Raptor gets Hunted

I’m one of those people that liked Predator 2 so sue me. I also didn’t like Predators vs Aliens but I though PvA2 was pretty good. See first sentence. So I decided to check out Predators brought to us by one of my favourite directors Robert Rodriguez but not directing this time but producing, instead we have Nimrod Antal. So what did I know going in? Well there would be no Schwarzenegger and there would be Adrian Brody as the lead.  There would be multiple Predators, a gazillion I hear. It would be set in an alien jungle and there would be a bunch of bad asses tagging along.

Oh Snap! You got served!

The story went like this: dangerous people from our world are picked up and dropped onto this planet so that the Predators can go hunting. They then try to figure out what happening, survive and turn the tables against the Predators, so really the first movie but with more Predators.

The Predator hounds are pretty horny...hehehe what?

Did it suffer because of the lack of good old Arny? I have to say defiantly not, I didn’t want to see another Arnold film, I wanted to see something a bit different and I pretty much got that with Adrian Brody. He brought a lot of screen presence to the film and he buffed up even on his wiry frame. He is quick like the Minx. He character Royce is ex-military turned merc and is jaded by life and believes that you can’t count on anyone else but yourself. This ideal is questioned by Alice Bragas’ Isabelle, a sniper from some war who lost her spotter on her last mission.  Other characters include the crazy felon Stans (Walton Goggins), Nikolai a Chechnyan soldier who is the 2^nd rate stand in for Schwarzenegger, a cool Yakuza by the name of Hazo (Louis Ozawa Changchien), Mombasa an African soldier and Danny Trejo one of Rodriguez favourite actors and soon to be in the up coming Machete. Then the black sheep and they guy who doesn’t seem to fit into it all is Topper Grace playing a scitterish fish out of water, Dr Edwin.  I guessed it and you will too as to what his bad habit is but he turns out to be a bit of a bastard. One of the cool but disappointing cast members was Laurence Fishburne who played a previous survivor.  His part felt a bit short and expendable. I guess he was there to explain the fact that they were all seriously fucked.  Who knew? The group worked well as a whole and for an action movie there is some character development unless they got killed off early.

 

The most touching part of the movie was the love story between Predator and man.

Now let’s get to the Predator. I lied. There weren’t a gazillion, there were only four. Three of them are from one Predator race while the last is the seemingly classic Predator who they have captured. The three Predators had quite distinct looks and hunt in different ways and they also set traps to lure and weaken their prey. They have their big face offs and such as the Hazo with a samurai sword vs wrist blades which is all pretty cool. Even the classic Predator get’s a few licks in with one of them although not fairing to well. 

Oh come back, I just want to play with your spine.

The SFX were pretty good all round. I can’t really complain at all. The predator hounds looked awesome and were pretty viciouse. There was also a spaceship, laser blasts left right and centre and even a net trap. Dam that Wookie. There was a bit of gore even Predator gore and included such hits as stabbing, beheadings and blaster wounds, overall nothing that would make you to squeamish though. And finally no boobies to be seen unless you count Predator and Brody bare chests.

Mucho Mucho Man. I want to be a Mucho man!

I have to say I liked this instalment of the Predator franchise. It when back to it’s roots but with a bit of a twist. The first act was built up at loping pace and the final act brought it all home. I would defiantly be interested in seeing a Predators 2 if there is talk about it. I give this one an 8/10 for action in your eye.

Pontypool (2008)

I came across Pontypool on a website promising to be the definitive list of best horror from 2008. Two titles stood out as features I hadn't heard of and wanted to see, on the back of the glowing reviews. I don't know what it is with me and horror movies lately. I don't enjoy the pap bandied about by self proclaimed 'horror aficionados' - Drag me to Hell, The Ring, The Grudge and so on - and I really get into movies that somehow missed out on the love. Not necessarily smaller movies, niche or indy stuff like Splinter - also big budget movies like Silent Hill.

