The Mummy (2017) - Review

What if Giles from Buffy the Vampire the Slayer was also Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? This is very much the vibe that Universal’s first installment in their new Dark Universe movie series gives off, and this could lead to problems later on as the last thing you want in your multi-million dollar franchise is for it to come off as an overblown television show. Clearly the hiring of Hollywood heavyweights Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe is a key component in overcoming this feeling but regardless of star power this version of The Mummy does seem more like a pilot to a TV series than it does a stand-alone movie.

This rendition of The Mummy follows the adventures of Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) an American reconnaissance officer stationed in Iraq who, along with his partner Chris Vail (Jake Johnson), spend most of his time scouring the local terrain for treasure and not so much doing his actually job as part of the United States military. When a firefight with some insurgence accidentally reveals an ancient Egyptian tomb, being they are in Iraq everyone finds this rather odd, and our heroes plunge into the depths of the tomb with archeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) to discover it's secrets. While there they come across the resting place of the lost Egyptian princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) who we later learn was so mummified and imprisoned because she murdered her father and baby brother when it looked like she was losing her spot as heir apparent.

The face of evil has never been prettier.

Needless to say things go rather badly. Poor hapless sidekick Chris is bitten by a spider and turned into some kind of zombie Renfield to Ahmanet while the military transport plane bringing Ahmanet’s sarcophagus back to England is downed by a flock of crows. Jenny is the only survivor because just before it crashed Nick was able to get her into a parachute (being saved is her sole character trait), but later Nick wakes up in the morgue wondering what the hell is going on. It’s at this point we are introduced to Dr. Jekyll (Russell Crowe) who is the head of Prodigium, a secret society dedicated to the hunting of supernatural threats and is based under the Natural History Museum of London. While Jekyll tries to fill poor "not dead" Nick on what is happening we watch as Jekyll has to inject himself with a serum to prevent his Mr. Hyde persona from making an appearance, sadly this has nothing to do with the movie we are watching and is all part of the “world building” for the Dark Universe the studio is praying will make them loads of money, and in my opinion is a pretty big misstep.

"Believe it or not but I'm younger than Tom Cruise."

When Marvel released Iron Man back in 2008 there was no grand plan for a cinematic connected universe so no other Marvel characters from other comics were ham-fisted in, but then with the success of that movie, and the many that followed, a shared universe was born. They key difference between Marvel and Universal here is that one seemed organic while the other seems forced and clunky. This movie has more in common with the laughably bad League of Extraordinary Gentlemen than it does Boris Karloff's The Mummy from 1932 or even the Brendan Fraser reboot from 1999 as it seems more a haphazard mashup of bits and pieces than a movie that can stand on its own two legs.

The movie is it's own Frankenstein's monster.

Universal attempted to get their shared universe off the ground back in 2014 with Luke Evans as the title character in Dracula Untold, but then it flopped and Universal kicked it to the curb in favor of this one with mega-star Tom Cruise who I guess becomes some kind of monster fighter who will then tackle the rest of the Universal Monster line-up which so far includes; The Bride of Frankenstein, The Creature of the Black Lagoon, The Invisible Man, Van Helsing, The Wolf Man Frankenstein, Dracula, The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I’m not sure how many of these entries Mr. Cruise is going to make, he is certainly not cheap and is often busy making Mission Impossible movies, but it looks Crowe’s character is set-up to be the Nick Fury of this franchise.

Now I will say this version of The Mummy is not a complete garbage fire, Cruise is his ever charismatic self and there are some really good nail-biting action scenes on display, and I did like the gender swap that landed Sofia Boutella as the title character, but one never got the sense of excitement or fun that I’m betting the studio was trying for. There was much to like in this movie, and if Universal had the courage to take it slow with their universe building it could have been a solid movie, but as is the film does kind of feel like an expensive pilot for a new HBO series.

 

White Walkers would totally fit in here.

Final Thoughts:
• The ghost of decaying best friend Chris popping up to invisibly harass Nick seems like a blatant/homage to dead Jack from An American Werewolf in London.
• Why was there a pulley system in place to raise the sarcophagus out of her tomb when no one on Earth would want her free?
• In the workrooms of the Prodigium we get a glimpse of a bottled arm of The Creature From the Black Lagoon and there is a vampire skull on display.
• The Book of Death from the Brendan Fraser Mummy makes a quick appearance.
• We also get the same giant sandstorm Mummy face as we did in the 90s entry.
• If it takes the knife and the jewel together to bring the god Set into the world why didn’t the Crusader knights just smash the jewel instead of hiding it?

