full ham (most of the cameos*), and you get something an Airplane! coming from the other direction on the dram-comedy spectrum.

The end of part 3 is so ridiculous that it slingshots around awful and rockets back into hilarity.

*There are so many great cameos. Teal’c gets eaten by a shark. Tuvok apparently lives. Malcolm in the Middle’s fate is just brutal. This film also has some pretty unfortunate cameos, such as Anthony Wiener, Michelle Bachman, and Jared from Subway, so there is a dark side.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
HBMC, thanks for that recap. Sounds like I might want to just start at Fast 5.

The issue with that is that so many of the main characters are introduced in the other films - Tej and Roman in Fast 2, and Gisele in Fast 4. Plus there are callbacks in later films, and as I said, Fast X does do a lot to make these films more important.

But you can give 3 a miss until you finish 6.

Is there a Fastiverse? An extended set of fanfic and tie in novels and merch?

Seems like an interesting case to take into the Avatar thread about cultural impact.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Power Rangers (2017)
...

I wrote about it at length I think. I have nothing to do with Power Rangers, I caught the film on tv, thought I'd give it a go until it gets too annoying, it never really did, ultimately I ended up enjoying it. It's a pretty silly kids' film about the Power Rangers. And for that it's way better than it has any right to be based on the premise I thought. I also like the motivation of the baddie and the fact that the power ranger kids very clearly stated at least twice that their goal was to KILL the baddie made me giggle.

Do not much care about the thing that the show's been doing for 30 years ("erasing Japanese people"), because if anything it shows the contempt in which the companies involved hold American audiences, and that's a fact that can't be pointed out often enough. The subversive thing of course would have been to have the black guy be the black ranger and so on, but I think they just switched it up because otherwise there'd have been Twitter-screaming and who needs that.



Concerning the "Fastiverse" - watched my first F&F film the other week, and I think that'll be enough for me for now.

 Sigur wrote:

Do not much care about the thing that the show's been doing for 30 years ("erasing Japanese people"), because if anything it shows the contempt in which the companies involved hold American audiences, and that's a fact that can't be pointed out often enough. The subversive thing of course would have been to have the black guy be the black ranger and so on, but I think they just switched it up because otherwise there'd have been Twitter-screaming and who needs that.

To be clear I don't think the world needs more Twitter screaming or cancelling, effective action to combat racism and foster mutual understanding would be SO MUCH more useful. (I say this after a more than a decade working in international education, I ain't seen no problems solved by screaming on Twitter.)

And even with 1 and 2 halfs of my family being Japanese I don't feel "offended" by a show whose whole rationale is a Japanese show but without those pesky Japanese people. Japan and Japanese Americans seem to be doing fine and if they try to herd my family into camps it won't be because of Sabin and Disney.

But amidst all the other things people are screaming about (did you catch the story that the Hawaiian voice actress from Moanaa is not Polynesian enough to play her in the live action film?) Power Rangers seems positively retro in its racial attitudes and it seems to get a pass.

Besides the PR movie has already cancelled itself through mediocracy.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Sigur wrote:

Do not much care about the thing that the show's been doing for 30 years ("erasing Japanese people"), because if anything it shows the contempt in which the companies involved hold American audiences, and that's a fact that can't be pointed out often enough. The subversive thing of course would have been to have the black guy be the black ranger and so on, but I think they just switched it up because otherwise there'd have been Twitter-screaming and who needs that.

To be clear I don't think the world needs more Twitter screaming or cancelling, effective action to combat racism and foster mutual understanding would be SO MUCH more useful. (I say this after a more than a decade working in international education, I ain't seen no problems solved by screaming on Twitter.)

And even with 1 and 2 halfs of my family being Japanese I don't feel "offended" by a show whose whole rationale is a Japanese show but without those pesky Japanese people. Japan and Japanese Americans seem to be doing fine and if they try to herd my family into camps it won't be because of Sabin and Disney.

But amidst all the other things people are screaming about (did you catch the story that the Hawaiian voice actress from Moanaa is not Polynesian enough to play her in the live action film?) Power Rangers seems positively retro in its racial attitudes and it seems to get a pass.

Besides the PR movie has already cancelled itself through mediocracy.

Power Rangers is pretty much the old 'United Colours of Benetton' approach, instead of today's version that gets a bit too excited about sorting people into distinct categories that they're not allowed to act outside of...

Bloodshot

A 2020 Vin Diesel superhero film based on the Valiant comic. It's hard to say if it disappeared due to COVID or from being mediocre but it vanished down the memory hole until the Netflix algorithm coughed it up for me.

The opening is a string of cliches, Vin is a super duper special forces dude whose wife is murdered by a terrorist/serial killer/bad dude and then he's killed. But he is rebuilt by an Evil Corporation given superpowers. He escapes and hunts down the Bad Guy.

But then the twist! The wife, the psycho, all are false memories to motivate him to kill Evil Co's rivals. Mr Evil even points out what a cliche the opening was.

And then it's by the numbers, recover true memories, turn against Evil Co, kill Mr Evil, gets the girl. Comic relief sidekick even points out this such a cliche are they sure it's not another simulation? Fade to black.

The twist was good, even if it led to d!ck joke. If they'd revealed the final scene was in fact another Evil Co sim I'd have been impressed. Otherwise, as forgettable as it was forgotten.

And worth noting... Evil Co? You invented technology that. (checks notes) revives the dead, makes them immortal and unkillable, and gives super powers, and can rewrite memories and your grand plan for that tech is (checks notes) sell super soldiers to the army?

Guys? How is that more useful than say, selling it to people to make them immortal and unkillable? If you think this is a good plan I've got a Bloodshot movie to sell you.

My kid and I were riffing on where the Fast series should go next, after never really watching one.

We decided there are two ways to go:

1. Prequel: Where Dom tells the story of how his ancestors raced with Henry Ford in the first cars against another evil industrialist, and helped invented the assembly line. Featuring cars vs. horses scenes.

2. Cross-Genre lines: MCU films are doing a great job putting superheroes in other genres, like Ant-man being a Heist movie. Therefore, it is time for the FF series to cross into more new genres beyond heists, globe-trotting, and car racing. We decided that the new genre should be a mash-up of musicals, dance movies, and car movies. Therefore, making a car ballet movie with singing.

I know, I know. Someone get my agent on the phone!

 Flinty wrote:
Is there a Fastiverse? An extended set of fanfic and tie in novels and merch?

There is a (terrible) video game and a kids show on Netflix that ran for 5 seasons.

Don't forget Hobbs and Shaw!

 Easy E wrote:
My kid and I were riffing on where the Fast series should go next, after never really watching one.

We decided there are two ways to go:

1. Prequel: Where Dom tells the story of how his ancestors raced with Henry Ford in the first cars against another evil industrialist, and helped invented the assembly line. Featuring cars vs. horses scenes.

2. Cross-Genre lines: MCU films are doing a great job putting superheroes in other genres, like Ant-man being a Heist movie. Therefore, it is time for the FF series to cross into more new genres beyond heists, globe-trotting, and car racing. We decided that the new genre should be a mash-up of musicals, dance movies, and car movies. Therefore, making a car ballet movie with singing.

I know, I know. Someone get my agent on the phone!

The next instalment can introduce Channing Tatum for Fast Step Up 2 the Furious Streets.