Category Archives: Movies

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)

Plenty of critics dismissed Mortal Kombat during its initial run in theaters. Even the genre critics gave it a lukewarm reception. They found it fun in a vague, flat-tasting sort of way; another pitiful Enter the Dragon rip-off with a vaguely mythological twist.

Still, the damn thing made $70 million domestic, three and a half times its initial budget. Hollywood’s obsession with the “sure bet” is a well-documented phenomena, and we shall dwell upon it another time. We shall only pause to say that this “franchise” mentality is rapidly becoming the norm in video games as well. Be sure to expect a lot less overall originality from the folks at all your favorite design houses. The business of video games has, apparently, become Business.

Not that it was ever anything but business, mind you…ah, enough stalling. It’s time for me to repeat myself:

Fighter games, by their very nature, are short on plot and long on action. A Character (you, in other words) is magically whisked from one flashy arena to the next, where you must hit an opponent until he/she stops moving. Repeat. So in one sense, many of this movie’s critics are correct: it is slavishly faithful to its source material in terms of structure and style. {More}

Mortal Kombat (1995)

Plenty of critics dismiss the Mortal Kombat video game franchise as nothing more or less than gory, juvenile escapism. You know: crap. Plenty more go on to dismiss the very idea of a movie based on a video game. How can you blame them? Look at Street Fighter. Look at Double Dragon. Look at the anime version of Tekken if you can find the damn thing. Should I mention Super Mario Brothers? I could’ve brought that thing home and really given myself some ammunition for a good rant…but no. Instead, I’m gonna pick on this defenseless little excuse for a movie. Brainless monument to corporate synergy though it may be, Mortal Kombat has managed the strangest of hat tricks and become the high water mark in the perpetual kiddy-pool of video game based movies.

Which is amazing when you stop to consider it. Beat ‘um Up games like MK, by their very nature, are short on plot and long on action. A Character (you) is magically whisked from one flashy arena to the next and must hit an opponent until he/she stops moving. Repeat. In this respect, many reviews of this movie are correct: it is slavishly faithful to its source material in terms of both structure and style. Consequently, Mortal Kombat is light years away from being a good movie. Many of the things that made the video game so poplar are either truncated or forgotten in the haze of this (presumably) franchise-launching production. {More}

Supergirl (1984)

"I just don't know...you sure you're not staring at my 'S'?"Both comic book and movie begin with Argo City, a civic center blown free from the planet Krypton with its gravity and atmosphere completely intact (take that, laws of physics). I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume that the Action Comics team threw in a few pictures with this story. Not so here. Opening with a “bang” is one of the first things to go out the window, despite this film’s nominal connection with the wider Superman franchise. After all, why show us something we can just talk about it? And have Peter O’Toole stand around, waving his magic wand?

O’Toole is Zaltar, Argo City’s apparent savior. See, in this version of the story, Krypton’s death blasted Argo into a funky, negative universe called “innerspace” (narrated by William Shatner). Zaltar’s the guy who figured out how to keep the air in and everyone’s feet on the ground. How? Magic of course, with a little help from the film’s MacGuffin: a shinny pokeball called “the omegahedron.”

More than a miniature Unicron, the omegahedron can “create the illusion of life,” power the entire city, provide oxygen and (we assume) nourishment for its numerous inhabitants, and do all of this from the palm of Peter O’Toole’s hand.

Wait. What is this thing (so vital to the city’s basic survival) doing in the palm of Zaltar’s hand, anyway? Oh, he “borrowed” it. I see. Wonderful. This can only end well. {More}

Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)

''Commander Chakotay, the early years.''ou have to wonder what goes on in Roger Corman’s smooth, smooth head.

Wait, no you don’t. Certainly not anymore. These new “Roger Corman Classics” discs each come stamped with a personal reminiscence from the Man Himself. Mr. Corman, it seems, is growing into his Cult Icon status quite well. Almost seems as if he’s trying to morph into B-movie fan’s Stan Lee. All that’s missing is an “excelsior” or two.