The Stewardesses (1969) NSFW - Review

Before the internet brought porn into millions of homes people actually had to go out to the theatre to see women frolic around in the nude while having wild sexual encounters Behind a Green Door or dealing with such medical problems as being Insatiable or performing Deep Throat. In the late 60s and on into the 70s feature length pornographic films were big business and with films like the aforementioned Behind the Green Door with Marylyn Chambers and Deep Throat with Linda Lovelace the "porno chic" boom was launched with quite a financial reward.  Now arriving just ahead of this wave of movies was the 1969 film The Stewardesses, which had the added bonus of being in 3D because producer, writer and director Al Silliman Jr hoped that even though his film was not all that hardcore or explicit adding the 3D gimmick would boost box office sales, and he was right.

Though The Stewardesses is a softcore sex flick, thus focusing more on nudity and not explicit shots of people's junk doing the nasty, but that didn’t stop it from having the same lack of plot as about 99% of porno movies out there; the pizza delivery boy will always be bringing extra sausage and as the title of this movie denotes a bunch of “sexy” stewardesses are going spend the next ninety minutes participating in all kinds of sexual shenanigans.

 

Only this time out the sex will be “Coming right at you!”

There is no plot to The Stewardesses, being more a collection of sexual vignettes than any kind of story, as we follow this particular group of trans-pacific stewardesses to see how each of them spends their layover time getting laid. The movie opens with Wendy Blake (Janet Wass) getting a solid rogering in a motel room while one of her fellow flight attendants bangs on the door to inform her they have a flight to catch. Meanwhile studmuffin of the skies Captain Brad Masters (William Condos) suits up for a day of flying the friendly skies while stewardess Samantha Howard (Christina Hart) tries some perfume at one of the airport gift shops. This is all of course done in glorious 3D and for the most part it is rather impressive, technically that is, and the relatively lightweight and portable design of a single-strip 3-D camera that this movie used would later go on to film an even goofier picture.

 

Note: Nudity in 3D works better than the bad shark effects in Jaws 3D.

We get to meet the rest of our cast of characters once we board the plane as stewardess Wendy starts hitting on a soldier who will be heading overseas to fight in Vietnam soon and we have Captain Masters screwing one of the new stewardesses in the cockpit, and he is such a colossal asshat that he leaves the cabin mic on so that all the passengers can hear them fucking. The passengers all seem rather amused by this instead of being offended and I take this for it being the sixties and “Free Love” was everywhere. The poor girl then has to do the Slut Walk of Shame past all these passengers who are probably all wondering when they get their mile high club gift cards punched.

 

“Coffee, tea or me?”

Next we are introduced to Colin Winthrop (Ronald South), an ad exec who is working on a huge marketing campaign, and Samantha immediately sets her goals on this dude as she has dreams of becoming an actress. The problem is that Colin has some deep dark personal issues of his own, ones that even Don Draper of Mad Men would have considered to be rather fucked up. Films of this type often start out as a fun and lite sex romp but would then switch to much darker turn at the end, and this film does of a doozy of a dark ending, but before we get to those heavy moments we must suffer through some of the bizarrest dalliances ever.

 

As one who just missed 60s I like to imagine this is how everyone lived.

The film then proceeds to bounce back and forth between our girls as they venture off into the City of Angels for some much needed R&R. Head Stewardess Jo Peters (Anita de Moulin) invites fellow stewardess Cathy Harris (Kathy Ferrick) back to her beach house for some of that ever important relaxing, Cathy of course not being completely aware that Jo has more intimate form of relaxing on her mind.

 

Question: Is it legally a porno if there isn’t a lesbian scene?

Stewardess Annie (Donna Stanley) doesn’t go clubbing with her co-workers, or even hook-up with one of the passengers on her flight, which going by this film seems to be the main reason to be a stewardess, but instead she goes home where she lives with her parents. Tina finds a note from her parents stating that they have gone on a trip so Tina thinks to herself, “Whole place to myself, maybe I could take a trip to.” And once again because this is the 60s this means Tina is going to partake in some LSD. This leads to if not the most sexually graphic scene in the movie easily the weirdest as Lisa drops some acid, gets naked, takes a shower (is a gratuitous shower scene gratuitous if it's in a porn?) and then when the acid finally kicks in she proceeds to make love to a kitschy lamp that has a Grecian head for a base.

 

At least this lamp has more of a charming personality than Captain Masters.

It's at this point that the film goes into full 3D gimmick mode as pool cues and panty shots attack the audience in a painfully long montage of “frolicking” as we get Brad Masters, lover at large, and the stewardesses hitting the club scene, hustling pool, and then getting down to the important sexual encounters. As in most porn films the key ingredient is sex and nudity, that this film was shot in 3D does not change that priority one iota and aside from the boobs and legs popping out of the screen the “story” structure remains consistent with its porn contemporaries. The men mostly stay full clothed, not that I’m complaining, while the women drop their dresses at the slightest provocation, and the sex is abundant. Our cast of female characters are free spirited sexual beings and the men are mostly thoughtless pigs, with maybe the exception of the soldier being sent off to war who takes Wendy to the carnival before the requited sexing up.

