3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

2023, Steve Caple Jr (Creed II) -- download

Hey, that didn't suck. Why didn't that suck?

Well, relatively.

OK, so it's not a BaySplosion movie. And only barely connected to Bumblebee. In fact it felt more like a standalone movie, given it happens before all the others, yet contains many of the familiar "faces". And while it did choose to go the BaySplosion route of Big Bangs instead of logic, it just felt more... well, like a movie about toys, and the scenarios kids would build in their own head.

We open with Unicron (think Ego from Guardians 2 but machine) attacking the planet of the Maximals. I swore that the premise of the machine intelligences that made up The Transformers didn't become trains, planes and automobiles until they came to Earth, and chose those forms to hide, but apparently these Transformers (are there multiple machine intelligences scattered about the universe, like most scifi says there are humans everywhere?) have Earth-based animal forms before they ever came to Earth. That said, their planet is destroyed and they flee to Earth thru a "transwarp tunnel" with the key to creating said tunnels, so that Unicron won't have free access to the universe to eat as many planets as he pleases.

Earth, the 90s. Token Human Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos, Hamilton) is trying to make ends meet while caring for his younger brother who suffers from sickle cell anemia. Against his own best interests, he accepts a job from the friendly neighbourhood thug and ends up not-quite stealing a Porsche 911, which turns out to be Mirage (Pete Davidson, The Suicide Squad). Bumblebee was already the focus of the 80s-set eponymous movie, but they still need a fast, hip-talking car/autobot for the Token Human to initially be frightened by, but eventually befriend. And support him when he eventually gets all mixed up in the latest reason to have the Autobots come out of hiding to do stuff to save Earth, themselves and ... now the Maximals.

I am not sure I can talk about the movie without sounding incredibly snarky about it (I thought you said it didn't suck?), because it is not the most smart movie (says the kettle). But unlike the BaySplosion versions, its not irritatingly so, but, as I said before, feels more like a movie built inside the mind of a kid playing with his (or her) Transformers. There are big set pieces, global locales, robots punching, robots shooting, and lots and lots of explosions, but thankfully very few humans involved. This is all between the giant robots, on the latest cosmic scale of destruction and planet saving.

A thing that always annoyed me about the other movies (you have a long list of "things"), beyond the humans unnecessarily involved, is that all the Transformers seemed overcomplicated in their depictions. I always felt like they would be shedding little bits everywhere, that SHOULD be found left, right and centre by bystanders after the events of the movies take place. This is tamped down in these movies, making them more characters and less portfolio pieces for the  CGI team. Still there are events and circumstances that should be noticed and documented, but won't be, cuz, y'know the FIRST first movie hasn't happened yet.

Like the pre-quellish X-Men movies, these are attempting to stand on their own while staying connected to the originals. I guess with more success? I am thinking they need to toss in some time travel shenanigans.

3+1 Short Paragraphs: Terminator: Dark Fate

2019, Tim Miller (Deadpool) -- download

I could literally transplant the first paragraph of my writeup for Terminator: Genisys as the opening paragraph for this movie. Both had a brief period of hype, a claim to resurrect the franchise with something entirely new, a failed opening at the box office and then a quiet fade into On Demand and Streaming. Sorry guys, I guess few people care any longer.

And yet, much like I enjoyed the last one, I rather enjoyed this one. It's not perfect, but what is these days. Well, actually there are many many Very Good movies, but with genre we often accept what we get. That's another post. ANYWAYZ, this is a Trump-era movie, made by Miller to piss off the Red Hat Legion, set in Mexico and (re)placing the focus from Sara Connor to a new, young Mexican woman. She will not bear the leader of the rebellion against the machines, she will be the leader of the rebellion. I like that; fuck you, neckbeard fan boys.

This movie also washes away, much like the last did, all the movies after the 2nd. This is still the world where Arny came for Sara Connor, where Kyle Reese saved her, where her own son rescued her from the hospital, but not long after, while they were on the run, another Terminator appeared and killed John. Even with John dead, 1997 comes and goes with no apocalypse, but that doesn't mean she lets her guard down. Come 2019, Sara Connor is old, grizzled and very very angry. Thus Grace (MacKenzie Davis, Halt & Catch Fire) appears, a Terminator-adjacent warrior from another future where we are again fighting the machines. She's human, but augmented. And just behind her comes an Uber-T1000 (Gabriel Luna, Agents of SHIELD), all liquid metal with an internal, independent skeletal chassis; alas no flaming skull. Grace shows up to find & protect Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes, Cumbia Ninja) but other than that, they have no goal in mind, beyond stay alive. Old Sara saves their ass, leading them to the source of her unlikely coincidental appearance, someone who has been feeding her the time & locations of other Terminator incursions for the last 30 years. Its the old Arny model, the one that killed John. Old in much of the sense of the word, in that his human skin has aged, but also his expanding his sentience, settled into a life protecting a woman & her son. Sara hates him, but acknowledges he can help. And thus, they combine forces to protect Dani.

There's a lot there, enough already for the three (not short) paragraphs. But what I liked about his movie was more than the small movie appeal, the less-than-blockbuster nature that the first also was, but that it played a tune on many notes. For one, it felt a lot like Logan, visually and tonally, with a weight and fatigue, yes for the franchise as well as the seemingly unending battle for the future. The future is very Who-vian, in that there seems to be fixed events. You can change the future, delay things, but these events always eventually happen, in some form or another. This is not the Skynet future we know, just another rising of the machines, another death of humanity and another appearance of a warrior to lead the survivors. And again, the paradox of she who is sent back to protect the warrior actually begins the cycle.

Note: If I can say one bad thing about this movie is that Miller majorly skimped on the special effects budget. This was so below even current TV capabilities and quality, it was extremely distracting. Everytime Liquid Terminator appeared, he was rubbery and off-colour, looking like a test-pattern instead of the final work. Not sure why this happened.

3 Short Paragraphs: Six Underground.

2019, Michael Bay (The Rock) -- Netflix

6 Underground premieres in a few hours and we would like to once again apologize that the movie is not a Sneaker Pimps biopic...

But feeling pretty confident you're gonna like what @VancityReynolds and Michael Bay have made for you

— Netflix US (@netflix) December 12, 2019

Yes, that was my first thought. And no that does not count as the first paragraph. This does. OK, technically the next does.

I am not a Bay Fan. But strangely enough, a fan of many Bay Movies. I have to admit, he does have style. And who wouldn't think, that when combined with Ryan Reynolds personality, there could be a little bit of over the top magic? Well, based on Reynold's promotion of the movie via social media, I sure did. His statement of it being the most baytastic Michael Bay movie of all times, and his counting of the number of the baysplosions, just sold it to me. Of course, we have to expect a bit of fourth-wall breaking or meta commentary from Reynolds, as he may have inadvertently type-cast himself (as himself) via Deadpool. Alas...

Reynolds plays <Insert Technology Billionaire>  man who becomes disillusioned with the world and decides to do something about it. Fund climate change? Feed the starving? Fuel research into world saving technologies? Nope, he decides to fake his death and recruit a bunch of <insert character card> cliche SMEs to help him take down definitively Evil (Big E) Bad Guys, of which there number Six. Six Bad Guys vs Six Good Guys. Cuz that makes sense.

The movie focuses on Bad Guy Number One, a despotic leader of a desert-y X-istan country. What follows are a bunch of highly Bay choreographed action pieces funded by Reynolds, who has a loose, badly put together plan that relies on... luck? First all, I get some of his hires, as they are worldly spies or hitmen, but why a doctor? Sure, have your Secret Base stocked full of doctors but bringing her along on missions full of guns and guns and guns and baysplosions? But it's Bay-tastic and doesn't have to make sense. So, then why... is... it... so... boring. I literally began following asleep as we jumped from one Baysplosive scene to the next, one Reynolds quip to the next, one super-saturated beautiful set-piece to the next. In the end, they kill one (ONE!) main Evil Bad Guy, so I assume he is hoping for a franchise? Not sure I will be there...

And they didn't even use the song...

3 Short Paragraphs: Godzilla: King of the Monsters

2019, Michael Dougherty (Krampus) -- download

OK, this one just pissed me off. It just didn't have the right to be this bad. The first new Godzilla movie may have been divisive, but it had a vision that it carried through on. It was grim and vast and on the scale a Godzilla movie needed to be. They expanded the Monster Cinematic Universe with Kong: Skull Island, a movie that knew how to stylishly do a boom bash squash chomp monster movie. I am not sure why they skipped the fight between Kong and Godzilla to go into the Monster Free For All, but I guess they want to leave the climax for the two kings?