I’ll let Mr. Corman introduce today’s feature, as he pretty much sums it all up with his usual candor and grace:

“This was the most expensive production I had financed. I always liked science fiction and my idea was to do something with the feeling of Star Wars. What I came up with was The Seven Samurai in Outer Space….” Mr. Corman goes on to mention some of the hot young talent he was able to put behind the camera. John Brother From Another Planet Sayles penned the script. Gale “don’t you dare call me Cameron” Anne Hurd scared up all the money (and proved so good at it she would go on to make a career as one of top bean-counters in Hollywood). James Horner scored up this mother. And a young Canadian pup named Jim Cameron would emerge from the bowls of the art department to become effects cameraman and chief model builder. {More}

The Brother from Another Planet (1984)

Moving on, we find writer/director/producer John Sayles, whom I first encountered through my mother and the 1997 jungle bloodbath, Men with Guns. But let’s not even go there.

Instead, let’s go back two weeks ago, to the Hollywood Video by my apartment-hive. I’d planned to fill some of the gaps in my girlfriend’s cinematic knowledge base with a little classic Star Trek. Low and behold, I spot this little bundle of weird and I felt…almost compelled. Worst case scenario, I was in for 108 minutes of bad blaxploitation comedy. Like I can’t get through that in my sleep…

Was I ever blind sided. This is no ordinary blaxploitation comedy. I’m not even sure it has a right to the label. No gunplay, no kung fu, no hookers, no afros…a few evil white guys to be sure…but what movie doesn’t have those?

Instead, Brother From Another Planet has a conscience, and Lord help us it’s a social conscience. This is a movie with Something to Say. Released just after E.T., Brother is an attempt to re-imagine the proverbial immigrant story and turn it on its head. While it succeeds in this, it does so at the expense of the little things like pacing…structure…stuff of that nature. Like me, this movie has a bad case of the Rambles. And by the ninety minute mark I was itching for it to shut the hell up. {More}

Reptilicus (1961)

Ah, yes, Sidney Pink. A name synonymous with “quality.” You may not know the name but believe you me, you know his work. This is the man who found the money to give us that great, humanitarian gift, Bwana Devil…in 3-D. And who could forget the rollicking good time (*cough*) that was Sidney’s next picture, Angry Red Planet (which he co-wrote)? Heck, even if you have forgotten (even if all of the above was not to you but stump-jumping jibber-speak), trust me on this one thing: you’ll remember Reptilicus. For about twenty-four hours. This was Pink’s second directorial credit, a worthy follow-up to 1953’s I Was a Burlesque Queen, earned in tandem with former sound designer Poul Bang. Pink also wrote the screenplay together with Angry Red Planet scribe Ib Melchior (who would go on to at least get “story” credit for Death Race: 2000), so this film really, truly can be lain entirely at Mr. Pink’s feet. Few men can say they single handedly ruined a country’s daikaiju genre, but Sidney, were he alive today, would walk away with that brass ring. No contest.

We critical folk liked to bandy about words like “forgettable,” “unremarkable,” and “crap,” but rare is the film that readily falls into all three categories. I suppose that’s a sign of something…not quality, to be sure…but something, nevertheless.

Chances are you’ve seen Reptilicus before, even if only while browsing through your satellite provider’s Guide screen. The damn thing has remained a staple on the Sci-Fi Channel, edging other, better giant monster movies right off the network after it sold out. Before that it played on countless Saturday afternoons to an audience of latch-key kids. Before that: the drive in. (You remember drive-ins, too, right?) Yet, somehow, I managed to avoid seeing Reptilicus in its entirety until just last night. Go figure. {More}

Gamera 3: The Revenge of Iris (1999)

Until 1995, Gamera was the joke: about as low as you could go in the land of Giant Monsters…unless you went to the real out-of-the-way backwaters, like Hong Kong, or South Korea. He was, at best, a Godzilla rip-off, and even nerds like us look down on those. The fire-breathing clown palled around with the kids when he should have been out handing Tokyo its ass. Oh, sure, he saved the world…but from what? A giant salamander with an opal fetish? A telepathic shark from Outer Space? A star fish? I mean, c’mon. Even the Flash has better villains.