 

"I could die over there...so does that get me anal?"

There isn’t much meat to these types of stories, the target audience not really caring either way, but then as we get deeper into the character of Colin the ad exec, who Samantha desperately wants to get a lucrative acting contract from, things take a decidedly nasty turn. We learn that Colin started out in the mail room of his company and that his boss considered it the “Male Room” for which he forced his employees into acts of homosexuality to advance their careers. This deeply scarred Colin and he has since vowed to sexually destroy whatever woman he chooses for his final ad campaign. Yeah, that’s not fucked up at all. Not to get deeper into spoilers here but needless to say things don’t go well for either Samantha or Colin.

The Stewardesses has some nice 3D photography, I especially enjoyed the rollercoaster footage at the carnival, but it’s very fragmented nature never really allows one to connect to the characters and Samantha’s tragic tale doesn’t seem earned at all. What the film did earn was a shit ton of money as it grossed between $25 and $30 million dollars on a $100 thousand dollar budget, this made The Stewardesses one of the top grossing films of 1969, and until James Cameron’s Avatar came along it was the most profitable 3D film. For a 60s sexploitation film shot in the 3D you certainly get what you pay for with The Stewardesses, and as a look at the morals and sensibilities of the time it is an interesting snapshot of the period and worth checking out.

Wonder Woman (2017) - Review

Wonder Woman has been around since 1941, where she first battled the Nazi war machine in the pages of her comic book, later becoming a feminist icon in the 70s as well as the star of a hit television series, but unlike Superman and Batman she has never managed to make the crossover onto the big screen, until now. Well technically this entry would be her second appearance because Zack Snyder introduced her first in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice but as this movie is her origin story, and realistically should have been released before that abomination, we will consider this her first movie.

Director Patty Jenkins and screenwriter Allan Heinberg tackle one of the trickier origin stories in the DC Universe, no doomed planet or murdered parents here, and though quite a few tweaks are made it still feels like a genuine Wonder Woman story, one that fans of the character can get behind.  We learn that centuries ago the Greek god Ares had corrupted mankind and killed all the other gods except Zeus, who with his last ounce of strength created an ultimate weapon, a God Killer, and bestowed it on the Amazons who were tasked with the job of watching for the return of Ares. On their hidden island of Themyscira we meet young Diana (lilly Aspell), daughter of Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielen), who is told by her mother that she was sculpted out of clay and given life by the god Zeus (it's amazing what little kids will believe), and she is secretly trained to become an Amazon warrior by her aunt General Antiope (Robin Wright) because her mother wishes to keep her out of harm’s way.

 The only child on a hidden island of warrior women seems pretty safe to me.

Eventually when Diana (Gal Gadot) is older she is finally allowed to train to be the "best of the best" but during a routine training fight it is suddenly revealed that she has incredible power beyond that of even her fellow Amazons, yet before the ramifications of this can fully kick in a pilot by the name of Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crash lands on Paradise Island and her entire life is soon in a state of upheaval. This is when the film kicks into high gear and we really start to have fun, something the previous DC installments have tended to forget, as we get Diana of Themyscira teamed-up with charismatic and sardonic Steve Trevor who is on a mission to stop the evil machinations of the villainous General Ludendorff (Danny Huston), who wants to prevent the Armistice talks that could end the Great War. Alongside Trevor we have his quirky secretary Etta Candy (Lucy Davis), whose main job is getting Diana to dress so she will fit in, and a small group of mercenaries who will help Steve and Diana infiltrate enemy territory and stop this new diabolically gas that was invented by Ludendorff’s partner Dr. Maru aka as Doctor Poison (Elena Anaya), which when deployed can kill anyone even if they are wearing a gas mask.

 

Of course planning genocide should not interrupt a good party.

My favorite aspect of this movie is not the awesome action sequences of Wonder Woman deflecting machine gun fire with her magic bracelets or tossing armored cars around as if they were toys, and don't get me wrong those scenes were pretty damn awesome, but it was the wonderful moments with her and Steve Trevor that sold this film for me; whether it be the deliciously funny fish-out-of-water sequences of her getting use to "civilization" or the tender moments such as when Steve teachers her to dance, it was all just perfect. The chemistry between Gadot and Pine cannot be overstated as it’s what really holds this film together, and I seriously don’t see this Diana Prince getting along with the tonally deaf Bruce Wayne or the boring ass Clark Kent from the DC Extended Universe.

 

Though she does rock the Clark Kent wearing glasses as a disguise thing.

The film even manages to have a proper three act structure, hero’s journey included, opposed to the incessant noise that has cluttered up DC’s previous installments.  In this film the main character is allowed to grow and learn; Diana starts off with the straightforward mission of finding and defeating Ares, believing that once he’s dead mankind will put down their weapons and sing Kumbaya together, but unfortunately the world is not so black and white and throughout the journey both she and Trevor will learn from each other, and not always good things.