I really enjoyed Silent Hill

Anyway, I'm reviewing Pontypool today, a movie that falls firmly into the 'small film' niche. Small film, small budget, one location for the entire movie (except the beginning and end). Pontypool tells the tale of a real honest to goodness cowboy, Grant Mazzy played by Stephen McHattie, working as a radio DJ. Once he was a big star in the big smoke, now he spins shit and discs in small-town Pontypool. Once cold, snowy day, Grant and his two off-siders - Sydney (Lisa Houle) and Laurel-Ann (Georgina Reilly) - begin receiving increasingly disturbing phone calls about riots and mayhem around the town. Safe, or so they think, in their little radio station, they listen with increasing horror as the town outside falls apart.

My spattered blood forms in the image of a cowboy. Shame, I was hoping for a naked woman.

While fairly well made, Pontypool annoys me through all the missed opportunities. After about and hour of decent build up, nothing striking is done with the built up tension and great concept. There was a huge opportunity to follow through with a truly scary second half but instead I saw a hokum and slightly silly segment about the plague outside being transmitted by sound, the characters running about the small set like headless chickens and some boring zombies. Where the first half was eerie and filled with a slight sense of impending doom, well built through the use of phone calls and the isolation of the protagonists from what was happening, the second half was flaccid and boring.

And that's about all I can say because that's all that happened. The ending wasn't a Deus Ex Machina so to speak, but it negated all the work Grant and Sydney did trying to save their own lives and perhaps stop the plague. Still, by that stage the movie had outlived it's premise and I was ready for it to end anyway.

5/10

Summary: A watchable movie that would have worked better with a little more show, a little less tell and a much better second act.

Raptor Takes a Peak into the 8th Dimension

I do like 80s Sci-fi movies. Mainly for the fact that they were still quite eccentric and hadn’t conformed quite to what we perceive as your typical sci-fi today and the fact that the fashion sucked so hilariously! What movie embodies 80s Sci-fi in your mind? Blade runner? No too good. The Thing? More horror really. Battle Beyond the Stars? Oh yeah, now we are getting somewhere but what I’m talking about it is The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. This has it all, 80’s hair styles, 80’s cloths a who’s who of 80s actors and let’s not forget 80s sensibilities like every hero is in a band. Hey it was acceptable in the 80s.

Anyone wanna rockout with your cock out?..ok no then.

Buckaroo starts off with a great little voice over about how Buckaroo, our hero played by Robocops’ Peter Weller, grew up with a Japanese Scientist Professor Hikita (Robert Ito). It reminded me of a narrative to a documentary about the great American pioneers poetic and matter-of-fact. We then are introduced to the adult Buckaroo who is now a Scientist/Brain Surgeon/Test pilot/Rock Star and adventurer. Wow, women want him and men want to be him. His band, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, are all scientist and adventurers themselves as well as being musicians. With Hikita, Bukaroo has developed a device that allows him to pass through the 8^th dimension….with a car and through solid objects. When they do this they discover rebel aliens locked away by these Jamaican like aliens. They give the Earth an ultimatum, stop the Rebels from escaping or they blow the planet up. What’s a Scientist/Brain Surgeon/Test pilot/Rock Star/Adventure to do but save the world.

Actually I admit, this is a cool shot.

Bukaroos’ cast is really quite large and include Jeff Goldblum (the Fly), John Lithgow as crazy scientist, Clany Brown the bad Highlander from Highlander, Christopher Loyd (Back to the Future) and Ellen Barkin as Penny, Bukaroos’ love interest. You’d probably notice a smattering of other faces that you’ll recognize too. All of them play this for fun and there isn’t a mean bone in the script at all. There are typical 80s scenes like the band getting all rock star and singing and did I mention he knows the America President? Yeah who knew.

I know what your thinking you dirty Fly boy

The SFX are not too bad, we get bug eyed aliens, weird organic ships and little poisonous spider bullets but l some of it is also pretty “oh deary me” too like the trip into the 8^th dimension or the protective masks they put on at one point (think chipped mirrored masquerade ball). You can’t blame them really, I’m sure all the kids were doing back then.

Unfortunately I’m sad to report there was no nudity what so ever in this movie. Alas we see no Ellen Barkin bits but she does so some nice leg action, phwaar. Overall I did like the movie and good natured attitude. I give this one a 6.5/10.

Raptors Mega Day!

Recently I watched the B grade movie of Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. Why? Because I’m a sucker for both punishment and giant monster movies.