King of the Monsters was jumbled, confused and constantly diving from explosive scene to the next, a stumbling expositional mess. Sure, the original Toho movies were dumb, but in that acceptable low budget rubber suited monsters kind of way. No current big budget Hollywood movie with this much behind it has any excuse for being this stupid. They have writers, for gawd's sake!! You want to know how to do BIG and BOMBASTIC ? See Pacific Rim, and if the only thing this movie wanted to do was set this franchise apart from the palatable colour scheme of del Toro's movie, then they should have at least embraced the disaster movie horror of what having a dozen giant monsters sitting on the doorsteps of major world cities would imply.

The whole conceit of this movie is MO MUTO MO MONEY. Right off the bat, we have to introduce Mothra. Oh, and not MUTO anymore -- they are Titans. And there are dozens of them all over the place, monitored by Monarch but fear & desired by the governments of the world. Then we introduce an eco terrorist who releases Mothra, and then King Ghidora (Monster Zero) and then Rodan and Godzilla has to defend the planet from all the nasty beasties, who just happened to be driven into Rage Mode by an Electronic MacGuffin that sings back to them. And then Godzilla goes to Atlantis. And then the guy who hates Godzilla, but sees the errors of his ways, feeds Godzilla a nuclear bomb. And then Mothra shows up to sing her pretty song. And then... and then... Oh I give up.

Bonus Paragraph(s) of Why's.

Why would anyone stop running from a 1000 foot monster to fire their hand held weapon at it ?

Why would King Ghidora be concerned with singular human beings? Just stomp on the lot of them. Oh wait, there are main characters inside.

Why would the Monster Squad (US based military chasing around Godzilla) be highlighted as attempting to save island villages before Rodan burns them all? They are a SINGLE Vertibird -- they can rescue maybe a dozen.

Why would a man who knows wolves think he can apply that knowledge to a creature that is millions of years old AND is A MONSTER ?!?!

If all previous knowledge has said they can blow Godzilla up with nuclear bombs, why do they then decide it's a way to feed/heal him?

Why was this movie so badly done?

Mechanic(s)

The Mechanic, 2011, Simon West (Con Air) -- Netflix
The Mechanic: Resurrection, 2016,  Dennis Gansel (We Are the Night) -- Netflix

Conversation in the car the other day, "I never really liked action movies, but current movies such as John Wick have redefined what used to be a critically maligned genre." I didn't say that and he didn't say that, but that is what the conversation distilled down to. I tried to add in, but was shouted down, as they are wont to do, that every age of "action movie" had its John Wick and also, conversely its Chuck Norris flick. But I would also go as far as saying, dispensing with the Asylum level of flick, even the most terrible of genre action movie has gotten... better ?

Note: I am crafting above paragraph to see whether said coworkers in said car even read this fucking blog. Probably not. Fuckers.

The Mechanic is a re-make of a 70s Charles Bronson movie; I have no idea if it was John Wick 1972 or just the dross we speak of above. Never saw it, never really heard of it. But Bronson was the epitome of the dumb action movie "hero", not as terrible as Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal, but close. Many would probably lump Jason Statham into that place now, for better or worse. I think he is a cut above, carries a certain amount of charm to his roles. In this movie, he portrays Arthur Bishop, a mechanic, a hit-man, an assassin for hire with the ability & flair to make his kills look like they need to. If it has to be an accident, a simple hit, or an elaborate kill that sends a message, that is what he does.

After an intro kill that establishes his style, he is sent his next objective -- kill his mentor & friend Harry (Donald Sutherland). Harry has been accused of botching a job on purpose leading to the deaths of three operatives (other hit men) and pocketing a couple of million bucks. Bishop doesn't argue the details, and for some odd reason, either does Sutherland. And thus he dies.

Bishop is not happy about it, and his guilt leads him to take Harry's son Stephen (Ben Foster, Hell or High Water) under his wing. Stephen is angry, but he always was, and the only thing Bishop can do is turn his anger into the one skill he has -- killing. What makes this a cut above how other, more terrible movies, would have done it, is that its not a cut scene, or montage, but the full second act. We establish the characters, let them get to know each other and keep with the style of the movie. Its a nice bit, not spectacular but enjoyable.

And then the third act comes along, which lets the movie slide into the expected gutter. Its not that its entirely bad, its just .... typical. Foster and Statham hold their own, but its all about shooting and... well, I admit, was entirely forgettable. I don't even really remember what happened, other than Bishop discovering he was betrayed and punishing said betrayer. The movie comes to a close when Stephen realizes it was Bishop who killed his father, and despite their complete disconnect, he kills Bishop.

Or does he. Of course he doesn't.

And along comes The Mechanic: Resurrection. This is the movie that completely embraces its entirely pedestrian stroll into action flick territory. Whereas the first movie at least wanted to recreate a 70s actioner with some style, and attention to detail, this is ... just an action movie. Again, its not terrible its just ... typical. Even Statham cannot raise it above its mediocre status, Hell, not even Jessica Alba can help me out here.

This one tries to add to Bishop's history, drawing him out of his "retirement" and back into the game. His old friend from childhood wants him to kill three Bad Guys and uses Alba as a plant, a manufactured motivation. Even Michelle Yeoh comes along for the ride, briefly, to coax Bishop into doing the movie.

This is where I wonder why; why can't they at least try. In the 80s and 90s I was exposed to tons of Arnie and Stallone style action movies where the plot only led us from one explosion to the next, from one bad guy (small letters) being blown up and shot and killed in such boring ways, it just became a body count. Sure Wick has a HUGE body count, but the behaviour is wrapped up by style and flair and an emotive portrayal of the violence!

We are not yet in the age where actioners cannot be looked on without any derision. Even the best of them rely on a certain staging, a basic set of plot points that are familiar. Even Wick started with a "you killed my dog, prepare to die !!!" But I really wish they could just not be lazy. Plug & Play productions, like Asylum or Uwe Boll are one thing, but lazy movies are another.

Re/New-watch: Resident Evil: Retribution & The Final Chapter

As mentioned, by this point, I am fizzling out my interest in this franchise. I am wondering what the point was. But amusingly, enough not even re-reading my own words could remind me I was already done last time.

2012, Paul WS Anderson (Event Horizon, AVP, DOA) -- download

Holey Crap, I saw this one in the theatre? I think that is the only reason I tolerated it as much as I did. If it wasn't for Kevin Durand playing a kick-ass, cigar chomping tough guy, I could not have enjoyed this movie less. Sure, the resurrected characters from previous entries as clone bad guys was cute, but Oh Em Gee, the acting and directing is just so.. fucking.. bad. I was in full on I Am My Grandmother mode, yelling at the screen about my frustrations!

The movie is about a crew hired by Wesker (?!?) to invade yet another Umbrella facility to again try and End the Red Queen, that pesky AI that killed everyone in the first movie thus releasing the first zombies on the world. The Red Queen, built in the image of the daughter of the scientist who created the T Virus is doing that whole "save the world by killing the humans" thing. But folks, really, Wesker? P.S. Alice is already inside the facility, captured after getting every single survivor killed at the end of / beginning of the last / this movie. And so we can have a wake up scene. At least this time they offer her a commando suit instead of forcing her to go commando, under a slip of paper.

This time, the escape from the facility is not just the into sequence, but the entire movie. I am sure Anderson thought that was clever. A lot of this movie is clever, as each "level" of the facility is a new environment, including a Tokyo area, a Moscow area and a Toronto (*ahem* Racoon City) suburb area, so we can get that Dawn of the Dead ripoff out of system. And clones of previous characters. And lots of incredibly badly, and I mean BADLY, acted characters from the game.  All along with a well outfitted, well organized merc group, which is pretty good considering the world has already ended.

2016, Paul WS Anderson (The Three Musketeers) -- download

Aaaand the next movie is not much better. If we ended on the dumb dumb note of meeting up with Wesker at the ruins of the White House, as a horde is about to overrun it, then we have to begin there. Or wait, do we? Aren't there more facilities so she can do a wake-up scene? Nope, as this movie is called The Final Chapter we not only dispense with the wake-up-in-a-paper-shift scene but also don't bother with any facilities; in fact, we are on way back to the ORIGINAL facility, The Hive, in Racoon City!!

But wasn't that city destroyed at the end of movie 2? You are not mistaken; it was nuked, but that only ruined the city and left a big crater directly above the entrance to The Hive. And again, as if the Apocalypse hasn't been raging for years, there are survivors hanging out in the city as if things just happened yesterday.

Alice is on her way back, this time to do the dirty work for The Red Queen. As if being coerced and then (duhhhh) betrayed by Wesker wasn't enough, Alice thinks destroying what's left of Umbrella and get the cure (global cure, not personal cure, like she already had and lost) to the T-Virus from the original facility is a good idea. And there are only a few thousand humans left, who are about to be taken down by Umbrella, so Alice better hurry!