Speaking of black and white I’m happy to say that this film is not the dingy one colour palette that we’ve been getting from this studio lately; there is the vibrant and colourful world of Themyscira, the sepia tinged war torn London, and the cold blue of the Front Lines. Overall the cinematography for this film is great and the action set-pieces are shot and edited in such a fashion that we can actually tell what is going on. That at this point in time one can consider this a novel technique truly saddens.

 

"Look, someone found the green filter?"

This Wonder Woman movie is the first of the DC Extended Universe that I truly enjoyed from start to finish, and most of that stems from just how perfect Gal Gadot is as Wonder Woman, not since Linda Carter donned the stars and stripes has someone nailed the role so well, but sadly not everything is perfect and this film does fall victim to something that has plagued even the successful Marvel movies, and that of course being the inclusion of a boring as fuck villain(s). Danny Huston is basically playing a Teutonic version of his villainous character from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and his brief super powered encounter with Wonder Woman is pretty forgettable, but the biggest let down is when we finally get the big confrontation with Ares it kind of becomes a bit of a CGI showstopper and briefly breaks my investment in the characters.  Now that is just a minor quibble here and it did not stop me from enjoying the hell out of the movie.

Note: I did quite like Elena Anaya’s Dr. Poison in both design and characterization, if they had ditched General Ludendorff and gave her more screen time the film would have been the better for it.

It’s almost a shame that we are going to have to suffer through a Justice League movie, an Aquaman movie, a Flash movie, and a dozen other DC properties before the thought of another solo Wonder Woman film is even possible. It’s taken over 75 years for Wonder Woman to finally star in her own theatrical movie, while Batman and Superman have had numerous forays to the big screen, and so it’s a crime that we may have to wait quite some time before getting another one, especially when you consider her film here is the best DC has managed to offer us so far.

 

Fingers crossed that she is allowed to shine in this movie.

Final Notes:
• I’m not sure why certain Amazons have different foreign accents when they all live on the same island.
• Diana in the comics was granted life by the goddess Athena.
• Exactly how did the German’s follow Trevor’s plane to Themyscira?
• It’s nice that the film’s only nudity is of Chris Pine.
• One of Trevor’s happy band of mercs is your clichéd broken soldier.
• The change from World War II to the First World War did not bother my comic nerd brain.
• Just what has Diana been doing during all those years between this movie and her showing up to help fight Doomsday?

Chopping Mall (1986) – Review

The 80s were a wondrous time because long before there was Facebook, twitter, or Instagram if teens wanted to hang out they’d actually have to do it in person, and the most popular place for kids to meet was at the mall. Now moviewise kids were being murdered left right and center by machete wielding maniacs all throughout the 80s so it was kind of nice to see writer/director Jim Wynorski bringing a little of that bloody mayhem to a more urban setting. Inspired by the killer robots in the 1954 film Gog Wynorski and producer Julie Corman, wife of legendary B-Movie master Roger Corman, brought their own brand of low-tech wizardry to the genre with Chopping Mall, or KillBots as it was originally titled.

This film is clearly a little self-aware as Wynorski not only rolls out each of the movie’s characters that straight out of Horror Cliché 101 but he also populates the script with such memorable lines as, “I'm just not used to being chased around a mall in the middle of the night by killer robots.” He also filters in classic B-Movie stars such as Paul Bartel, Mary Woronov and Dick Miller that will give fans a nice chuckle as they reference such classics as Eating Raoul and Bucket of Blood. So right off the bat we know we aren’t’ supposed to take much of this film seriously, or at least not as seriously as one could ever take a killer robot movie that takes place in at the mall.

 

All films can be improved by adding a little Dick.

The basic premise of this movie is that a company by the name of Secure-Tronics had developed high-tech security robots called “Protectors” that would be used to patrol malls after hours and keep all the shops safe from burglars, but then a lightning strike at the mall turns the Protectors into killing machines and a group of teenagers trapped in the mall must somehow manage to survive the night.

The film opens with a promotional film provided by Secure-Tronics showing one of their Protector robots chasing down and incapacitating a criminal and raises the first of many questions, “Why are they showing this promotional piece to a group of people in the mall on the very night the Protectors are first engaged?” If this was for investors to raise money it certainly wouldn’t be held inside a mall and if it is supposed to be some kind of briefing to the local retailers you’d think they’d give them more than a few hours heads about this security alteration. The robots gain “sentience” when the mall receives multiple lightning strikes and if you’ve seen Short Circuit you know that is the most common cause of robot self-awareness.

Note: These high-tech killer robots were born the same years as Johnny Five and they even have pretty much the same tank treads.

