Film Review : Caligula - The Ultimate Cut

 

 "Caligula" has gone down in history as one of cinema's most troubled productions.  The writer wanted to make a grand historical epic, the director wanted to make a darkly comic satire and the producer wanted lots and lots of sex. The result was a bit of a mess that nobody was happy with.

When it was released the film outraged critics, moralists and cinemagoers and also kicked off several lawsuits. 

I suspect the real Caligula would have been delighted by all this. 

This version has supposedly been put together from the original footage and is touted as being the "closest to writer Gore Vidal's original vision." 

 So after all this time has somebody managed to make this infamous trainwreck into a good film?  

Well, my first thought is "Does this bloody movie really need to be almost 3 hours long?"  A film about one of history's premier bloodthirsty madmen is always going to be a hard watch and all that extra time made it a real slog. 

 There are some positives:  Malcolm Mcdowell gives an astonishing, dynamic performance. He goes from playful to malevolent and back again in seconds and even manages some tender moments. 

 It's difficult to feel any sympathy towards such a nasty piece of work but he almost manages it. 

 Maybe it's just my interpretation but the impression I got is that his Caligula is actively going out of his way to wind up the rest of the world. Like somebody handed him the world's biggest toybox and he got bored of it already.  

Next up we have Helen Mirren as Caesonia. Ok, ridiculously hot  - and  also a great performance that's downright restrained compared to Mcdowell, but that's why it worked, I felt. 

Peter O'Toole may have been drunk the whole time his raddled, degenerate Tiberius is on screen.  Meh, it sort of fits. 

Visually, "Caligula" looks amazing. The sets and costumes are glorious, and the whole thing is composed and shot really well.  

However, all this still leaves the central problem. "Caligula" is not an easy film to watch. 

 A bit like Caligula himself, the film is trying to be shocking, so entirely too many graphic orgies and I could really have done without the bit where Caligula rapes a a pair of newlyweds. Or the scene where Caligula turns the birth of his child into a grotesque tableau. Or....

You get the idea.  

 Then there is the overall tone. Thanks to various people trying to pull the film in different directions Caligula keeps veering into absurdity. I couldn't tell you how much of it was meant to be absurd or just landed that way. It would be camp if it wasn't for the rape, murder and so on.  

And lastly, I just didn't think the film flowed. It was just a collection of incidents, loosely hung together on a frame. I didn't get the sense that Caligula was descending into madness.  

What you end up with is a film that doesn't work as a drama, is too grotesque to be erotic and too brutal to be camp. 

I think I might have enjoyed the unrestored version more. 

Might

Watching Caligula is definitely an experience. Whether you enjoy said experience is a whole other question.  

Film Review: Invaders Of The Lost Gold (1982)

 

Philippines 1944. A Japanese unit transporting gold through the jungle is attacked by hostile natives and barely manage to hide the gold before being wiped out - except for three officers who vow to return for the gold one day. 

 36 years later. The remaining Japanese officer is "persuaded" to lead a motley collection of  adventurers into the jungle: A rich guy, his daughter and hired hand, a Phillipino couple, a washed up jungle-guide and an arrogant gold-hunter. With the last two in particular absolutely hating each other, it's a question of whether the jungle will kill them before they kill each other. 

 "Invaders Of The Lost Gold" is also known as "Horror Safari" and after watching this film I couldn't help feeling that either title deserves to be applied to a much more exciting movie.

 Don't even get me started on the poster. 

  "Invaders.." just doesn't manage to do anything exciting or even semi-interesting.  According to IMDB the script was being rewritten daily, which might explain why the whole thing feels so patchy.  For a film about treasure hunting in the Jungle there's a distinct absence of adventure. Even as the characters are gradually whittled down by mishap and skulduggery, it's so badly handled that any potential excitement is leached away.  How the hell do you make a crocodile attack boring?  How do you make me wait 75 minutes for a climax that would be considered dull in an Australian daytime soap opera?  

  I would also like to know why one suddenly dies mid-swim for no apparent reason. One minute fine, next minute scared, next minute dead. Did the crew forget to film the shot where somebody killed her? 

  To be fair, the cast isn't bad and this is probably the only time you will see Harold "Oddjob" Sakata and Glynis "spent her whole career playing posh, blonde Brits." Barber in the same film. But dear gods, nothing that anybody does matters.  