The crater sized holes in the plot are to be expected, but the most annoying thing about this movie is the retconning of series. In the second movie, we were introduced to the girl the Red Queen was based on, the daughter of the original scientist that Umbrella used to make the T-Virus. It had been created to assist his daughter to survive a debilitating disease, with the added side effect of creating zombies. When he discovered the side effect, he was ousted. He died at the end of the second movie and she..... well, she dropped of the plot cliff.

This time round, the doctor in question, was actually the head of Umbrella and was strangled by his business partner, Dr. Isaacs (Iain Glen) who previously was just an obsessed scientist in the 3rd movie, trying to make Super Zombies. But he took his own drug and died at the hands of Alice, as a malformed Super Deformed Zombie. Or so we thought. No, that was just his clone. The real Dr. Isaacs is now inside the re-utilized Hive along with some other shady figures. They are ending the world before Alice can save it. And there is another clone Isaacs, inside a Battle Wagon on its way to the city.

**SPOILERS** (like you even care)

Boom boom, pew pew, lots of zombies, shooting and other things that usually make this series a lot of fun, but by now are just tiring. There is some PoAp set dressing and a new dragon monster and some too-cool-must-die supporting characters, but they are just window dressing to the return to The Hive. You see, the core to the re-working of the Red Queen's origin is to have Alice/Milla even MORE central to the plot. The little girl Red Queen, whose debilitating disease was some sort of mutated progeria has, since the original movies, grown into a 20sumthin old woman in a wheel chair. And Alice whom we all love and root for, is her clone!!! Insert dramatic music.

Battle battle, explode explode, reveal End Game. Why was Umbrella willing to kill off every last human on the planet, only to have a cure AFTER everyone is dead? Because the core board members, who seem to number in the thousands, are frozen awaiting a cleansing of the world so they can return and control it. Ignore the fact that the world is a ravaged wasteland, it will be there's !!!  Insert evil cackle.

Alice blows it all up good sacrificing her aged self and her T-Virus laden life for the good of the remaining few thousand average humans. Yeah, not so smart. I am sure that facility was full of resources these few human survivors could have used, even if you ignore the potential breeding stock frozen in ice. But no, revenge is good, kill all the bad guys, cuz you are gonna die anyway.

But are you? Alice survives the wipe-out-the-T-Virus cure and now is the really, only, truly Alice. Final Chapter?? Not likely.

Rewatch: Resident Evil: Extinction & Resident Evil: Afterlife

Previous two here.

Resident Evil: Extinction, 2007, Russell Mulcahy (Highlander) -- download

Beyond the dungeon rompy fun of the first one, this is really the only entry in the franchise I truly enjoy. Truly, as in, not cringing at bad acting or shaking my head at the weird choices. Of course, it doesn't hurt that its a PoAp wasteland romp!

Apparently zombie virus plagues don't just ravage the human population but also lead to an ecological collapse. Through Alice's expositional introduction, we learn that the world has become mostly desert with bands of surviving humans gathering together for protection. Walking Dead meets Road Warrior meets just about every best bit from other PoAp movies, including Alice rooting the ruins of an already picked clean gas station. It also gives us here best getup for the entire series, including going up against the red dress.

Of course, the movie starts with an Alice Wakeup scene. After a disoriented, (again) dungeony walk through hallways and corridors, she is killed. Woot! Twist! Not Alice but clone Alice, taken by scientists and dumped into a pit of Alice clones all wearing the same red dress. Outside the world is all desert and a massive horde of zombies bangs against the incredibly durable chain link fence outside the entrance to yet another underground Umbrella facility.

This was probably the producers saying, "How can you do a zombie series if it doesn't have some passing resemblance to The Walking Dead. But it abandons that aspect a couple of movies later, so those producers were probably eaten. But the grimy, survivalist look and feel of this movie is the best esthetic they gave the series, IMO. Carlos and LJ are back, from the last movie, but Jill Valentine is missing. There is some comment of how Alice had to hide from Umbrella once she discovered that weird Big Brother umbrella overlay to her iris, once that identified her as being controlled by Umbrella. But she's back and ready to help out the survivors with her telekinetic powers. Those are new.

This movie separates itself from the others in the franchise in that even the bit part players seem to know how to act. You cannot discount good (OK, decent) directing, that I guess will do a scene until it looks and sounds right. Even a bad movie can have decent, believable acting. At least in comparison to later entries in the franchise.

Resident Evil: Afterlife, 2010, Paul WS Anderson (Pompeii) -- download

Original director, writer is back to helm the latest entry, and it is the sign of The End. Seriously, I wish the guy had just abandoned creative control and let the movies actually evolve. Unlike his wife Milla, the series does not age with grace.

Since the last movie ended with Alice allowing the remaining humans of her convoy to escape to Alaska, to find the source of Arcadia, the Last Safe Place on Earth, Alice dove into facility to confront Dr, Isaacs and discover her clones.  Her many many clones.  And this movie begins with that Clone Army (sans white Storm Trooper outfits [replaced by faux Trinity outfits of black pleather]) attacking the Umbrella facility in Tokyo. She is going to destroy the heads of the corp head-on.

If Extinction was Walking Dead and The Post Man, then this is WS Anderson's desire to put his wife in a Matrix ripoff. Seriously, the dude doesn't seem to have one original clue about him. From slow-mo bullet time shots, to dodging down a hallway full of automatic gunfire, craters being chewed out of the cement pillars as she jumps & dives her way through the hail. Dr. Isaacs was killed, albeit mutated Isaacs, in the last movie leaving us to hate Wesker, the Agent Smith ripoff who was played hologramatically by Jason O'Mara (most recently, Director Mace on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) in the last movie but is even more generic by Shawn Roberts (yes, I know you haven't heard of him). Wesker escapes from the facility, Alice Prime hides aboard his helicopter and after the ensuing fight, he injects her with Anti T-Virus formula. Alice Prime will be back to normal, tough chick Alice.

Opening Sequence Done.

The rest of the movie has Alice heading north to find the rest of the surviving humans in Safe Alaska. Alas, nobody is there, nothing is there but a bunch of empty planes and helicopters. Aaaand one leftover, wearing a weird red goo filled metallic silver bug. Ali Larter joins Alice and the fly south to LA, a ruined city overrun by the undead horde.

Really, this is the only good segment of the movie, as some surprisingly alive survivors (dressed like this all happened a few weeks ago, instead of years) hole up inside very very tall prison... in downtown LA?  Whatever. Remember, Walking Dead had a prison, so...

But the prison is not the place of interest, even if its the prime segment!

Scrrrriiiiiitch. The sound of a record player needle scratching across an anachronistic LP record.

If I am watching all of these, to enjoy them all over again, in order to watch them again for the latest, and possibly final entry in the franchise, then why are these words not .... fun ? Honestly, not having as much fun as I did the first time round. And if you see my words on the next entry, in its first viewing, by the time I got to that one, all the fun was drained out to be solely replaced by dumb.

WS Anderson can direct his wife, and that is about it. The rest is all pedestrian, repetitive, derivative drivel that I am having a hard time swallowing this time round. I think I now know why they are not on The Shelf.

This one ends on a boat, Arcadia was a crock and Wexler has coaxed everyone into the really clean interior to be subjects of even more experiments. Seriously, what is the end game of this corporation? If 90% of the planet is already a brain eating horde outside, with some small percentage mutating into even nastier things, then ... what? What is the point? What do you do when the rest are dead? Why experiment on the as bio weapons? Who is going to be the recipient of said bio weapon???

It ends on the boat with Alice freeing the survivors only to see a horde of whirly birds (Osprey helicopters) on the horizon. Key Next Movie.

Two Booms: The Wave & Deepwater Horizon

I could say I watch a lot of disaster movies, but we are in a lull of them these days, so I watch em when I can get em. Or grab them from The Shelf. Why do I watch them, when they are traditionally badly done and formulaic? I suppose it is the same reason I love post-apocalyptic films -- that when the worst is happening, we can dispense with the treacheries of day to day life and just focus on what needs to be done; survival. And things are pretty bad IRL right now, so naturally...

The Wave, 2015, Roar Uthaug (Tomb Raider) -- Netflix

Bølgen as it is called in Norway, is one of those rare non-American disaster movies. Set in a region of the country that I was recently introduced to by the Slow TV "episode" Northern Passage. In case you haven't experienced it yet, Slow TV is a Norwegian phenomena of utterly glacial TV shows that are airing (in part) on Netflix in Canada. Northern Passage highlighted the best parts of a show that originally ran 24 hours a day for 6 days, as a cruise ship went from Bergen to Kirkenes.

One of the places the ship stopped was Geirangerfjord, with its famously monitored hunk of mountain that could fall at any moment, dumping so much rock into the fjord, it would cause a tsunami that would engulf the towns below it. This movie is about that event actually happening.