The movie’s chief victims consist of Rick Stanton (Russel Todd) and Linda Stanton (Kerri Emerson), Greg Williams (Nick Segal) and Suzie Lynn (Barbara Crampton), Mike Brennan (John Terlesky) and Leslie Todd (Suzee Slater), and Ferdy Meisel (Tony O’Dell) and Allison Parks (Kelli Maroney) who all work at the Park Plaza Mall and have unfortunately decided to stay late and party in one of the furniture stores where three of them work. When the robots first awake they kill off the security technicians, one of them played by the brilliant Gerrit Graham and a hapless mall janitor played by Dick Miller, with an array of weapons that don’t seem all that non-lethal or at least not as non-lethal as the people from Secure-Tronics implied. The Protectors are equipped with knock-out darts and Tasers, which would normally be considered non-lethal unless said Taser was deployed in a puddle of mop water to electrocute a janitor, which to be fair that is something Secure-Tronics may not have foreseen, but these things also have fucking laser beams that can explode a person’s head.

 

That they have a "Scanners" setting was not mentioned during the Secure-Tronics demo.

The kills perpetrated by the Protectors and their lasers are also vastly inconsistent; when Leslie is chased through the mall we see her taking multiple hits by the robot’s lasers but until she gets the head exploding shot all the lasers seem to do is scorch her panties. Are there different laser intensity settings? And if so why would a “kill setting” be part of a security device that has been stated as being non-lethal? Maybe the lightning strike amped up the juice but that still doesn’t explain its inconsistent intensity. Worse is that one minute they are taking out Leslie with a head shot but then the next minute they are launching a barrage of laser fire at the rest of our heroes with about as much luck as your typical Stormtrooper.

 

Stationary targets can be tricky, I guess.

Overall the Protectors are pretty badass as they slit throats, explode heads, emulate or toss their victims to their deaths, and they seem darn hard to stop as they look to be completely bullet proof (our heroes of course break into a sporting goods store to arm up with shotguns, machine guns and a .44 Magnum) and even when hit with an exploding propane tank these robots are able to get back into fighting form in no time. So who could possibly survive such a lethal arsenal of robotic mayhem? Well as this is basically your standard “Dead Teenager” movie you can pretty much spot the Final Girl from the outset when we get Rick pairing off with Linda, Greg with Suzie, and Mike with Leslie while we have poor innocent Allison, who didn’t want to go to the party in the first place, ending up on the couch watching Attack of the Crab Monsters with Ferdy, who also originally had no interest in attending this late night fun.

 

Upon meeting Allison he quickly changes his mind.

Chopping Mall is certainly no classic of the genre, the acting as a whole is below par and a film being “self-aware” still doesn’t excuse rolling out the standard tropes as if on a schedule. I for one would love to see the “panicky girl” retired from this genre as it has gone beyond annoying and in this film it's especially egregious as we get Allison and Linda dealing with a freaked out Suzie as they travel through improbably large air ducts where she goes into fall on hysterics about the situation, but then she also wants to go and help her boyfriend Greg which when she does it ends up resulting in her death. If you are going to use a lazy horror trope at least remain consistent, her character made not one lick of sense.

 

And seriously the air ducts in this film make the ones in Die Hard look tiny.

Another strange script decision is at about the three quarter mark Ferdy comes up with a plan to make their way to the security office and smash the computers that control the robots, but when Greg is killed on route the plan is abandoned and the final robot is taken out with a trap in a paint store set up by Allison. Was Greg integral to control room plan's success and thus his death made it unfeasible?  The reason the group abandon this sensible plan of destroying the control center remains a bit of a puzzler as covering a floor with paint and oils in the hopes of destroying a robot, one that has previously been shown to be resistant to both explosions and flames, is a little odd if not downright stupid.

 

Were these things built by Cyberdyne?

As mentioned the acting isn’t very good here with the exception of Kelli Maroney as Allison, her turn as the younger sister in Night of the Comet being a personal favorite of mine, and I liked that her hair and wardrobe seemed to be an homage to Linda Hamilton’s character in the first Terminator movie. Bad acting and cliché riddled script aside there is enough good stuff on display here for me to recommend it; the action is fun and the stunts and deaths themselves are pretty impressive considering the budget Wynorski and Corman had to work with, but any watcher would best enter a viewing of this film with properly lowered expectations, and with maybe a few beers on hand.

Note: Though the film did poorly on its initial release once the title was changed from KillBots to Chopping Mall it did much better and has since garnered a decent cult following.

Alien: Covenant (2017) – Review

I had some serious issues with Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel Prometheus as it seemed to be a film that just randomly threw in mythology that he never bothered to explain, maybe Scott had hopes we would all be patient enough to wait for the sequel to the prequel, but then he also populated Prometheus with characters who performed actions that varied from odd to bloody stupid and made it difficult for us to give a damn about them, and that brings us to Alien: Covenant where Ridley Scott explains nothing at all about the mysterious Engineers and also populates this entry with an even larger cast of characters who do nothing but one moronic thing after another.