To sum up: Invaders Of the Lost Gold is a wasted opportunity. Don't bother. 

Cheapo DVD Review: Sharkenstein (2016)

Genre: Sharksploitation

WW2: An experiment to create unstoppable soldiers by combining Frankenstein's monster with sharks is shut down by the SS and the research taken away to North America.
Modern day: People are mysteriously disappearing from the wars around a small American town.  Hmm. Wonder what could be causing that...

Naturally the film on the DVD cover isn't the film you actually get. No jets, no bikini babes and nowhere near the budget. Or any budget at all.

"Sharkenstein" is very, very low-budget and this is made painfully apparent within the first couple of scenes.

   The producers couldn't afford  CGI, or even a plastic U-boat.  So instead they pasted in a 2D pic of a sub conning tower and hoped nobody would notice.

  Now I could just post a picture of Sharkenstein and that would tell you everything you need to know but I shall get a few more shots in first.

 Let's skip ahead to our protagonists and yet more questions.   

As far as I can tell, the three holidaymakers dress, talk and behave like youngsters: College-age in fact.

At least one of them is in the right age-range

  But she does seem visibly confused as to her companions. 

   A bit old for college and definitely too old to wear your hat like that unless you're called "Bubba"

    Dad, you're drunk. turn your hat round the right way.

Did the producers think we wouldn't notice or, as I suspect, they used some mates that were cheap and available. 

  Needless to say the acting quality is not high, but considering the story and dialogue are downright ropey I wouldn't blame anybody for half-assing it. 

  One of many problems this film has is that it's deeply stupid - it's about a mad Nazi creating a Frankenstein shark FFS - but there are ways of making stupid films fun.  Asylum have made a lucrative career out of dumb films where the viewer is in on the joke. The Sharknado franchise is on it's 5th instalment and keeps upping the ridiculous ante every time. So Sharkenstein is the sort of idea that makes great, after-pub, ironic viewing in the right hands but unfortunately those hands were busy somewhere else. 

 Or to put it another way, a film about a shark stitched together by Nazis with a Zombie brain manages to be dull. 

 The only amusement to be had is marvelling at the shark FX.

Time to see the Sharkenstein itself. 

 It's a fricking rubber model.  Also extremely un-scary. 

Here it is in action. 

 That's about as good as it gets and believe me the underwater attacks  aren't even that dynamic

At one point it's blatantly obvious that somebody offscreen is holding the shark's tail and woggling it about a bit. 

  Over the last few years the bar for stupid shark films keeps getting higher as producers try and keep things fresh by trotting out one coke-fuelled  concept after another. (Supersharks, shark tornados, sand sharks, ghost sharks, zombie sharks) and Sharkenstein comes nowhere near matching that level of entertainment

It does set one benchmark though. Sharkenstein is easily the most rubbish Shark movie I have ever seen. 

Congratulations. 

 How much did I pay for this? £2

Was it worth it?  No. No. No.  Sharkenstein has very little going for it and serves only to give me a new l;ow-point to measure other shark Movies against.  Not recommended. 

  I'll finish with a screenshot that seems appropriate. 

That's all folks. 

Cheapo DVD Review: Triads, Yardies and Onion Bhajees (2003)

 East End gangster Mad Dave (Dave Courtney essentially playing himself) plans a job with Chacha, head of Indian gangsters The Holy Smokes: Intercept a huge cash payment coming into Heathrow, split the money and everybody goes away happy.
 What neither Dave nor Chacha know is that the 3 young Holy Smokes pulling off the job have their own plans.

  I have to admit that I bought this one for the title. Granted, it is a blatant attempt to ride on the coattails of "Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels". but some on, how many other films have Onion Bhajee in the title?

 I also wanted to see how a London Gangster film worked with Asians in the driving seat.

 The end result is an attempt to mash up Cockney Gangster movie with, Hip-Hop "Hood" movie with a side order of Arty Indie flick, and it's not a great success.

Despite using every trick in the book to look stylish (Weird colour filter, matrix trenchcoats, UK rap soundtrack, lots of guys pointing guns at each other while posturing.)  "Triads.." is a bit dull. Sorry but it is.
  It doesn't help that the acting is average at best which just makes the dialogue look even more leaden, which in turn makes sure that there's no real tension. Nobody seems particularly excited over events so why should I be?