This is a classic formula disaster movie. Intrepid hero scientist Kristian Eikjord is about to retire from the monitoring station, and move his family from the small village to the big city. He's a little obsessive and a little paranoid about what could happen, thus a little nervous about abandoning his post. But he has to do better for his family.

I always like the slow build ups these properly done movies give us, as we learn the science or the warning system we know will come into play. Our main character has to be flawed but admirable, tightly connected to his family and the people of his community. Kristian is both those, admired by but constantly annoying his team and family. I also like the little bits of this movie, the regional bits that expose me to Norway and its people & traditions. The cheese on bread, the sitting in a large window watching the sky never get completely dark,

Eventually the rock does fall, the wave does happen and the town is engulfed. Kristian does his best to save the townsfolk, but really, he has to focus on his family. Being a condensed disaster, as in not a section of a country or a continent or even a city, it has to heighten the tragedy by having key characters die unexpectedly. I was rather upset the tourist bus didn't make it. In the end, he does succeed in saving some people and his family, and we get some fantastic post-wave disaster footage that reminded me of The Impossible.

P.S. Uthaug is doing the new Tomb Raider movie.

Deepwater Horizon, 2016, Peter Berg (Hancock) -- download

And from natural catastrophe we move onto completely and utterly manmade disaster. I wondered how this movie would deal with the real details of the oil derrick explosion & the BP oil disaster, when almost 5 million barrels worth of oil were released into the Gulf of Mexico. Surprisingly, the moving is not compromising on the culpability of the oil companies but not surprisingly, the movie focuses on the actual explosion and the men & women affected.

Marky Mark is Mike Williams, the every man, the family man, the lead electrical tech on the oil rig. Our introduction to him makes him the nice guy, the popular guy and the guy willing to open his mouth to the big bosses about how much of the rig is falling apart around them. They say they appreciate his honesty, but you know they don't. Everyone wants the already late drilling job to pay off soon, so they can get what is left of their bonuses. Screw the every man and his desire to do his job right.

One of the key decisions they make is to send home the crew that tests the concrete that surrounds the drill site. They pour concrete under water? I guess they do. And of course, they should have been allowed to complete those tests. The rig blows, the oil ignites and people die.

The drama focuses on Mike and his heroism and calm in the face of danger. Around him are his coworkers and friends, drillers and techs and even oil & drilling executives. Once the blow happens, he wants to rescue as many as possible, especially Mr. Jimmy (Kurt Russell) who is the one man who can quickly asses how bad things are. Things are bad.

This is by the books tension, dread and gut wrenching excitement. That's not a bad thing, and considering the subject matter, the movie does exactly what it intends on doing. Berg handles his cast well and the performances are good, a very clear example of the difference between Straight To and big studio productions. I especially liked the little touch at the end, where ever calm and in control Mike finally collapses on the floor with his wife and daughter, the tension pouring out of him like the oil filling the Gulf, ready to ignite at any moment.

Independence Day(s)

Independence Day, 1996, Roland Emmerich (Stargate) -- download

Despite my love of bad movies, I never liked the original one when I saw it in the cinema. Despite my love of disaster movies, this one never was added to The Shelf. In 1996 I was at the height of my Movie Snob era and the unbelievable nature of this movie ruined it for me. It was just so Hollywood, it was just so over the top. Despite some of the best destruction sequences of the time, I was soured by the rah-rah Americans Save The World aspects.

I have softened as years have gone by. But it is still not a very good movie.

Aliens invade, in big space ships smacking of flying saucers. But bigger; MUCH bigger. One cannot deny a certain amount of awe as those big things come pushing through the atmosphere, catching clouds on fire, looming over all the major cities. Obviously, Emmerich was a fan of the V series from the 80s. Even more impressive, when that big, pretty, blue blast takes out the tallest structures in LA and NYC, as well as The White House, I was blown away.

And then the response. When all seems hopeless, when the aliens seem impervious to everything behind their deflector shields/force field, the Misunderstood Scientist comes up with A Plan. I am an IT Guy and while I am used to the idea of technology being represented as a sort of magic for modern movies, the idea that a man on a MacBook could hack the network of an interstellar species was astoundingly ludicrous. The best explanation I ever heard connected all current microcircuitry and software technology back to that original crash-landed alien craft sitting in Area 51. So, that assumed, it was not surprising that a system based on the same architecture could hack into it. And what was the virus they installed?  Microsoft Windows --- the worst implementation of the original alien software OS. IT Joke. Tee hee.

The Speech done by Bill Pullman, Mr. POTUS, is still rather impressive in that flag waving inspirational sort of way, but the idea that only the US is doing anything about the aliens still bugs the @!#$ out of me. Sure, other things may have been going on which we are in the dark about, but its all presented as if the US is the only country with smart people. Or resourceful people.

One bit was rather prescient --- that Randy Quaid would play a wigged out nut suffering from a very real conspiracy theory.

Independence Day: Resurgence, 2016, Roland Emmerich (Godzilla) -- cinema

Twenty years later, the new movie is answering a lot of questions left by the first. The fun questions! The parts I believe should be part of all sequels to genre movies. Do the world building! What was the impact of the events from the first on the entire world? What would a post-alien invasion world be like 20 years later?  The obvious bits are there -- the stealing of the technology, the united world under a single government, expansion into space, advanced defense weaponry. But there was another bit I loved, where they travel to Africa and discover an untouched aliens ship settled down in a desert. The warlords who run the country have kept out the rest of the world. They have been in a running war for 10 years, fighting the aliens who spilled out of the ship. Remember, just because they defeated the original invasion force, doesn't mean there were not hundreds or thousands of surviving aliens. This small country stood apart from the rest of the world, fighting a war and defeating the invaders on their own terms. It was great background material, that while didn't contribute much to the overall plot, was a great addition.

Meanwhile the aliens have returned. In a bigger ship. One that settles down over the Atlantic Ocean.... ALL the Atlantic Ocean. Again, a bit ridiculous in how it is presented, but it is rather awe striking. Big landing feet come crashing down on the shores of Europe and the US washing away the coastline cities forcing people to flee inland. The annoying thing? They don't show it! There is a brief washing away of boats but then they are back to the reaction shots, as the US once again gears up to go against the aliens.

This time they are prepared. They have the technology. And it doesn't help.  Bigger alien craft, badder motherships and a Queen! And a new time-based threat to the planet, as the big alien ship drills a hole into our core to suck out all its glorious energy. This is what they normally do, but last time we interrupted their armada before the real mothership could arrive. Now the Queen is here and poking a hole in our mantle. And we have to stop her.

Another fun action CGI spectacular for the summer, is what we get. It looks spectacular, which of course always makes me wonder how dated it will look 20 years from now. The aliens have updated their fuzzy CRT screens for floating, 3D holography displays, as have we. The big plastic aliens were replaced with computer generated monsters who were just... bigger, meaner, nastier. Still not sure why they wear an environment suit you can punch them through. There is some token disaster footage as the gravity of a 3000 mile wide ship sucks up most of Singapore, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, etc. and then drops it on London, and likely most of Europe. And yes, they answered my "they like to hit the landmarks" question.

Part of the marketing campaign had posters looming over local well known landmarks, like the CN Tower here in Toronto. But if all the major cities were destroyed 20 years ago, why would we rebuild them? The movie avoids it entirely by toning down the destruction but for the few aforementioned locations. Since the London Millennium Wheel was raised three years AFTER the aliens originally invaded, it gets screen time destruction this time round!

An amusing side-bit is the obvious pandering to China. The leader on the Moon is Chinese, not Chinese-American, and when they introduce the hot-shot pilots of our new inter-orbital fighter ships, flying beside Will Smith's son is a pretty, young Chinese pilot. Yay! They considered they rest of the world in the defense of the planet? No! They just stuck in China because it will sell well over there, in the largest after-market in the world. And again, the rest of the world is ignored in the planetary defense. Unless you include the token badass African warlord, who comes along to kill aliens with his swords.

The cast? Updated. Jeff Goldblum is back, no longer just running tech support for a TV station, but leading the world in technological defense initiatives. Bill Pullman and Brent Spiner are still suffering the woes of alien mind meddling. First Daughter has grown into Brie... wait, that wasn't Brie Larson? Hmm, Maika Monroe. Sorry, the current generation of Blonde It Girls all look alike to me. Liam Hemsworth (the non-Thor brother) and Jessie T Usher play the fighter pilots, but Hemsworth gets the lead billing role, despite Usher's character being Will Smith's (who is deceased in the movie) son. William Fichtner gets to play a good guy this time. Sela Ward runs the planet long enough to get spectacularly blown up. Vivica A Fox is no longer a stripper, but looks to be running a hospital, before it falls down. And there are some kids protected by Levinson's dad, again played by Judd Hirsch for the laughs & feel-goods.