The movie deals with the colonization ship Covenant and its crew of irascible morons who are awakened seven years early when a neutrino burst from a local star severely damages their ship. On board this ship is Walter (Michael Fassbender), who is a later model of the android David we met in Prometheus, and he is able to get most the crew up to deal with the accident, but unfortunately the captain burns to death in his cryo-pod. Second-in-command Oram (Billy Crudup) takes charge and when they intercept a strange transmission from a hidden Earth type planet he decides they should investigate. Daniels (Katherine Waterston), widow of the recently deceased captain, thinks this is dangerous and that it would be a mistake to alter a mission that had been planned out over several years of study on nothing more than a whim and a hunch. Thus begins the film spiral into “What the fuck are these people thinking?”

 

Don’t get attached to any of these people because 98% of them are going to die.

Daniels is obviously the film’s main protagonist, her ignored warning is to make us side with her when things turn to shit and she is proven right, but then she joins in with the rest of the crew in constantly doing idiotic things that makes on shake your head in despair. Let’s talk a little more about the crew; the Covenant is a colonization ship so it is packed to the gills with families willing to start a new life on a distant alien world, but what is beyond the pale of stupid is that most of the command crew are married to fellow crew-mates. How can a person be expected to make a rational and emotionally free decision if what you need to do could jeopardize the one you love? Ship’s pilot Tennessee (Danny McBride) is willing to fly the Covenant down through a dangerous ionic storm, endangering the lives of the thousands of people in cryosleep, because he has lost contact with the landing crew which his wife was part of. And just how unprofessional is this crew you ask? Well when the lander touches down on this mysterious alien world they all step out of their ship without any thought as to how unsafe the air could be.

 

“I don’t smell any alien spores, let’s move out.”

Our cast of numbskulls proceed to explore the alien terrain, splitting up because sure why not, and they discover a crashed derelict ship that we the viewers know was last seen being piloted by Dr. Elizabeth Shaw and David at the end of Prometheus. This is when the shit hits the fan as alien spores are inhaled by a couple of crew members, creatures burst out of people, ships explode in balls of fire, hordes of xenomorphs attack out heroes, and then long lost David shows up to rescue them. What follows is some great nail-biting action and loads of created tension but sadly as I didn’t really give a shit about any of these yahoos it really failed to get me invested. Now Ridley Scott certainly knows how to make a beautifully looking movie, and this film is gorgeous at times, but someone at some point should have slapped him across the back of the head and told him to leave the Alien franchise alone. Where did the alien that was discovered by Ripley and the crew of the Nostromo come from? No one the fuck cares, that’s where.

Final Thoughts and MAJOR SPOILERS:

• David hates the idea that he was created by humans and his lack of morals makes him into a killer android. Ash was a killer robot because it was his job. Ridley Scott swaps out practical for metaphysical.
• Tennessee wants to take the Covenant closer to the ionic storm but crewmembers Ricks and Upworth state that that is crazy dangerous. Later they agree to do this even though it is still crazy dangerous and could result in the death of the two thousand sleeping colonists.
• David leads the landing crew through a dead city of the Engineers, passed a countless number of horrifyingly dead figures, but when he tells them “You are safe here” they start wandering off alone to explore. I’ve seen teenagers in a Friday the 13th movie show more common sense.
• David cuts his long hair so that he more closely resembles the Walter android. If at that point the entire audience didn’t know how the film was going to end I’d be very surprised.
• Billy Crudup sees David communicating with a xenomorph, in a room where the creature had just torn apart one of his friends, but does he freak out and run for help? No, David simply states “I have something to show you” and leads the poor sap down into the basement so the idiot can peak into an egg and get a face full of hugger.
• We learn David murdered and experimented on Elizabeth Shaw which is on par with the stupid decision to kill off Newt in Alien³.
• Ricks and Upworth are killed while naked in the shower because this film didn’t already resemble a slasher film enough.
• We get a flashback tease of what the Engineers are all about but then David kills them all before we learn anything.

 

David is a dick to us and other civilizations.

Final Note: Do you think they will rename the first two movies in the franchise Alien: Nostromo and Alien: Sulaco?

Son of Godzilla (1967) – Review

This eighth entry in the Godzilla series took the light comedic tone of the previous films and then drove it straight into kiddietown. Son of Godzilla introduced the adorably annoying spawn of Godzilla whose slapstick antics would cement the direction the Shōwa period of Godzilla films was going and which it would not recover from until Toho would eventually reboot the franchise with The Return of Godzilla in 1984.

This would be Toho’s second island adventure story, following on the heels of Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, and was a clear cut case of the studio trying to function with increasingly lower budgets. Without the need to create massive cityscapes for the monsters to smash you can save a lot of money but then you also run into the problem of how exciting is it going to be to see Godzilla and company repeatedly stomp through dense jungle or rocky plateaus? On the plus side even though we are missing scenes of city wide destruction the kaiju Godzilla tackles in this film aren’t men in suits but rather they are intricately puppeted creations.