  There's other things I could take issue with, in particular the unexpected comedy segment 3/4 of the way in. At least I'm hoping the were trying to be funny otherwise that was just weird. 

 The ending was pretentious too.

 I lost interest very quickly and ended up forcing myself to watch the rest. That's not my idea of a good movie experience.

How much did I pay for this: 50p
Was it worth it? Nope.  Full marks for trying something different but file under "Nice Idea - Shame About the Film."

Cheapo DVD Reviews: Warhead (1996)

The Plot

  A group of Neo-Nazi militia nutters led by disgruntled US Army officer "General Kraft" are blowing stuff up.

  In a bid to improve their blowing-stuff up capability, the United Patriot Movement, capture a prominent nuclear silo expert. 

   That does not bode well, does it? 

 When a failed attempt at rescuing said results in an entire Special Forces team getting riddled with bullets the lone survivor, Lt Jack Tannen, , goes off to do some sulking, some brooding and some running in slow motion wearing a vest.  

  

 When the expert's photogenic daughter Jessica asks him for help our blond hero tells her to get bent.  But as is traditional, the bad guys try to kidnap her right under his frigging nose and so Tannen gets his hero pants back on. 

 Take a wild guess as to what the UPM are planning? 

  It's a 90s action movie that isn't about druglords and I've already mentioned a nuclear silo expert. Do I need to draw a diagram?  The name of the movie is also a giant, giant hint. 

  The baddies capture a secret nuclear silo that fails at being secret and doesn't do so well at being secure either, before demanding that the President resign - and enough money to fill up a swimming pool. 

 Tannen puts together a team of generic tough guys, shanghais Jessica into coming along - because his team needs a token chick with nice hair - and heads for the silo despite being told not too. Nudge nudge, wink wink. 

  I won't tell you the ending, just in case you still want to watch this movie. 

But if you're expecting anything other than what actually happens then you're probably an idiot. 

    

 What I thought. 

   

The bad guy has a beard and a ponytail. 

I think that tells you all you need to know. 

 "Warhead" is a generic mid-90s action movie with a low/low-middling budget and very little star power.  The biggest name is Joe Lara - who played Tarzan in a tv series so off the grid that Freeview stations don't bother rerunning it- while everybody else is so obscure that they don't even have a cult following. 

 I'm not saying the cast is bad, because most of them do the best with what they have, but this film is already struggling to stand out from pallet-load upon pallet-load of similar films. 

 There's some decent explosions though. And I have to give some grudging respect to any film that features rocket firing jetskis.

 How much did I pay for this: 50p

Was it worth it.  I suppose so. If you like dumb 1990s action movies where the hero has a fistfight in a nuclear silo with a pony-tailed bad guy, "Warhead" may occupy your time in a positive manner. 

Screenshot time. 

 Lt Trannen - All American Hero. Dolph Lundgren presumably not available. 

  Stuff goes bang. Weeeee

  A bloke in a suit from Washington. Complete wanker.  

  Guys who lead rightwing militias are not normally this photogenic. 

He's got all his own teeth, only one chin and a healthy BMI for starters.

  Trannen runs in a vest in slow-mo. 

This shows how much he's grieving for his lost buddies

 You thought I was kidding about the rocket-firing jetskis, didn't ya?. 

Non -Soldier Jessica wonders what she's doing here. 

Also hoping the boat doesn't hit any floating logs because 

that guy behind her knows shit about trigger discipline. 

That's all folks. 

Film Review: Blood Street (1988)

 As-kicking PI Joe Wong is hired to find a beautiful woman's missing husband but instead he finds himself in the middle of a drug war. 

  

 Starring

Leo Fong in a horrible hat. 

(No kidding. It looks like a gorilla was playing with it.)  

Richard Norton in a tiny pair of speedos

(He's only wearing them in the one scene but dear gods, that's enough)

Ex-Playmate Kym Paige

(Trying to play a femme fatale)

Chuck Jeffries

(Trying to play Eddie Murphy)

A bunch of people

(Trying to act. Who cares. They're all gonna die anyway.) 

This is the sequel to Low-Budget cult fave LOW BLOW  which I stumbled across by accident and decided to watch through a mixture of morbid curiosity and a need for a new post.  

 "Blood Street" can best be summed up as an attempt to update the classic film-noir to the era of "straight-to-video movies about druglords." 