All in all, it is a fun popcorn movie. Unfortunately, nothing is so spectacular as to be really memorable. There are no really incredible scenes, like that blowing up of the Chrysler Building in the original. The effects are great, but Ender's Game showed we cannot rely entirely on them to make a movie have impact. It hits all the familiar rah-rah notes, we even get a new speech from Pullman, but even they seem sort of tired, after thoughts. So, again, fun to watch while you are in the moment but not much else.

PS4: Just Cause 3

This was what I was playing when my PC's new video card was being RMA'd. It was my first game for the PS4, which is weird, because normally I play a game that is exclusive to the system. When you have All of The Systems, you have to figure out which system to buy a game for. Honestly, that game is InFamous: Second Son but it did not arrive with my PS4, so Just Cause 3 it was. Stupid backorder.

Who started the wars between the Reds and the Blues? Why are the Reds such bad guys? Why are the Blues always the underdogs, striving to take power from those dastardly reds? These are the real questions.

Like Farcry 4 before it, the core element of Just Cause 3 is being a revolutionary (the icon of the blues) taking back control of a fictional country. As you expand your control, base by base province by province, the story moves forward and the government forces (the reds) become more focused on you. Your response is more violence, blowing everything up. Tearing it all down. Maniacal laughter, maniacal laughter.

Ahh the conundrum. What makes you different from the Reds, what makes you, Rico Rodriguez, different from their megalomaniacal General DiRavello? But these are not the questions asked. Meh; this game doesn't really ask any questions. Its too busy blowing shit up.

This game is fun. This game is violent. It makes no attempt to measure the amount of senseless chaos you commit as a revolutionary. In fact, it's one of the game's mechanics --- you get rewarded in Chaos Points for blowing said shit up. This is one of those games where the "story" is just an afterthought.

Story? The thinnest of threads. You are Rico Rodriguez, a latin action movie star analog, an agent of some CIA organization designed to take down dictators. You are returning to your home country of Medici, an island nation off the coast of Italy, but could just as easily be somewhere in the Latin Americas. General DiRavello has set himself up as dictator and your childhood friend Mario Frigo has joined the revolution. You join up. You blow shit up. You become the icon of the revolution, a literal one man army. But really, the missions are just fun excuses to further the blowing up of said shit, and while some are creatively written, most are by the books "Rico! We need you to do this or the General will stop us!"

Yes, the mechanics are fun. Blowing stuff up and mowing down endless red hatted mooks is fun.  And you get a Batman/Spider-Man grappling contraption attached to your wrist, so you find yourself grappling & swinging from here to there, cows to cars, tanks to airplanes, ground to roof. You get a decent selection of cars, planes, boats and guns to play with or hijack, usually via your grapple. You can do some crazy shit.

But it gets tired very quickly. Usually I have to remind myself to catch up with the story line. About half way through this game, I was just pushing the minimum requirements to go from each story segment to the next. Rinse and repeat, take over more territory, viva la revolution.

This kind of game is meant for the 100%-ers, the people who want to find everything, collect all the Achievements, visit every point of the map. I have to be fully immersed in the game, as I was with Fallout 4, to be interested in doing that. This game is not about immersion; its gameplay is too outrageous for it. And the fun does diminish as you cover all the basic elements of gameplay.

And to top it all off, it has one of the worst endings I have ever played. Not a challening, constantly being repeated attempt at the final boss bad, but a quick kill to the credits. That's it ! You shoot him ! End credits ! No denouement, no monologuing, no afterthought about the fate of your island. DLC ? Next game in the line? Who knows but, honestly, by then I was just glad to finish the game even though much of DiRavello's forces controlled the northern islands.

Fun but done.

ReWatch: The Island

2005, Michael Bay (Pearl Harbor) -- Netflix

Yes, I rewatched the movie that if we had been reviewing in 2005, Kent and I would have been going on and on in our merciless mockery. Why watch it again? Cuz it was a post-sickie afternoon and I needed some fluff. And because sometimes you look back on light, terrible fare with a certain amount of fondness. Or you want to torture yourself.

It must be noted, that by the time the trailers of the movie were hitting the 'net, I had already seen the MST3K of Parts: The Clonus Horror so I was in the camp that Bay had ripped off someone's old, terrible movie to plot his new, terrible movie. The basic premise is that cloned people are being grown as replacement body parts for wealthy patrons. They are "raised" with a promise of nirvana, The Island for said movie and America for Parts. And one clone begins to question this setup. The creators of Parts sued and it settled out of court, so there must have been some merit to the lifting.

This was Scarlett Johannson still launching her career. Lost in Translation got her noticed and she had done enough since to become the face in a Calvin Klein commercial, which was actually cutely inserted into the movie. Ewan McGregor was airing out his last days as a young, hot action hero which he never really did get off the ground. They are both pretty clones, but I could not help but thinking, "Isn't he a bit old for her?" I ask myself that a lot lately, because we straight men are raised to worship the early 20s Hollywood beauty, even as we age past the time when that lust would be appropriate by our cultural standards. Personally, I have gone past that age-gap into the "she's young enough to be my daughter" phase. Cultural standards are weird, contradictory, doubly and confusing.

As a movie, this is classic Baysplosions. The clones are on the run and a mercenary team is out to catch them, no matter what the cost. Cutesleeze Steve Buscemi is the first collateral damage in their escape & desire to stay alive. But as they continue to run, things explode, crash and get shot to hell all around them, leaving me wondering how many die to keep them alive. You could assume that they are too young (vat grown is fast grown) to really be very aware of such implications but in a movie that is supposed to be about the desire to stay alive despite the odds, you would think it could be commented on. Nope, blow some more bystanders up so Scarlett's pout will live another day.

If you have a moment, YouTube the re-use of the highway chase scene. Bay re-used entire elements of the cars being crushed for his subsequent Transformers movie. Which is amusing unto itself, considering this chase scene is so The Matrix reminiscent.

I add a lot of splashy, glitzy explosiony scifi movies to The Shelf. But Bay doesn't get added. For some reason, while I enjoy the adrenaline rush of his movies, they don't have repeatable joy. This was an experiment to see if it  should be added, but no, confirmation made.

What I Am Watching: Season(s) Complete

Longmire, Netflix
The Last Ship, TNT
Mr Robot, USA

Its been a while since I covered this topic, and I may have to follow it up soon if I start watching anything regularly this coming fall season. But let's go over some recently completed seasons of shows I enjoyed.

Longmire was cancelled by A&E last spring and a ton of voices screamed in the darkness, as the cliffhanger shooting of Branch Connelly (yes, still a stupid name) left us hanging.  I've been watching it since it started, and I have become quite invested in those characters. But moreso in the mood of the show. Its a sombre, lone cowboy on the range mood that lingers with me long after the episodes have ended. Its never any one episode or any one thing that sticks, just a theme and feeling left behind as the credits roll.

Netflix walked in like a big ol hero and presented season 4. Against my good judgement, I binge watched over a weekend. Now I have to wait a year for more.

I realized last night as I listened to a mix I made with the closing credit song from the final episode of the season, that I am easily manipulated into watching certain shows. Aging, quiet men with a certain amount of melancholy about them easily click for me. Not always; Hinterland only presented the concept but gave no method of attaching myself to the lead. But in Walander, Case Histories and Longmire I find myself drawn into the melancholy of the characters. Kurt Walander has the weight of the tragedy & horror  he experiences, Jackson Brodie has a terribly tragic past and Walt Longmire starts the series coming out of a depression, after his wife's murder. I am a bit of a brooder, and aging, so its easy to see where I connect with these  guys.

The show has run along the ever connecting thread of the murder of Walt's wife. Each of the three seasons pulled at the fraying mystery, eventually leading us to David Ridges, a "white warrior" and a man in the employ of Jacob Nighthorse, business man and casino builder. But it takes some digging by Branch, the deputy who has been at odds with Sheriff Walt Longmire since the series began, to find the true story. It was Branch's own unhealthy obsession with Ridges that lead him out of the Sheriff's department and into his wealthy father's business. And there he found out the motive and truth behind the murder that spawns the show.

Spoiler spoiler spoiled.

That discovery leads to Branch's death. At the hands of his father. Yes, the show killed of one of main characters, a not entirely unloved character but not a popular one. He was ever the yin to Walt's yang, always doubting, more savvy in the public eye and more likely to play the right game of politics. Walt didn't like him much but finding Branch's body was obviously devastating. Someone in his employ was dead, someone who they suspected (due to delicately placed hints) had committed suicide, someone who Walt had been letting his annoyance win over, instead of catching the terminal details. Walt feels responsible.