 

Who doesn’t love giant spiders?

Son of Godzilla deals with a group of scientist working on the presumed deserted Sollgel Island in an attempt to perfect their weather machine, one that they have hopes will end world hunger. Their experiments are interrupted when reporter Goro Maki (Akira Kubo) parachutes in to get the scoop on what these scientists are working on and why all the secrecy. Dr. Kusumi (Tadao Takashima) explains that soon the Earth will not be able to support the ever increasing population and that the only chance mankind has is to turn previously desolate land into arable farmland. He goes on to explain that the reason for the tests being done in secret is that in the wrong hands the technology could be used as a devastating weapon. And how exactly could a device that turns deserts into farmland be used for nefarious purposes you ask? Well the first experiment we see is the launching of a device that causes the temperature on the tropic island to plummet. So yeah, it’s a freezing machine. I’m no scientist but I don’t see how creating winter conditions is going to help with the crop growing problem, but to make matters worse a strange interference causes the device to malfunction which results in a radioactive storm forming over the island. Definitely a device you’d want to keep out of the hands super villains, or really any hands at all for that matter as a side-effect of this storm is that it turns the man-sized praying mantises, apparently native to this island, into massive monsters that tower over the treetops.

 

So don’t forget kids, this is what science gets you.

And what exactly was that strange interference that caused the machine to malfunction? Well it turns out that not only was this island inhabited with giant mantises but buried in the rocks was an egg that contained baby Godzilla, named Minilla, and it was the infants telepathic cries for help that caused the interference. To complicate things even more for our hapless scientists and bumbling reporter is the fact that there is also a beautiful girl living on the island by the name of Saeko Matsumiya (Beverly Maeda) whose been alone here ever since her archeologist father passed away seven years ago.

Note: After watching Mothra it has become clear that nobody bothers to survey these tropical islands properly.

 

Beautiful island girl included with every adventure.

It’s clear that Goro is enchanted with this mysterious island girl, and seriously who wouldn’t be, but between science running amok and giant monsters traipsing all over the island there isn’t much time for romance. Eventually Godzilla does show up, we saw him during the movie’s opening moments as the telepathic message from his child drew him towards the island, and the bulk of the film deals with Godzilla trying to teach his son to breathe atomic fire while also saving his little kaiju neck from the local monsters. The giant praying mantises are named Kamacuras (Gimantis in the English-dubbed version) and for some reason they really want to eat baby Godzilla, so much so that they dig through solid rock to find the egg buried there.

 

Maybe infant Godzillas are notoriously tasty.

Once they crack the egg, and the pudgy form of Minilla spills out, the Kamacuras do a piss poor job of eating the little fellow for instead of immediately chowing down they just poke at him with their long forelegs for a bit. This of course gives daddy Godzilla time to wade ashore and beat the living crap of these big bullies. The combat between Godzilla and the giant bugs is fun to watch but they are so over matched in these fights, what with Godzilla ripping off of their appendages and flaming them with his atomic breath, it’s not really much of a contest. Later Godzilla will face off against the island’s resident giant spider Kumonga (Spiga in the English-dubbed version) whose spinning web and nasty stinger gives Godzilla some problems, but it only takes the minimal aid from Minilla to end this threat.

 

If you can be defeated by this you should turn in your monster card.

The last half of the movie consists mainly of Goro, the jungle girl and the idiot scientists running around trying to stay out of the way during the monster fights, while also fighting off a fever that incapacitates a few of them but which can be of course cured by some “red water” that Saeko knows about.  Eventually they get their equipment functioning again so that they can launch another “freeze device” into the air, which then brings a nuclear winter to the island. The film ends with our “heroes” escaping the island via an arriving submarine while Godzilla and Minilla huddle under the falling snow, which really seems like a dick move in my opinion as neither Godzilla nor Minilla were a threat to the humans. In fact Saeko and Minilla had become sort of friends and so she is a bit saddened by this chilly end, but Goro informs her that, “They’re not going to die, they’ll just hibernate.”  Well I guess that's okay then.

 

Do you hear that roar? I'm pretty sure that’s a “Fuck you” from Godzilla.

Son of Godzilla is beyond goofy, the scientist subplot makes little to no sense, the jungle girl adds nothing but some nice cleavage and a pretty face to the proceedings, the monster fights are well done but once again the jungle setting limits the cool destruction we’ve come to expect in this series. The film’s comic tone is also amplified by the composer Masaru Sato’s decidedly Saturday morning cartoon score, but really it’s the silly antics of little Godzilla that makes this installment something clearly aimed at a younger audience. We are treated to what seem like endless moments of Minilla blowing atomic smoke rings, riding his dad’s tail and basically cavorting around like a halfwit. Sure he’s technically a newborn, and so I shouldn’t be making fun of how idiotic the little guy acts, but when viewed as a Godzilla fan its hard not to find him even more annoying than his cartoon analog Godzooky.