 (Has anybody ever sat down and worked out how many of those there were in the 1980s? There must have been hundreds of movies about plucky cops/PIs/ex-soldiers trying to take down a guy in a baggy suit and his army of pony-tailed mooks called "Bruno" )

  Joe Wong plays the classic PI, complete with world-weary voice-over, but breaks out the martial arts and a sawn-off shotgun when things get dicey. I'm actually amazed at how casual he is about killing. Leaving aside the frequent shootouts, at one point our hero skewers a pub-brawling baddy with a flung dart - just for the hell of it. 

 I will say this for "Blood Street": If you like violence there's plenty of it. When Joe isn't breaking somebody's arm, the rival drugs firms are  gunning each other down in broad daylight.      

 The problem is, none of this is particularly well directed or choreographed so it has minimal impact. 

And I think that sums up this film. Minimal Impact. 

 The story happens in choppy fashion, rather than flowing, and I really have no idea why they decided to throw a long flashback in halfway through because other than giving Joe Wong a chance to get reflective, it has nothing to do with anything. 

 The acting is variable. Richard Norton does probably the best performance and when that happens, you know something is wrong.  Leo Fong is monotone through the entire film, making his "quips" land like custard on a paving stone and Kym Paige ...wasn't hired for her acting chops. 

 The music is better than "Low Blow's" soft-rock synth noodlings in that this time we get 1940s jazz noodling instead. I think that was a deliberate attempt to recreate the aforementioned film-noir atmosphere but it sits a bit strangely beside 1980s hair and Uzis.

Also in this film  

Casual racism

(Joe Wong is Chinese. This is pointed out frequently

Violence against women that's slightly disturbing.

(Nobody has a problem with slapping a ho'. Or shooting her in the back either.)

Some terrible attempts at sexiness.

(The opening orgy scene is less erotic than your average Duran Duran video)

Gangsters who have a curious reluctance to use guns on the hero.

(Fuck knows why. They're ok with gunning down women in cold blood after all.)  

Bad attempts at wit

A colossal waste of Richard Norton's proven martial arts skills.

(The guy could fight. Maybe the climax should have used that.)

Speedos.

(No. No. No. No. No.)

To sum up: If you like dumb low-budget 80s flicks about white druglords or want to check out everything Richard Norton ever did then you may like "Blood Street" I wasn't impressed.

I'll end with a question: Why "Blood Street"? why not Blood Streets?   That would make more sense. 

That's all folks 

DVD Review: Starship Rising (2014)

 "STARSHIP ONE...THE MOST POWERFUL PROTOTYPE WARSHIP IN THE FEDERATION CAPABLE OF DESTROYING ENTIRE WORLDS 

  Two empires at war: The corrupt Federation, and the oppressive Terra Nostra. Entire planets are being wiped out. When the order is given to destroy the Earth, Federation Flight Lieutenant John worthy refuses to carry out the order and kills his superior officer and mutineers Starship One.

  Demanding that both sides make peace, he becomes the target of both sides of the war. Worthy aligns himself with an underground rebellion where he meets Jolli, a beautiful gun-toting star pilot and together they risk everything to end the horrible war, and discover a forbidden truth that will shake the foundations of the entire galaxy."

 Before I get on with my review, I'd like to get a couple of things off my chest.

Firstly: "Mutineer" is a person not an action. He is a mutineer. She is a mutineer. They are mutineers. None of them "Mutineer" anything.  You can do a lot with the English language - it's flexible that way - but there is a point where you are just taking the piss and we just went past that.

Secondly: While it's refreshing that the DVD cover and blurb do bear some resemblance to the actual movie, I feel the decision to put Jolli front and centre is less about her role in the movie and more about her being blonde, female and photogenic.
 Truthfully, you could have cut her entire character out of the film and not lost anything beyond a halfhearted attempt at a romantic subplot.  (She kisses Worthy twice which feels painfully forced both times.)

And now the film.

Errrr.....

  Starship Rising is ambitious, I'll give it that. Maybe too ambitious. As well as John Worthy's Klingon promotion to Captain, there's a brewing interstellar war, some backroom shenanigans, an all-female resistance movement plotting an uprising, and last but not least, something about a search for the DNA of an extinct race.

 All this would have been great if Starship Rising had the execution to match the vision and this it does not.

