An Italian American fantasy directed by Luigi Cozzi, starring Lou Ferrigno, Brad Harris and Sybil Danning.
Hercules must defeat Minos and save Cassiopea.
This was cheesy like only Luigi Cozzi can do. Knowing Greek mythology, some of the plot made no sense and it seemed like characters and quests were thrown in a hat to be chosen at random. Dedalos was a woman and the labyrinth held no minotaur. That was a Theseus story anyway. Circe actually helped Hercules, unlike what she did to Ulysses and his sailors. The acting was not terrible, but could have used some work. I liked how I could tell how every special effect was done. They would be easy in Premiere Pro, but with actual film, things would have been difficult. I would only recommend this if you like even cheesier movies than I do. I rate it tolerable because it sucked, but there were some laughs along the way.
An American direct to video science fiction directed by Anthony Doublin.
A man from another planet escapes slavery there and arrives on Earth. He is chased by a cyborg and some tyrannosaurs, but enlists the aid of a nun to defeat them.
No redeeming qualities. I'm sure that the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode was funny, but the original film was not. There was poor writing, bad acting and low budget production, but the worst part was the audio. The music was mixed too loud and the dialogue was mixed too low. There was also white noise through most of the duration. The special effects would be funny to mock, like the fishing line that sounds like a chain. The reappearing empty boxes actually were funny to me. The cyborg's lo-fi vision and servo sounds made it seem more like "Past War" set in the 1980s. Their fake Jean Claude Van Damme fought really slowly. When I see something this bad, it makes me question whether the filmmakers even watched it before the release. According to Wikipedia, it was screened for the crew and the director quit after he saw it. I rate this shit because it is totally worthless.
An American science fiction black comedy directed by Boots Riley, starring Terry Crews, Patton Oswalt, David Cross and Danny Glover.
A black man working as a telemarketer learns to use his "white voice" and becomes successful. This distances him from his old friends who were unsuccessful or protesting against the company that he works for. Finally reaching the top of the corporate ladder, he learns a dark secret about the company.
Amazing! Being white and going to see this with a black friend lead to an interesting discussion afterward. He saw a movie about racial issues and I saw a movie about financial and societal class issues. Either way, the plot was thought provoking and the production quality was great. To elaborate on this, the dynamic plot begins as a regular comedy, turns to black/dark comedy and then to science fiction. The main character and his relationships change as the film develops as well. According to Wikipedia, the "white voice" for black characters was performed by a different person and lip synched. I would recommend this for those who question accepted societal value systems. I rate it awesome for being unique, thoughtful and entertaining.
An American adventure directed by Albert Hughes.
A prehistoric boy is injured and separated from his hunting group. When wolves chase him, he injures one of them. Unable to bring himself to kill it, he sits with the wolf in a cave while they both heal. Now a pair, they travel to find the boy's home.
I was not very impressed. I saw this in the theater in 3D and saw no need for that technology to be used on it. More than anything else, I was reminded of A Boy and His Dog (1975) and The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986). If anything, I think Alpha should have been filmed on an older camera system, possibly even in 4:3 aspect ratio with some nice video grain. The story has been over-told. Has anyone heard of White Fang? Any of the other boy and wolf or survival adventures out there? Same with characters. The only thing done really well was aerial shots of large landscapes. The animal and human fight scenes were not that impressive. The initial buffalo hunt is there to lure you in for a lack of action in the rest of the film. That saber tooth tiger or whatever it is in the cave during the preview fights for less than 5 seconds. I barely noticed the musical score, an area which could have been highlighted in this film. This is for those who like slow pacing and sappy endings, not for fans of 300 (2006) style action. I rate this tolerable. For the first half, I was wondering when it gets good. For the second half, I was wondering when it would end.
A Japanese fantasy anime directed by Masaaki Yuasa, starring Kana Hanazawa.
A young woman goes out to some bars, visits an outdoor used book market, participates in an unlicensed school play and visits people who caught a cold.
I was blown away by this. The story and characters would have been a little mundane if presented in traditional animation and stuck in "reality". The animation style is what made this so unique because there were many forms used. It moved from traditional anime to rotoscoping, into simplified minimalism and I think some of the scenes showed Miyazaki levels of detail. It was all very expressive as well. The audience can see the characters' thoughts and emotions. The subtitles are a little bit heavy because the dialogue carries the story and it goes by quickly. I saw this at the theater where it was given only 2 days of showtimes and then found a copy online. I rate this best and would recommend it even for those who don't like animation at all. It's that good. I would not, however, recommend it for those who dislike subtitles.
An American Disney sword and planet science fiction directed by Andrew Stanton, starring Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds and Willem Dafoe.
A man in the old west stumbles upon a secret cave in which he meets an Alien, shoots it and uses it's medallion to travel to Mars. There he is adopted by a civilization of aliens and meets a humanoid princess whom he must save.
Not too shabby, but I got the feeling that it was trying to be a Star Wars spinoff. This was based on A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, a sword and planet "science fantasy" book published in 1912. I had stumbled upon a web page mourning the loss of good science fiction and fantasy pulp paperback novels which accompanied the end of the 1980s and this was one of the series listed there. Being a Disney production, the cinematography and special effects were amazing. With a 306.6 million dollar budget, I would expect no less. Just for perspective, the entire school district that I work at has less than an 81 million dollar annual budget and that runs 6 schools fully staffed with teachers, administration and cleaners, an administration building and a bus garage with a full fleet of buses. There was some extremely low volume dialogue in the beginning which is unacceptable considering the money involved. The rest of the audio was fine. The aliens speaking an unknown language without subtitles in the beginning was intentional, as the main character learns to understand them and they speak in English after that. I don't know how much of the sets and costumes were CG (lots), but I saw CG eyes on the female lead. In the arena scene (which took forever to get to) monsters called "wild Bants" are mentioned, but all we get are "white apes" that looked like Yetis from Drakan: The Ancients' Gates for PS2, but with 4 arms. The whole consensus anatomy of Mars except humanoids was to add arms or legs. Their riding beasts had the most, rivaling Odin's Slepnir with 8 legs. Overall, an entertaining science fiction/fantasy adventure with good special effects. I'm keeping it, but discerning movie buffs may be disappointed by the lack of tact and finesse. I would put this in the same category as Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018): cheap thrills that were expensive to make. I rate this good because that's what I've been liking watching these days.
A Japanese horror adventure directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura.
A girl's abusive mother steals her heart just as a zombie apocalypse is happening and becomes queen of the zombies. The daughter is rebuilt by the government as an android with a chainsaw sword. She is found by the owner of an orphanage that only houses one other person: a silent young man with a giant sword shaped like the edge of a circular saw. They are sent by the government to kill the zombie queen and on the way meet a man with an armored pickup truck and a shotgun.
Yoshihiro is one of the folks who can do no wrong in my eyes. I was heavily reminded of Tokyo Gore Police (2008) while watching this. Everything was over the top in the same way, but more like a Resident Evil adventure story. Some of the special effects were way cheesy and some were spot on. Regardless, everything gets drenched in blood except chainsaw sword hero girl. Lots of the music was good for a few minutes. The battle theme just got recycled way too much. I liked the surviving characters, but it was too easy to tell who was going to be killed or forgotten. Overall, it's a keeper. I rate this awesome and would recommend it to those who like gore and horror adventures.