This was the kind of plot point you couldn't stretch out for another season, so in three quick episodes they discover Branch did not kill himself and we watch Barlow Connelly struggle with what he has done -- is he faking that breakdown? The arc ends with death by cop, but not quite. Barlow wants to die but Walt also wants  him dead.

The next season.... I mean, episode resumes with Walt on the veranda, the deck that overlooks all that big wide space he owns, a massive amount of mostly untouched green valley. He is reading and reading, drinking can after can of Ranier beer. The FBI investigates, clears Walt and he returns to work a month later. Walt replaces the bookcase he wrecked last season. A new loaner deputy, a new crush for Vic (who has mysteriously dumped her crush on Walt) and its back to business as usual.

So, how does a series continue when the center thread of its plot has been unravelled? Things have been explained. Stories have been summed up. There has been closure. Rightfully, the show doesn't start pulling on another one, but does continue on some lingering secondary plot points from seasons past. The hated casino has been built, bringing new crime and new reasons to loathe Jacob Nighthorse. Cheyenne Batman Hector is dead, but his ghost lives on and Henry steps into his shoes. This is primarily Henry's season, one where he gets to speak more than calm, incredibly articulate one liners. We see emotional development, expansion and struggle. The tension between Vic and Walt is explored in other, less healthy ways leading to another season ending cliffhanger. No yarn sized thread to follow, just a whole lot of threads woven together by the characters we have already become attached to.

Darn nabbit, I shouldn't have binge watched.

The Last Ship is my anti-Walking Dead. Where the latter is all about the failure of mankind, and not much about the rise above its weaknesses, the former is all about that. I have mentioned it is centered on the rah-rah American ideal, one generated by co-creator Michael Bay, but one that is sorely needed in this show. The planet has been mostly devastated by a virus, and it needs the last known working American naval ship to continue working on the cure, and more importantly, bring it to the people.

Last season ended with the cure found and the Last Ship dealing with the first despotic remnant of a government they find. With her put down, the crew's next step is to work with land based labs, manufacture and distribute the cure, and then see what is left of the world. That is interrupted by a submarine full of madmen who destroy all the labs, firing long range missiles and wiping out so many survivors. Fucking madness. The crew of this sub, of European origins, has already completely nuked France (literally) and devastated the European countryside. Their goal is to infect (and kill) any survivors in order to reveal the naturally immune. The Immunes will then rise up and create a whole new world. Psycho Messiah stuff.

Evil. Very real evil. And a proper Big Bad for the Last Ship and its crew to fight.

The thing I notice about this show, the primary thing that The Walking Dead and The Strain are so rightfully criticized for, is the lack of filler episodes. This show is full steam ahead to a goal and it follows that agenda faithfully. Each and every episode, barring one weird, confusing one about rescuing kids, is about fighting this enemy in The Immunes. Its not as simple as shooting a sub, because, well its a sub. But The Immunes are also winning the land based political and ideological battle via the charisma of its leader and some magical cell phone technology. The crew of the ship are labeled evil aggressors while the immunes secretly deliver the infection via virus laden teddy bears, in case you didn't know they were evil.

Its nice having a shift from current depressing dramatic action to a show where things can go right. The crew is always making strides forward, despite some pretty dramatic losses. They are always focused on doing the right thing. Its an American ideal that hasn't been around since the 80s, before they tainted their own morality with torture and Doing What Has To Be Done. Sure, its a little overbearing, including the addition of a President they can worship, but at least its heart is in the right place.

The whole point of the tortured drama at the heart of The Walking Dead is that we are never sure what Rick is doing is the right thing. Sure, he shows results and protects his people, but at what cost?  The Last Ship wants us to like and respect the people involved. And I do.

Mr Robot was a profound shift in my television watching this season. The hacker (that's belittling it, really) show that borrows ideas and thoughtspaces from so much else, just perfectly clicked with me. After that astounding first episode, I was hooked.

Profound shift? Despite the prevalence of non-standard TV and my accessibility to it, the non-network shows like True Blood, The Walking Dead, Mad Men, etc. in the last few years, I have been watching less of those. TV has once again started to feel like derivative crap. Or at least a big bag of meh. I haven't been as faithful to my What I Am Watching but take my word for it, I have mostly reverted back to network TV and familiar downloads. Standard TV is easier to digest than getting indigestion from cable shows that disappoint.

But Mr Robot feels so different, so utterly new, I had to watch.

Elliot, our "hero" is a socially awkward, emotionally damaged hacker working for a software security firm. He is also being coaxed into a hack which will have world wide ramifications. I covered all this in my review of episode one, but it sits as the plot of the entire season, even as we learn more about Evil Corp and what it has personally done to Elliot and his family. Evil Corp -- initially called E Corp, but then Elliot references "everyone calls it Evil Corp" and then for the rest of the show, everyone does. We are seeing this world through Elliot's eyes, slightly skewed, painfully truthful and somewhat shadowy. We are, afterall, Elliot's imaginary friend.

Hello friend. Don't read if you don't want to be spoiled.

In my commentary on the first episode, I mention Mr Robot might not be real. Taking on the idea that the show is borrowing / homage-ing Fight Club, Mr Robot (played by Christian Slater) is the show's Tyler Durden, and once you approach the show with that premise in your head, things become so much fun. Wait, wasn't he just interacting with someone?  Oh but there is Elliot in the background, sitting alone, not being noticed or interacting. And if this is true, then when Elliot is introduced to the hacker group F* Society, for the first time, then he is.... introducing.... himself? Yeah, Elliot is much more messed up then the first episode suggested.

Then the show trips over the Sony hacks and the Ashley Madison hacks and references to the Planetary comic and and and.... This show will require another watching to just enjoy the second level of references. Detailed, intricate, involving.  Weeee,

3 Short Paragraphs: Terminator Genisys

2015, Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World) -- cinema

This is one of those summer blockbusters that hyped us up the wazoo and then came & went without much of a bother. No nightcap and it did not call us back. Not quite the schadenfreudian bomb that Fantastic Four was, but they were pretty close in the numbers. I guess people were just happy to see it, or not, and then let it fade away. Too bad, because it was a bit of fun and definitely good fodder for the 'ow the paradoxes (paradoxi?) hurt my head' crowd.

I am not sure I consider this a reboot, considering it acknowledges that previous movies happened, but since we connected the new lense flare Star Trek to the others but still consider it a reboot, why not. It also does redo the opening sequence of the original movie, with new actors and situations, so yeah OK kind of rebootish. But anyway, the premise is that someone sends an original terminator model back to 1973 to protect a young Sarah Connor from another Skynet attempt on her life. So, by the time the original time-sending plot kicks off, with Kyle Reese going back to protect Sarah at John Connor's orders, the old terminator (now called Pops) is there with a newer model Sarah, all trained and prepared for the coming war. Also, Pops killed his original model, the one that steals Bill Paxton's clothes. Sooo, its the liquid metal model that shows up to kill Sarah and Kyle.  Is your head hurting yet? Multiple models, multiple movies all blending into one new time travel mind fuck of a movie.

But the real movie, the one that always has to take place roughly around our time is that the terminator gang (sarah, pops and kyle) all head forward to 2017, to stop the now current launch of the OS Genisys, which becomes Skynet. Did Microsoft know they were also doing a clock counting down release of Windows 10 around the same time as a world ending Skynet? Tee hee. My favourite bit of the movie is that they McGyver together a time machine to get from 1984 to 2012, but Pops is damaged and his metal is showing. So, instead of time travel, he just hangs for 34 years until they arrive. As soon as they arrive, they have to deal with a new new terminator, self healing, part human and completely anti-humanity. And he works for MS, I mean Cyberdyne -- still alive and now making phone & PC OSes. Fight, stab, shoot, crash boom and the world is saved. For now.

Bonus Paragraph Full of Spoiler: The new terminator model is John Connor, absorbed and rebuilt by Skynet himself, who has allowed the destruction of his base, so he can pretend to be Doctor Who and attack John just as Reese goes back in time. Never trust a Time Lord. Also, JK Simmons plays the Lance Henrickson analog but is also a cop who is saved by them in 1984 but not completely surprised to see them exactly the same, in 2017. Hee!

3+1 Short Paragraphs: San Andreas

2015, Brad Peyton (Republic of Doyle) -- cinema

Friday night, all by myself, I am alone in the theatre. Then a couple of teenage girls come and keep a good distance from the creepy old man seeing a movie by himself. I like seeing movies by myself, especially the ones I know are not going to be very good. I love disaster movies, especially with all the money of Hollywood behind them. But really, I do wish they would have provided a bit more of that money to flesh out the characters. The heart of any disaster movie is caring what is going to happen to the people onscreen.