 The film is a confusing mess of plotlines bouncing back and forth, with characters that I couldn't root for or give a shit about and while the starship designs are nice, overall the visual effects are substandard, which makes the space dogfights look substandard too.

  Here's how you really, really know you aren't enjoying a film.   When you check to see how much time is left to go and groan when you discover there's 30 minutes left.

  It's not even fun to watch in an ironic pisstaking way. Although I could probably say something cutting about the costume design. Somebody thought the best way to really bring home the SF-ness of the movie would be to give all the cast jackets with lots of plastic bits and hoses glued on in random order.

  Look at the DVD cover again. Contemplate Jolli's jacket, with the strange hose attachments.  It gets worse round the back, trust me. You find yourself asking how anybody moves with all that shit on.  

  As a final wasp-sting on the eyelid, it turns out that the producers didn't manage to get their epic storyline done in one movie and a tagline promises that it will be continued in Pt2.

I can't see myself bothering, somehow.

To sum up: Starship Rising bites off more than it can chew and chokes on it.
Not recommended unless you have a fetish for hoses.    

That's all folks. 

Cheapo DVD Review: Tekken - Kazuya's Revenge (2014)

You may possibly remember that at the start of the month I declared a grandiose plan to review every single one of the DVDs I'd just bought. Well after a bit of a detour, it's time to return to that project.
For DVD #11 we're reviewing a Prequel nobody asked for.

 A young man wakes up in a strange room with no memory. Luckily there isn't a tiger in the next room or a traffic cone on top of the wardrobe but he does get armed goons kicking in his door. After a bit of a fracas, our amnesiac hero's day continues to get worse when he's captured by a mysterious old bloke called The Minister.   His life choices now boil down to "Kill people" or "Get your head blown off"
 Since the Man With No Past is really good at martial arts and stuff, option 1 is easy enough.
Problem is, he doesn't actually want to kill people...

  Can I just point out that the Amnesia angle would work better if the DVD title didn't give away Mr X's frigging name. 
 The viewer now knows who he is and if the viewer has played the games, which is quite likely, then they also know who the mysterious old bloke is that keeps popping up in flashbacks.

  Let me just take a minute to clap sarcastically. 

Oh well done, marketing people. Give yourself a cookie. 

The original title was Tekken: A Man Called X.  Maybe you should have stuck with it.  

  Maybe you should also have had a bit more fighting. This movie is based on a fighting game after all. 

  There's entirely too much footage of Kazuya wandering about the city looking fed up, as well as too many overlong flashbacks and this just slows things down way too much. 

I have a few other issues as well. A certain character is introduced and given a backstory then gets forgotten about. A subplot takes up time but goes nowhere. What was the point of that?

 Getting back to the fights, they are disappointing. The choreography is old-school martial arts, without  wirework, SFX or much flashy editing and that can work if it's done well. Some of my favourite cinematic punchups are like this, in fact.  It's just that for some reason,  I wasn't impressed. Tekken 2 needed some quality violence to make up for the lack of quantity and in that, it fails.

  Then we get to the climax which actually annoyed me. 

Kazuya and his new ally bust into the bad guys HQ and we all know how that's supposed to work. 

First you take out the mooks, then you take out one or more henchmen - a great chance to have two different fights go on simultaneously - then you face the Big Bad in a final showdown, kick his face in and walk proudly away clutching manly injuries, while Bad Guy HQ may or may not burst into flames for no apparent reason. 

  A vital part of this is that the henchmen should have been established earlier on as a genuine threat. Would the end of Return of the Jedi have been so good if Darth Vader had thrown a sickie and Luke had faced some random geezer instead?  Search your feelings. You know the answer. 

Tekken 2 drops the ball on this big time. Two characters we know are badass are brushed aside in seconds  while Kazuya ends up fighting a couple of blokes we've never seen before, that have no history whatsoever.  

 That's just sloppy and it bugs me.   

To cap it all, the Big Bad just casually wanders off. It makes more sense once you discover that Tekken 2 is actually a prequel  but personally I don't think you should have to visit Wikipedia to find out what the ending is all about.  

To sum up: Tekken 2 is too slow, not particularly interesting and has a rubbish payoff.  

How much did I pay for this: £3.50

Was it worth it: Not really. If you're not a fan of the games then there's no real reason to watch it. If you are a fan of the games then Tekken 2 might just annoy you.

