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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I blame Tom Sawyer entirely for that.

Not that he was shoehorned in. He was just a dreadfully dull character
....

Well, also because he was showhorned in. I only watched that film once. It was a bit too out there for me at the time, but had a certain something. I did not appreciate that character though. Surely I do him a disservice, but what I remembered of him was that Connery shoots well because he takes aim, and Sawyer's power was that he just shoots a lot?

I don’t think it helps I’m not terribly familiar with Tom Sawyer as a literary character.

The others all have a supernatural bent, and so are based on archetypes as much as specific literary characters.

Tom Sawyer? He’s “just” an American, so far I can tell?

No, not a criticism of Americans. Just that he’s a very odd addition with nothing especially unique or interesting about him.

Honestly I liked the film as a funky wild adventure. It does however suffer from the "too many leads not enough time" and I can 100% accept that if its based on a comic its likely got everything wrong.

It strikes me its probably a film that would have been better done as part of a series of films building one upon the next for a little bit.


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 Lathe Biosas wrote:


But League would be like the other 2 Alan Moore comic book adaptations (V for Vendetta and Watchmen) where you wondered if the screenwriters ever read the comics.

Moore always lamented that Frank Miller's comics (300 and the Sin City series) were translated perfectly, unlike his own work.

Sadly, esp when it comes to Hollywood, the case of a faithful adaptation is a rarity. Most of the time they read the title and the character names and that's about as far as accuracy goes when they make a film.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I don’t think it helps I’m not terribly familiar with Tom Sawyer as a literary character.

The others all have a supernatural bent, and so are based on archetypes as much as specific literary characters.

Tom Sawyer? He’s “just” an American, so far I can tell?

No, not a criticism of Americans. Just that he’s a very odd addition with nothing especially unique or interesting about him.

He's an odd choice, but they absolutely could have given him some kind of mind control powers or something like that but having him not have powers would be kind of cool as well. He's a grifter at heart, so having him talk out a situation where superpowers fail could be wildly entertaining if done right.

Granted, they could have mostly just adapted the comic as is. It's not that complicated of a story. The screenwriters just didn't have an ounce of respect for it.

FWIW, while V shares that same problem, Watchmen is pretty faithful. Snyder tips his hand that he doesn't really understand it by moving one important line, but it mostly tells the story in a way that works for film as well as the films based on Miller's stuff.

Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be watching Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter.

Comments to follow.

But given other Dakkanauts commented positively, thought I should share it turns out my copy is a 3 Disc Blu-ray.

Contains the wide screen 1.66:1 UK Theatrical Version, Full Screen 1.37:1 As-Filmed Version, and the 1.85:1 US Theatrical Version.

Which is nice! Also packed with extras of course. Figured worth sharing as I expect other Dakkanauts might want to pick this version up.

This is the one https://www.amazon.co.uk/Captain-Kronos-Vampire-Hunter-Blu-Ray/dp/B0DTWSX9WF/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3FYDMV7YNK70G&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.G6f_XfM9TzwN2SzdFe5sRPH-L9i-6fDZYMIGJ0UaEN8aW9akw62cnwcCpTIKEQtrcO_evZOf1WPULwRl9Hnu2mwmt1hTeZHfBSIlblVdtSded888D22rgcEnWZTpL5QcSfm3kVTA8eIURoGXV_Xxmg7gUqbdJ-9UhxM0MiNjK2kJQQ6MYRpA1Mw9nwL7ny43Ku6xmvyiaJDegmKlXp_BQKaB5hCori-kZbfonBzDxrE.749eP1Flz034wSKDO2xN6sIKl0yHWsWv1LPkbBvbkBw&dib_tag=se&keywords=Captain+Kronos&qid=1755631207&sprefix=captain+kronos%2Caps%2C92&sr=8-2

Heart Eyes

Horror Comedy Slasher Flick.

And it’s bloody good fun. By no means original? It’s well made with a solid cast.

Also now streaming on Paramount+


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Maximum Overdrive

Stephen King writes and directs this very silly film.

As Earth passes through the tail of a rogue comet, causing machines to go haywire and start squishing the smelly hoomans.

Infamous for the killer truck with the Green Goblin mask. Also stars a pre-Simpson’s Yeardley Smith.

It’s about as goofy as they come. But if you enjoy a good B-Movie, this should satisfy. Just don’t take it any more seriously than it takes itself.

I was looking for something light and fluffy to watch over lunch, so decided to revisit Star Trek: Beyond.

This movie underperformed due to bad marketing, bad release timing, and an audience that was switching off after two JJ "I really want to be making Star Wars" Abrams fan service extravaganzas. And that's a shame, because this is by far the best of the three Kelvin timeline movies, and is the only one that really feels like a Star Trek movie.

The story is a classic Trek-style plot. The crew are all settled into their roles and (even with Pegg's Scotty being a totally different character to the original) all great. The villain is cool. And the visuals (aside from some shaky blue-screen in the motorcycle scene) are fantastic, particularly the space station chase scene playing with the geometry of the place.

I can't help but wonder how things might have been different if this had been released in place of Into Darkness.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Maximum Overdrive

Stephen King writes and directs this very silly film.

It is indeed very silly, and pretty much what you would expect from a directorial debut from a guy who was at the time mostly coked out of his brain.

I love this quote from Emilio Estevez, when asked if there are any movies he regrets:

Oh, God, yeah. I’m not speaking out of class because he knows it’s a terrible movie, but Stephen King often talks about his one directorial experience on Maximum Overdrive, which I was in. The few times that I’ve connected with him over the years, he’s like, “Can you forgive me for that?” I think at one point my mom said, “Why’d you do that movie?” I said, “I wanted to work with Stephen King.” And she said, “Couldn’t you have helped him paint his house?”