 

When this is an improvement you know you’re in trouble.

It’s clear that by this time screenwriter Shin'ichi Sekizawa had run out of ideas and so giving Godzilla a son was an attempt to add something fresh to the series, but instead it was the descent into the abyss.

Fifty Shades Darker (2017) – Review

That each installment of this series is released on Valentine’s Day has me a bit concerned with what Hollywood considers to be a "good date movie," and I’m not saying that because I believe there is something wrong with a couple getting a little kinky, au contraire as a little spice in any relationship is a good thing as long as it's consensual, but the problem I have with these movies is that they are not about consensual BDSM, they are about a manipulative bastard bullying a girl who happens to have the personal fortitude of damp cardboard.  How is that anyone's definition of romantic?

The previous film Fifty Shades of Grey ended with Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) breaking up with Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) because she freaked out when after asking him to show her how he will punish her he proceeded to spank her with a belt…a little too hard for her liking. This movie takes place three days later with Ana now working at an independent book publishing company for Editor Jack Hyde (Eric Johnson), a man who could be the poster boy for sexual harassment in the workplace. We then have Anna going to an art gallery exhibit that is showing off the work of her friend José Rodriguez (Victor Rusak), a man who in the previous film was not too happy about being stuck in the Friend Zone. What’s terrible here is that much to her surprise his exhibit seems to consist solely of large photographs of Anastasia Steele herself.

 

Does this woman have any healthy relationships with any man?

Christian shows up at the gallery, buying up all the pictures of Ana because that is the kind of possessive creep he is, and browbeats her until she agrees to talk with him over dinner.  Ana makes it clear that “We are only talking and that is it.” so of course Christian almost immediately pushes her up against a brick wall and proceeds to make out with her. This is supposed to be romantic? I’d suggest a drinking game where you the viewer take a shot every time Ana wants to do something but Christian talks her out of it, but then I’d be guilty of causing multiple cases of alcohol poisoning. This is not a healthy relationship is what I’m saying. In the first film he basically stalked her until she agreed to sign a stupid “Slave Contract” and now she’s back together with him because he says he can change. Most women I would hope know that this kind of declaration is utter bullshit, but in this case being Christian is a billionaire I can understand maybe someone wanting to give it a second try, but wait, did I mention he has a stalker of his own?

 

So pretty much every one in this film is messed up in some way or another.

This is Leila (Bella Heathcote) a past submissive who has taken the train to crazy town, she stalks Ana because she wants Christian back…I guess. This crazed ex-slave pops up in the movie and is then dismissed so fast it barely leaves an impact on the film, as does Ana’s sexually harassing boss (though they do seem to be setting him up for a violent return in the sequel) who Christian heroically has fired after the jackass tried some workplace sexual assault with Ana. Why they don’t have the police called and the asshole formally charged is never explained, instead the people in the office are left with the impression he resigned. Did I mention Christian also purchased the publishing company Ana just got hired at? There are more red flags in this relationship than in all of China.

 

I guess the red flags kind of blend in with his Red Room.

And because a crazed ex-girlfriend and workplace attempted rapist isn’t enough drama we are also introduced to Christian’s ex-mistress Elena Lincoln (Kim Basinger) who seduced and enslaved Christian when he was a teen, and her sole purpose in this film is to confront Ana and explain how she will “Never be the one” because she can’t give Christian what he needs. It’s a sad day when the statutory rapist is the voice of reason. But just what is Christians’ deal, why is he such damaged goods? Well throughout the film we learn that his mother was a crack addict who died when he was four and she had an abusive relationship with a man who put out cigarettes on Christians chest. Cause, you know, if you are into BDSM you must have some tragic past.

Later when Ana calls Christian a “Dominant” he corrects her stating that he is a sadist who gets off on hurting women who look like his mother. That Ana doesn’t immediately flee the country under an assumed name at this point is utter bullshit, instead she starts bugging him into bringing her to the Red Room for more bondage play. Seriously, this movie is bloody moronic and continues to perpetrate the falsity that people into BDSM all have some kind of painful history that are emotionally damaged and not that they simply enjoy things of a less than vanilla nature.

 

It can’t be just because it feels good.

Now if you are sitting down to watch this film because you find Dakota Johnson to be very attractive and would like to see what she looks like naked, than this is the film for, but if on the other hand you want to be entertained by believable characters in situations that don’t cause your eyes to constantly roll back in your head than you may want to give this one a miss.

Note: Showtime aired a series called Submission which may not have the big stars found in this movie but it certainly dealt with the BDSM lifestyle more fairly and was certainly more entertaining and erotic than this mess.