Maybe they should have done a prequel about  the Williams sisters instead. 

DVD Review: The Dragonphoenix Chronicles

"In an age of darkness, the mighty Dragonphoenix Empire rules the world of Erebos with an iron fist. Dragar, a mighty warrior from the North, is a slave taking part in brutal pit fights for the pleasure of the empire's noblemen. His body is there, but his mind is back at his homeland and the beloved wife he left behind. 
 Dragar manages to escape captivity and takes Valeria the spoiled daughter of a General as a hostage.The General sets up a man hunt to brign her back. The way back home will be filled with dangers and difficulties for Dragar and valeria. He will have to face the past. the present and the dark future which lies ahead but he shall be...Indomitable."  

  The last bit of that blurb makes more sense when you realsie that the original title of this film was "The Dragonphonix Chronicles: Indomitable"
 Don't ask me why they cut the last bit off. When foreign films are repackaged for Anglosphere markets, that sort of thing tends to happen. It's not even the most cynical example I've ever seen.

 "Dragonphonix Chronicles" proudly proclaims itself as the Greek fantasy film, based on a the Greek comic series of the same name., so as soon as I saw this dvd on sale I was intrigued.

 I also wanted to see what a Dragonphoenix looked like.

\Sadly there are no dragonphonixes to be found in this movie. We don't get any regular dragons, phoenixes, hydras, chimerae, gorgons or cyclops either.  What we do get is a low-budget film which just happens to have some fantasy elements.
 Come to think of it, for the first hour or so, there is almost no "fantasy" in evidence. It's only when somebody pulls out a decidedly steampunk blaster rifle that you remember that you're not in our world anymore.
 Later on you do get some more magical action and at that point the film does pick up a bit.
 
Up to that point "Dragonphoenix Chronicles" is ...nothing special. There's some OK bits and nothing very much wrong with it, just not much to get excited about.

 "Hero" Dragar is a bonafide badass but he's not easy to relate too. A bit too one-note. That note being "Surly".
 Normally you'd expect hostage Valeria to warm to her captor and she does. You just can't work out why.  He's a hostile sod right the way through to the closing credits.
 Then again,in a development that surprises nobody, the General's daughter isn't as keen to be rescued as you'd expect. That doesn't make her more interesting though.
  So you end up watching two people you aren't rooting for running away from some other people you aren't invested in either.

 The ending ups the bloodshed and magic but by that point I was watching throiugh a sense of obligation.

To sum up: A film that disappointed me somewhat. If  "Dragonphoenix Chronicles" was a cheesier film I'd have had fun mocking it. If it was a more action-packed film, I'd have got more into it. And if it had a dragonphoenix in it, I'd have clapped and cheered.

 Not recommended.

That's all folks. 

Cheapo DVD Review: Sinbad The Fifth Voyage (2014)

 "Sinbad is in love with the Sultan's daughter, Firoozeh, despite the disapproval of her father. When an evil sorcerer, known as the White Deev, kidnaps Firoozeh and holds her hostage in th Black Desert, Sinbad has 40 days and 40 nights to rescue her. 
 Along the way sinbad must abttle an army of mythical creatures, including the legendary Cyclops, to get bck the love of his life. Based on the classic Arabian Night stories, Sinbad The Fifth Voyage is a spectacular fantasy adventure that will enchant and thrill audiences of all ages."

I do like a good Sinbad movie. The romance of ancient Arabia - a dashing, swashbuckling hero with the soul of a poet - fabulous monsters - wicked sorcerers - beautiful exotic women in those Harem girl outfits...all jolly good fun.

Sadly this is not a good Sinbad movie.

It's not for lack of trying. Shalin Sean Solimon not only stars but writes, produces and directs so this is very much his baby.
  (How he feels about his name not even appearing on the front cover is anybody's guess. Especially since Patrick Stewart only gets about a dozen lines, all off-screen in his role as Narrator.)

Anyway Mr Solimon was clearly trying to pay tribute to the classic Sinbad films of yore, eschewing CGI for the classic stop-motion technique of Ray Harryhausen, while at the same time injecting a little romantic back-story.

  It doesn't quite work.