Into Darkness suffered from not allowing Khan to be a charming, charismatic bugger.

Loony? Yes. And I’m not saying Custardbatch was bad. But without the effortless charm and charisma, Khan becomes entirely one dimensional.

So….Not Khan.


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Toy Soldiers

Not the one about toys. The one with Sean Astin, Wil Wheaton and Louis Gosset Jr, in which a drug cartel takes over a prep school for reasonable reasons.

Sean Astin is our protagonist, and is like a competent, actually charismatic Zack Morris. Less sociopathic too, and instead just a brilliant mind utterly bored of school.

Which comes in handy in resisting the baddies.

It’s well regarded, and quite the justifiable classic. It’s like John Hughes does Die Hard. Best of all? It’s only very slightly silly.

Toy Soldiers is well regarded? I wasn't aware of that. It's been on my watch list for ages, maybe it's time to give it another whirl. Only seen it once on tv so far.


The other day I watched The Apartment again, 1.5 times. For the first time fully in English (and then half of the film in the excellent German dub again). What can ye say, it rocks. Modern (it'll always feel modern to me. Maybe not in some of the looks, context and language, but in themes and views of the american dream, corporate culture, loneliness, capital (economic, social, aesthetic) - it's all there. Interesting how it feels like a tragic comedy, possibly based on the look, the music, the excellent cast and how they play, but there are no gags. It's very endearing, it's human, it's touching, and we laugh here and there, but it's mainly the sadder moments rather than actual gags.

Oh well. It's a great film, one of my favourites for sure.

It’s a terrific film. A little formulaic, but serves as a nice bridge between kid friendly fare like Home Alone, and adults only fare like Die Hard.

All three are essentially the same plot at the end of the day.

Speaking of which..

Masterminds

Post Picard, Pre Professor X Sir Patrick Stewart hams it right up in this Kinda Family Friendly Try Hard affair.

How did Sir Patrick get caught up in this nonsense? I dunno. Pressing tax bill? Bet a favour in a poke game? Sheer boredom? Who knows.

But he’s the only good thing in this painfully 90’s knock-off of Hackers and Toy Soldiers. He plays a security consultant who decides, alongside some Mercs, to hold a private school ransom, knowing the kids parents are loaded. A plucky computer hacker takes him on.

As I said, he’s hamming it up, clearly enjoying himself, and not a single piece of furniture is left free of his teeth marks by the end.

It feels like a Nickelodeon effort. But with guns and quite big explosions. Which rather begs the question of who was the target audience? It’s too violent for kids, and has some swearing. But the plot is much too simplistic and uninteresting to be for adults. Teenagers then? Nope. It’s too violent and sweaty for protective parents. And if your parents were more “I know you can tell fiction from reality”? They’d just go watch Die Hard. It’s hard to believe this got a cinema release, because it looks and feels like a TV Movie.

Top Marks for very silly computer shenanigans. It’s not “if we both type it’ll go faster” silly. But you can tell it’s Dawn of the Internet “nobody really knows how all this stuff actually works”.

I've watched Toy Soldiers two or three times, but not recently. Too long ago to meaningfully talk about the movie or recommend it, but I do remember that I liked it at the time.

 Sigur wrote:
Toy Soldiers is well regarded?

Not that I'm aware of. My experience is that it is generally seen as a fine movie, but nothing spectacular.

It was a good solid popular film; it just didn't make massive waves nor develop a cult following.

It honestly didn't do anything wrong. There's nothing in it that you can point to as a problem or issue, its just not Toy Story or Lion King.

Not that Toy Soldiers

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not that Toy Soldiers

So not the good one, gotcha.

☆☆☆

Ever been given a "classic" of cinema, and realized that your brain doesn't quite want to watch Jimmy Stewart be a dick to Grace Kelly in Rear Window, so your brain decides that 4:30 in the afternoon is a perfectly reasonable time for bed.

I'm sure it's a fine film, and I should give it another go... this evening.

Because I enjoy waking up at 12:20 in the am, trying to figure out if it's too early for breakfast or too late for dinner.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not that Toy Soldiers

Ahhh wait darn it I was mixing up films!!

Are people confusing Toy Soldiers with Small Soldiers? Small Soldiers is the one with Tommy Lee Jones as the voice of the main bad guy action figure, and also has a young, pre-Spider-Man Kirsten Dunst in it.

 Overread wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not that Toy Soldiers

Ahhh wait darn it I was mixing up films!!

You have 3 films to choose from:

1984 Toy Soldiers

Plot: A group of Caltech students yachting in Central America are taken hostage, and a retired U.S. Marine trains their friends to become a special ops team to rescue them.

1991 Toy Soldiers

Plot: The movie is an action/thriller centered on a Colombian terrorist group who take hostages at a Northeastern prep school to force the release of a drug lord. The school's problem students must band together to fight the terrorists.

Key Cast: Wil Wheaton, Sean Astin, and Louis Gossett Jr.

The Toy Soldiers (2014)

Plot: A drama about five lives that are forever changed on the final evening before a roller rink called The Toy Soldiers closes its doors.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Are people confusing Toy Soldiers with Small Soldiers? Small Soldiers is the one with Tommy Lee Jones as the voice of the main bad guy action figure, and also has a young, pre-Spider-Man Kirsten Dunst in it.

Yes yes I possibly am

Even I did when I said “not that Toy Soldiers, but the one with Sean Astin”.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Even I did when I said “not that Toy Soldiers, but the one with Sean Astin”.

Had you said the one with Wil Wheaton we would've all understood.

He was amazing in King Cobra and Sharknado... 3?

He’s not horrible in this to be fair. A bit ham, but only a wafer thin slice.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Also now streaming on Paramount+

Boo! Hiss!