It was easy to pick on Gamera. It was fun. Not so easy any more. Because Gamera has become the pinnacle. The new high water mark in giant monster cinema. In Gamera 3, the wave broke, just in time for the Millennium. Remember when the world ended? Yeah, so do I. Remember how seriously we all took that? As if it actually mattered? Well, imagine how it felt to our Japanese brothers and sisters. There’s a palatable sense of impending doom throughout Gamera 3, adding weight and drama to the proceedings and turning this story (and its giant turtle protagonist) into more than the sum of their rubbery parts. {More}

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)

"Stop, or my mom will shoot!"The next industry Uncle Tom who calls Alan Moore out for his righteous hatred of Hollywood need only look at this train wreck. Do that, and understand that the pain you feel is nothing compared to what it might be if, say, you’d actually created this “property.” That’s the term they use. Not “story,” not “idea,” but “property.” As if the book were a piece of over-mortgaged real estate.

I have a lot of love for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and I’ll admit I would never heard of the book if not for this idiotic little film. That alone ameliorates my otherwise-all-encompassing hatred of it, and the system that birthed it. Movies like this make me wish the aliens from Independence Day really would hurry up and destroy Los Angeles with their incredibly slow fireballs.

This film is a throwback to the Golden Age of superhero movies. That was not a happy time, despite my choice of verbiage. Sure, Richard Donner’s Superman led the pack, but so did those crappy, made-for-TV Captain America movies. Remember Dolph Lundgren as He-Man? Or The Punisher? Have you forgotten that the era of Tim Burton’s Batman also cursed us with Joel Schumacher’s? I haven’t! {More}

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monster All Out Attack (2001)

Kaboom!Like most middle-aged men, Godzilla suffers from a deplorable excess of emotional baggage. After fifty years of high highs and low lows his identity has become erratic. Toho, Godzilla’s production company, is currently scrambling to field the movie that will return Godzilla to his rightful place as champion of the giant monster action extravaganza.

The Lizard King fall from grace began during his “hiatus” from ’95-’98. This gave the Gamera trilogy time to come along and redefine the boundaries of good Giant Monster Cinema (believe it, or not). The trilogy did this in many ways…which I rattled on about ad nausem in my review of Gamera 3. But most importantly (and I’m sure Toho’s executives would agree) the trilogy raked in an absolute shitload of money.

Never one to miss a wave, Toho revived the King of the Monsters for Godzilla: 2000. And the fans…kinda shrugged, really. I mean, sure, it was Godzilla, but…you can read the review yourself. {More}

Gamera 2: Advent of Legion (1996)

You're pushing it...shovin' me...A large meteor

Falls to Earth near Sapporo

Then the fun begins

As far as director Shusuke Kaneko is concerned, “Gamera 2 focuses on the war aspect of giant monsters.” A “kaiju big battle” is, for once, the main focus of a giant monster film. How revolutionary. There’s nary a moment spared for the idiotic, soul-searching  “character moments” that usually clutter these types of movies. This is a textbook case of good monster moviemaking, some of the best you’ll find on either side of the pond. And you can quote me on that. Not that you will, but whatever. The point is, against all odds, Kaneko and co. have taken the silliest big-budget monster in Japan’s vast Popular Culture and transported him into a serious film.

As I mentioned in the haiku, a swarm of meteors fall on Japan’s northern-most island, Hokkaido. One lands almost directly on top of Science Center Teacher/Technician/All-Around Girl Honami Midori (Miki Mizuno) and her brace of kids. Military personnel arrive the next day only to find the meteor gone, without so much as a note on the pillow. The military, commanded by Colonel Watarase (Toshiyuki Nagashima), scratch their collective heads in dismay. You think they might want to call a Scientist in on this? {More}