 The story is serviceable enough, as is the acting. But the stop-motion is nowhere near as good as The Master's and would be considered weak for a low-budget Metal video. (The giant crab-thing is ...silly. But not in a good way.) The frequent flashbacks just trip up the narrative. And as for the supposed Big Bad himself...The White Deev manages to be more ridiculous than menacing.

It really is a shame. There's moments when "Sinbad..." hints at greater things but as it is, I found myself watching a film that wasn't stupid enough to be a cheesy guilty pleasure but not really up to the goals it set itself.

How much did I pay for this?  £4.99
Was it worth it: I can't say that it was. Sorry.

And can anybody explain to me why everybody insisted on calling our hero Sanbad?

Time for some screenshots.  

The Sultan looks pleased with his life.

I don't blame him. Jammy get.

The lovely Princess Firoozeh isn't so sure about the next act though.

A mysterious masked magician who sounds like he's got a sort throat...

He's clearly not going to turn out to be a wrong'un, is he?. 

Personally if I were Sultan I'd institute a Standing Order .

To whit "Any magicians who get within a mile of my throne are to be shot on sight."

Sinbad ..sorry Sanbad ... looking heroic and stuff.

"Oh shit. It's a giant Plasticine bird! Run away!"

"This is my scary face! Raargh"

Time for a mega-monster smackdown!

Not as cool as it looks, sadly.

Here's the trailer 

That's all folks. 

Cheapo DVD Review: 100 Million BC (2008)

A crack navy SEAL team is given an astonishing new mission. They are to rescue a team of Navy personnel who were working on a top secret project but ended up stranded in hostile terrain.

 Where it gets interesting is that said team went missing in 1949. And the hostile terrain in question?

 The Cretaceous.

Before I say anything else let me just quickly give you some important information.
This film is by The Asylum.

If you've encountered their work before then you will know that normal film-making standards do not apply.

To be fair, at first things aren't too bad. You're not in the presence of cinematic greatness but the film is shaping up to be a watchable, low-budget SF affair.
 The actors are decent enough, the writing is somewhat cliched but within acceptable parameters and somebody's tried to make these people and their mission something I should care about. So we're Ok so far...

  But then, in true Asylum fashion, as soon as the first dinosaur shows up any vestiges of credibility crumble into cheese-scented ash.
 The graphics really are appalling. The T. Rex that's the primary threat is like something from a Playstation  game. That's a PS1.
 Among other things, the creature design team gave it comically oversized legs and a definite waddle.

 There's also some blatantly-obvious CGI used on the human characters at certain points. It looks crap and I honestly have no idea why they did it., unless the Asylum were hoping to shave some money off their insurance premiums by having sprites do certain stunts.

 Other money-saving efforts can be seen in the street scenes once the action moves back to the present day.

 There's a frigging great dinosaur stomping about the city  - but nobody apart from the heroes seems to have even noticed. Traffic is still flowing normally, as an example. Almost as if The Asylum ran a helicopter over LA at night time and just used that footage.

Speaking of not noticing; at one point the T. Rex - three stories tall, vivid red and apparently wearing the theropod equivalent of enormous clown shoes - casually ambles up to a garbage collection team without an single one of them noticing. It ends badly for them but Darwinism exists for a reason, folks.

 I have to admire the cast for trying to do their best and if the FX team weren't using a Nintendo 64 to do their graphics then 100 Million BC might have been significantly more watchable.

How much did I pay for this? 75p
Was it worth it?  Debatable.  Unless you are an afficianado of microbudget Creature Features then I would not advise picking up this DVD.

 Here's the trailer. 

That's all folks. 

DVD Review: DeadBall (2011)

Once Jubeh Yakyu was a teenage baseball prodigy, destined for stardom. But when he accidentally killed his father with a super-powerful baseball pitch, Jubeh abandoned baseball and became the most feared juvenile delinquent in Japan.
 After a wild rampage of mayhem, murder and dropping televisions on people, Jubeh was caught and thrown into the infamous Pterodactyl Reformatory.
 And the only way he's getting out is to put together a baseball team and lead them to victory.

Do you like sports movies?

Do you like prison sports movies where a defiant rebel with a troubled past has to lead a team of misfits to glory?

Do you like Japanese prison sports movies where a defiant rebel and his team of violent misfits are forced to play in a  Baseball league run by Nazis, against a team of mass-murdering psychotic schoolgirls? 

You might like "DeadBall" then. 