No, you should expect a ton of characterization when seeing a movie about an epic earthquake(s), but, while I am not dissing The Rock, it is kind of ironic that the most amount of acting comes from Dwayne Johnson, known mostly for gleefully flexing his muscles, and Alexandra Daddario, known mostly for her beautiful, bright blue eyes and, well let's be honest here, her boobs.  Seriously, Google Image Search her and the top 3 will contain a certain scene from True Detective. And these two play the extreme range of any character in the entire movie.

San Andreas is about the fault, that mostly unseen crack between the Pacific tectonic plate and the North American one. It shifts, it moves and all of California shakes. The movie is about the Big One, the shifting of the crack from LA up to San Francisco, causing the biggest earthquakes in history. Paul Giamatti, the scientist, is desperate to convince people it's going to happen. And it does. That's his role, talk science stuff and look concerned. Meanwhile, rescue ranger Johnson abandons his post to pluck his wife off a tower, to fly to San Fran to find his daughter. He has already lost one daughter, years earlier, and he will not lose another! Watch Dwayne emote this grief, by staring into space not a trace of it crossing his face! The pain! Daddario is said plucky daughter, having been abandoned by mother's jerk BF Ioan Gruffudd (don't worry, he gets splatted soon enough), leads a pair of british guys to higher ground, awaiting her father's rescue. She is practical, tough and who could say no to those blue eyes. Definitely not fate, because, as expected Dwayne and his wife just randomly run into her, even in the shambles that San Francisco has become. Insert terrible Michael Bay style rah rah, unfurling flags, we will rebuild ending.

You cannot help but mock these movies. When you think about them, they fail on so many aspects. Logic, character, plot always fail. But what draws you in is the ... death & destruction. Yeesh, bleak enough? What should draw you in is the survival against tough odds. The effects do look damn good, and it is a bonus point, that most is background material as we focus on getting our main characters from point A to point B. I enjoyed the movie a lot, but I doubt it will end up on my shelf next to 2012 and Deep Impact.

Mad Max: Fury Road

2015, George Miller (Mad Max, Babe: Pig in the City, Happy Feet) -- cinema

OK, so now I understand why the MRA (men's right activists) / Red Pill subsets of trolls was so upset about this movie. Max (Tom Hardy) is the supporting character. Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) is the main character. In fact, in my head-canon, as Max never reveals his name until the very end of the movie, I envisioned all the marketing of this movie didn't reveal it was a Mad Max movie at all. We were all just thrilled to see a new post-apocalyptic movie starring Charlize. And as we watched trailer after trailer, we roared on the Internet as to how it was ripping off Mad Max: The Road Warrior. Then we get the reveal and all grin to ourselves.

Alas, in the real world, they have to bank on past success.

But it was not just Furiosa. Possibly the "coolest" (most effective, stylish and memorable) characters in the movie are a bunch of gun toting, motorcycle riding, old ladies, the Many Mothers. Leathery skinned, leather wearing and crack shots, these ladies set a counterpoint to the slaves that the first act of the movie is trying to "save". The rest of the characters are all foolhardy men running into bullets and front bumpers as they try and do what their groins (or their boss's groins) are telling them to do. They are driven (pun intended), the women are motivated.

But even if you put that win aside, this is still an incredible movie. 

The movie starts with Max standing beside his car monologuing. He is cracked, broken and running from the bad guys, as per usual. They easily take him down, shred his car and wrap him in chains and tattoos. Universal donor? This mountain fortress, an absolute marvel of visual presentation, runs on water and blood. Seriously, this whole world we are dropped into is excruciatingly beautiful looking, if po-ap props are beautiful to you. This is fantastical, gears and chains and steering wheels and fancy doodads decorating gear shifters. Costuming harkens back to the greatest era of po-ap, the late 80s, with white painted Warboys (I dare you to not sing Wild Boys by Duran Duran in your head), mud caked peasants (who apparently wear their homes on their backs) and leather bound muscle heads everywhere. Max is tossed into this world with one idea - escape. He just reacts, runs and reacts some more.

Max spends a good deal of the movie not-escaped, in restraints, unavoidably dragged into the plot of the movie. Imperator Furiosa, the general of Immortan Joe's army, has escaped with his wives. In a world of starving, mutating, inbred cretins, Joe's wives are supermodels, clad in white gauze and teeth laden chastity belts. Furiosa has taken them, finally breaking her own personal chains and is leading the girls to the Green Place. And that is it, one big chase scene.  Furiosa coops Max into her quest by convincing him that it matters.

Now, you have seen the trailers, so the first thing I asked Kent (who saw it before I did), was whether the movie was as super saturated as the trailers. It could have been a marketing ploy. But no, even dulled down by non-3D, it was bright ochre, scorching white and brown tones everywhere. It was just gorgeous, wide pans of horizons devoid of anything but thundering vehicles. And all those practical effects! Big, nasty cars modded like Ed Roth hot rod pictures! A massive vehicle stacked high with speakers and a leatherboy strapped into a harness playing guitar! White painted warboys spraying their mouths with chrome paint, before jumping to their "heroic" deaths and everlasting glory in Valhalla! Take these actual, physical examples of the world and tie them to a fantastically depicted world, and it was just breath taking.

Good movie.  #HappySigh

Shameful that so many of the movie's posters don't bring Theron to the forefront.

I Saw This!! OK, Bloody OK

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our all-too regular feature wherein Graig or David attempt to write about a bunch of movies they watched some time ago and meant to write about but just never got around to doing so. Now they they have to strain to say anything meaningful lest they just not say anything at all. And they can't do that, can they?

Arthur Christmas, 2011, Sarah Smith, Barry Cook (Mulan) -- download
The Equalizer, 2014, Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, King Arthur) -- download
White House Down, 2013, Roland Emmerich (Stargate, Independence Day) -- download
The Boxtrolls, 2014, Graham Annable, Anthony Stacchi -- download
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, 2014, Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Let Me In) -- rental
Savages, 2012, Oliver Stone -- Netflix
Deliver Us From Evil, 2014, Scott Derrickson (Sinister) -- download

Its about time I cleaned out some of these, because I am again using it as an excuse to just not enjoy movies. Besides, I have to cover the movies seen recently, so I can blather on about some video games I recently finished on the xBox One.

That said, I am thinking of trying an experiment for one month. Watch all the movies I want, but only review the ones that strike me enough to actually say something about them. I can say something about any movie I see, even if it is only "yawn" but some I actually have something tangible to say. And some I just enjoy with little thought one way or the other. Those usually end up here.

Now that said, you would think, "Its your blog (yours and Kent's), why do you feel compelled to write about every movie? You make the rules don't ya?"  Yes, I do. But there is something productive in setting guidelines to follow. Hell, I have already re-written those guidelines by reducing most of my 'reviews' down to 3 (Not So) Short Paragraphs.  And then there is this format.

OK, that is said. Onto the actual post.

Arthur Christmas should be a proper X Days of Xmas post but again, we attempted, we failed, we only saw a couple. But this is a good Xmas movie! So it deserves some commentary. Also, see above. The movie is done by Aardman Animations, so I am rather surprised we didn't see it out of simple loyalty. We were huge fans of Wallace & Gromit. But honestly, we haven't been all that loyal if you check the catalog --- the only thing we had seen recently in the cinemas, was The Pirates! In An Adventure with Scientists which I have no clue as to why there is no post here on this blog. I loved it, I am kind of surprised I didn't write about it.

Arthur is one of Santa's sons. The whole Christmas Santa concept is represented as a family deal, a massive expedition done each year full of hundreds of support elves and high technology, currently run by the other son, the useful son Steve. His dad does the deliveries but Steve runs the night in the command centre at the North Pole. Its a precision exercise that compensates for his dad's doddering mistakes. Meanwhile Arthur is just assigned to answering the Letters to Santa.

Essentially, its a wonderful tale of saving Christmas, finding the real meaning of the commercialized version of the holiday (as opposed to the Christian one) and recognizing that Arthur is the best choice all along. Its hilarious, incredibly wonderfully animated and even visits Toronto for a misinterpreted flyby in an old broken down sled. Grandpa Santa has some issues. I might even add it to our repeat watching next year.

Next up, we have The Equalizer, a rather forgotten actioner from last year that was pretty much ignored in the cinemas but I still consider as rather enjoyable!

Full disclosure, I was a big big big fan of the TV show, The Equalizer. The idea of a retired CIA shadow man placing an ad in a local newspaper saying he can help with things that the police cannot was the perfect premise to my heroic Mary Sue mind. It was procedural, villain of the week and spy mystery wrapped up in one. I would easily compare Person of Interest to the feel I got from it then.