Oh yeah, full on Plane eating!

Both the two monstrosities are released from some glacier after being trapped for hundreds of thousands of years meh why not millions, that’s a number too, and carry on the battle of eating planes and oil rigs um WTF? Yeah that’s pretty much how it all starts. Some scientist in a sub played by 80s pop princes Deborah Gibbs see some soldiers in a chopper cracks open some ice with some fancy charge thingy, that’s the technical term. The first thing the octopus does is take down an oil rig. Why? Who knows, maybe it looked like it’s mommy. The Mega shark then jumps some 2 to 3km out of the water and eats a passenger plane…yeah that’s right. Obviously physics or for that matter logic are part of this movie. At some point you get Lorenzo Lamaz as some super army general called Allan, he orders the navy after the beasts and yes you get it, get eaten. Nom, nom, nom. Eventually they decide to use phermons to lure the beast to America and Japan where they well eat people and then decide to use the same tactic to lure them together so they can have an unholy union and make sharktopus babies or eat each other.

Oh yeah, full on Bridge eating!

Well that’s all very well and good but how good were the special FXs hey. They must have been monumentally awesome! Er not really. They slid from passable to very average to gauge your eyes out crappy. They also had a habit of reusing scenes. I swear I saw the same scene of a soldier guarding a secret base three times. Also the ship and submarine bridges were in a electricity plant or something. I guess the budget didn’t cover that.

Oh yeah, full Shark on Octopus action!

The acting was ok for a B grade movie you just had to roll your eyes a lot to get past most of it. Believe me at the end of it I thought that it was the world spinning and not me.

This movie was sucktastic. Hey watch it if you have nothing else better to do like knitting or trying to see how long you can make a Mintis wrapper. I give this a 3.5/10.

Carriers (2009)

If you've seen a post apocalyptic movie, you'll know the basic premise here in Carriers. A bunch of young things are crossing the country (America of course) in a car to holiday at the beach; complete with sunglasses, beer and surfboards. We have hunky guy who does all the driving and drinks beer, not so hunky guy (his brother), pretty girl number one (girlfriend of hunky guy) and pretty girl number two (some rich chick they picked up along the way). However, all is not well in the world and these four are actually heading to the beach to escape a terrible worldwide plague.

Humanity as a plague, not that old chestnut

Along the way, the foursome pick up two more people - an infected little girl and her father - then drive on to check out the rumor of a cure at a nearby medical. Naturally the little girl is a threat, so to avoid spreading the disease the characters seal them into the rear of the car. This part of the film is by far the best and explores a few interesting concepts like humanity, compassion and fear. I don't mind the resolution, it's only disappointing that the rest of the movie failed to retain that level of focus and interest.

Guess what happens to the sick little girl. A happy ending and free tickets to Disney on Ice?

After leaving that plot-line behind, the  movie jumps from locale to locale, situation to situation, without grabbing your attention or making you care much about the characters involved. This is a touch disappointing when the characters involved are the key characters and the only characters that made you care have come and gone already. I really didn't give a shit about 4 young things in a car trying to reach a beach resort to save their own asses, while a little girl and her dad are a pair of characters (well acted characters) you form an attachment to and want to see win out in the end. So when the 'main' characters start falling, it's hard to give a fuck - and I didn't.

Left to right: slutty but caring girl, unstable and unlikeable guy, boring guy and undeveloped character girl. This picture makes me sleepy.

If Carriers were about the guy and his daughter travelling America, avoiding plague victims and cocks like the four pictured above - then Carriers would be a decent movie with heart-string pulling moments and plenty of action. Perhaps even a positive but ambiguous ending to satisfy the taste of as many viewers as possible and leave it up for a sequel. Instead we get a bunch of cardboard pretty things, half an hour of decent movie, a few very prolonged character deaths and...yes indeed...another shitty and highly predictable horror movie ending. Such promise put together in such a mediocre fashion.

4/10

Summary: Something that could have been quite decent; let down by crappy characters, mediocre story and a predictable ending. Watch to the end of the little girl plot then turn it off. The two characters on the left die and the two on the right, the least developed characters of 2010, survive and make it to the beach. Blargh.