I was not part of the Outrage Culture cliq that our angry internet has devolved into, upon learning they chose to cast Robert McCall as a black man (Denzel Washington), which is weird considering they had cast the original man with a British actor, only later retconning it to explain why this obvious very British man was a top agent in the CIA. Fuck the morons who felt it was a wrong choice. I thought it was brilliant, as Denzel Washington is hitting that stage of his acting career where he is beginning to be defined by his age. Not quite yet a Liam Neeson, Washington shows a bit of aging around the gills and easily falls into the role of a quiet older man working a menial job, competently and unremarkably.

This rendition of the story has him working a local Home Depot analog, doing simple things, bonding with his coworkers and leading a simple life. He is kind of OCD, doing things repeatedly, placing his flatware and books very specifically for his every night visit to the diner to eat, and read and chat with the young prostitute who stops by on occasion. He is friendly but outside everyone's lives, until... he is dragged into it.

This is not the premise of the TV show, so if for any reason, this is why I was not sure I was going to enjoy their depiction. But it is so exquisite in those quiet first-and-a-bit acts. He is precise, as I mentioned, rather OCD. He is mysterious about his past but does not rebuff people. And that mood, that tone carries itself into the action, once it starts. The young prostitute is being abused by her pimps, the Russian mafia of this area of Boston. McCall attempts to buy her contract, assuming a few thousand dollars can cover it, not really knowing how much she is worth. He is mocked, threatened and makes to leave. But in a very precision ballet of violence, that John Wick reminded me of, McCall kills all the mafiosos.

Enter Martin Tsokas as a fixer for the Russian mob, who arrives in the US to find out what happened to his key pimp. Martin Tsokas is the best of the best when it comes to playing suave, scary, evil men. And this is a prime example. He and McCall come together as fixer plays investigator, putting the details together until he finds the man who works at the Home Depot but who must be much much more.  The latter acts of the movie sort of fall into a less enjoyable, familiar pattern of blowing things up and taking down bad guys. Creative use of the tool section.

But the ending of the movie gave me quite the grin. Robert has dismantled the Russian mob, saved the young prostitute but can never go back to his job at the Home Depot. We find him at his laptop filling out a Craig's List posting:

Got a problem?

Odds against you?

Call the Equalizer

Enter squee.  Sequel please.

White House Down. You already know I saw the other Attack the White House movie -- Olympus Has Fallen.  This was visibly the lighter of the two, comedic and with brighter stars in the leads: Channing Tatum as the hero and Jamie Fox as The President. Does anyone else matter? Not really, in a Roland Emmerich vehicle, where the trauma is the main star. But it was nice to see Lance Reddick, Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Woods in supporting roles.

Its all about the take over and rescue of America's centre of royalty - the White House and its President. They are rather a package deal in the mythology of the US. The hero worship around the American President has always fascinated me. We openly loathe our own Prime Minister, and while the current American public has their "Thanks Obama" meme, that doesn't reduce the reverence they have for the White House and the Presidential office. Its no joke they consider the job as their own version of a royal family. Both the movies play on the fear of reprisals on their own soil, harkening back to 2001, but amping up the trauma.

I saw Gerard Butler as a respectable, seasoned professional doing what experience had taught him. His President was pretty much a figure head to be rescued, no matter how much I enjoyed Aaron Eckhart in the role. Jamie Fox is better here, as much comedic (less so than I expected) as a competent leader. He represents a sobre but healthy respect for the job he represents, while Channing Tatum is just the right guy in the wrong place, shooting things and wise cracking. It was enjoyable, only because I enjoy the rah-rah American ideal presented by Roland Emmerich.

This is weird. I do these to quickly sum up what I wouldn't do in three normal paragraphs but often end up writing more.

The Boxtrolls was something I enjoyed a lot but wanted to enjoy even more.  The trolls in question, named so because they wear cardboard boxes as clothes (whatever the box is adorned with is their name, i.e. box that held shoes means he is Shoe), are little pesky thieves that live beneath the city of Cheeseburg. They "kidnap" a baby and raise him as one of their own, deep in their Rube Goldberg lair.

Meanwhile, topside an exterminator has promised to kill off all the trolls should he be given the white hat of station. He believes respectability, and access to the finest cheese in Cheeseburg, comes with just bearing the hat. He ignores the fact he is horribly allergic to cheese.

While the trolls themselves were charming and funny, the rest was run of the mill cute. I guess too many of these animations are cut from the same cheesecloth. Watching the trolls clap their boxes when happy made me giggle and the revolting nature of Snatcher's allergic reaction were definitely memorable, but overall the movie was just cute.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was one of those movies that actually forced me to download a properly rented version.  Yes, I actually paid for it. OK, I did attempt to pirate it but my current setup of movie transferral does not easily allow for English movies with subtitles. You have to find the right subtitle file, which is generally not easy. And I wanted to see how the rent a download on the Sony Store, was going these days, so I tossed some funds into my wallet and rented the movie.  8 gigabytes and an overnight download later, I was able to actually watch.  Yeah, the concept of renting a decent quality movie and watching it on the same night is not possible unless you have the highest speed of fibre as your ISP.  And they wonder why people pirate 1 GB versions.

In case you are wondering, it is the apes that are subtitled, as the movies picks up from the first one years later, and they all share a sign language between them.

So, yeah, years later. Caesar and his ape buddies all escaped across the Golden Gate Bridge in the first movie into the woods beyond. I kind of suspect that there is more than a giant forest on the other side of the bridge, but it made a point. Meanwhile, the (further) genetically engineered virus that made Caesar smart jumps to humans with horrible consequences -- the Simian Flu. The opening sequence is straight out of the pandemic game Plague Inc.  -- quite literally. There was a partnership between the movie makers and the game makers. It shows the spread of the disease with overdubbed news dialogue about the end of the world.  Its now ten years laters with the few survivors of the world eking out an existence next door to the apes themselves.

Unfortunately, again, this felt more like an establishing movie. Origin story times two. The apes in the woods come into conflict with the humans in the city and only war will resolve it. We all know where it has to go, so they do their best to dramatically direct us to that ending/beginning. But its kind of limiting and really only lends itself to conflict, both emotionally and violently.

Jason Clarke is our male lead, who wants to reestablish use of a hydroelectric dam in ape territory. Its nice to see Clarke doing a non-badguy role, but all of the characters, including his, are pretty thin. I will chime in with the rest of the internet in saying the lack of female roles in this movie is pretty obvious. Keri Russell is there to just fill a quota.  Meanwhile Serkis (and CGI makeup) as Caesar carries this movie. Everyone else, ape and human alike, is divided between idealistic and self-serving asshole. Humans betray the apes, apes betray the humans and war breaks out. Insert the final movie which has a chance to do something original, in an even further future, ape controlled world.

Graig's review.

Savages really has nothing going for it but a bunch of pretty people and Oliver Stone's name. Its a crime sex drama with Blake Lively (Green Lantern), Taylor Kitsch (John Carter) and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Godzilla). On the bad guy side is John Travolta, Benicio Del Toro and Salma Hayek. The good guy bunch run their own naive marijuana cartel in southern California, practicing fair employment, chemical analysis and generally and a good vibe in all aspects of their selling of the MJ. They buy completely into their own hype. Meanwhile Salma runs the current blend of head-chopping nasty Mexican cartel who want to buy into the pretty boys business. Things don't go well, as we would expect.

The sex comes in the fact that the three are in a love triangle. Not the jealousy and hidden agendas kind but in the fact that she loves the boys both, equally, and they share her. Its an amiable relationship. It smacks of open relationships, bisexuality and just a little of how addled years of Mj use has made them. We don't quite trust their love & peace judgement.

Stone movies are usually intricate and compelling. This attempted at intricacy but it was all TV level of crime drama and the only thing that even remotely redeemed it was decent acting on the major's parts. But entirely forgettable. And Stone has got to drop the narrator thing he loves so much.

 End of Days (he was never convincing as a grizzled cop) and we have it again with Eric Bana as one who gets mixed up with a demon possessed soldier.

New York cops and Satanist agendas. We saw it in the Arnie movie

I like Bana in generic cop roles. He just has that weighed-down, tired persona well established. The movie plays into that having him balanced on screen against Joel McHale as his ToTheExtreme Redbull-slamming partner. McHale is hilarious, a little more buff than I can accept him as but great with the levity against Bana's growl. All New York cops have a growl in them.

This is your typical possession movie that really relies on a certain amount of acceptance of Judeo Christian mythos. Unlike Constantine and his constantly mixing of mythos and magic, this movie dabbles in older cultures but traces everything back to God and Demons. The movie draws upon a "real story" to base its plot but really, who cares. That won't help us accept or dismiss any of the drama.

It solid enough for these types of movies but nothing grand, and kind of disappointing considering how Derrickson's first foray into horror was pretty spectacular, even for revisiting the evil spirit genre.

There. Done.  Some cleaned out.