  For , I dunno, the first five minutes or so you might think you're watching a normal sports movie as a teenage boy practises baseball pitches with his aging father, while the younger brother looks on with hero worship in his eyes.
 But then the youngster leaps about a mile into the air and unleashes a  fiery missile that turns's dad's face into a bloody pulp. That sets the tone for the rest of the film:  Over the top violence, and a procession of sports film, prison film and delinquent film cliches lining up to get a slap in the mouth and their nipples twisted, all done with daft humour and a knowing wink at the audience.

 There's a  fight between Jubeh and Headmistress Ishihara like something out of an "Itchy and Scratchy" cartoon, for instance. Then there's the way Jubeh's cellmate Four Eyes runs through the team's various misdemeanors (Using TNT in a boxing match and so forth) before going on to explain why the girls of St. Black Dahlia High School scare the shit out of him. And the baseball match itself is an utter bloodbath.

 "DeadBall" is not a subtle film. Not even close. It's the sort of absurd gorefest only the Japanese seem able to produce. The small matter of the effects being a bit crap just adds to the enjoyment.
 I loved it.

If you've ever wanted to see a cross between "Shaolin Soccer" and "Ilsa: She-wolf Of The SS" then check out "DeadBall"

 Time for some screenshots.   I'm not posting any of the bloody bits.

Jubeh arrives at his new home. 

Yes, he is wearing a poncho.

No, I don't know why.

It's not exactly the most bizarre thing in this film. 

Jubeh's new friend - the gentle Four Eyes.

Ilsa the warden really enjoys her job. Especially the cavity searches.

Headmistress Ishihara has some interesting political leanings.

And a sidekick who is creepy-looking as all hell.

 The demure young ladies of St. Black Dahlia high school introduce themselves 

Interesting choice of uniform.

Trailer here if you're interested.

 That's all folks. 

  

Cheapo DVD Review: Hood Angels (2003)

Starring;

A rapper I've never heard of.

Some other people I've never heard of.

Even more people I've never heard of.

Definitely not starring: 

See the girl on the cover with the ridiculously oversized magnum? 

Not in it. 

Not even a little bit. 

And why is that guy so proud of his watch anyway? 

Time for the back cover blurb.

"Traci, Felicia and Cinnamon are street smart beauties who get framed for crimes they didn't commit. 

 Trapped in lock-up, their luck takes a turn for the better when they are approached by Attorney Larry Abrahams, who agrees to take their cases and get their charges dropped - if the ladies investigate the murder of his friend Nitro Jones.

The ladies go undercover at Nitro's record label and ferret out clues about his murder. Following heir leads, the avenging angels evade deadly traps set by  the villains and use their martial arts skills to avenge Nitro's death. 

 The HOOD ANGELS uncover a scandal that rocks the rap world to the core - murder for a number one record."  

  I know I keep going on about this but wouldn't be a great idea if the blurb writers actually watched the frigging movie?  Because the one they describe here isn't the one I saw.  

"...framed for crimes they didn't commit. " - No they aren't. They get nicked for punching people in the face. The fact that it was in self-defence is an important factor, but not the same as "framed".

  "approached by Attorney Larry Abrahams, who agrees to take their cases and get their charges dropped - if the ladies investigate the murder of his friend Nitro Jones." No, No and No. 

 The girls call him to get their asses out of jail and they suggest going after Nitro's killers, what with him being Cinnamon's brother and all.

" The ladies go undercover at Nitro's record label and ferret out clues about his murder."  Technically correct. although ferreting out clues implies something a bit more subtle than poking about in the bosses drawers in broad daylight. While the boss is in the building. 

 " evade deadly traps set by  the villains" What traps? There are no traps! A good-old fashioned booby-trap might livened Hood Angels up a bit but alas, we shall never know.  They get caught by the bad guys anyway, so that sentence is wrong on two counts. 

 "use their martial arts skills" Again, technically correct but only if you use "skills" very loosely. More on that later.

 How about a back cover blurb that's slightly more honest/

"Three women who've only just met decide to become amateur sleuths, and fail to get themselves killed only because the bad guys develop a reluctance to kill that's in complete contrast to their earlier behaviour"

  There are plenty of films around that succeed in combining Hip-Hop culture and gritty urban drama. 

 Sadly Hood Angels is not one of them. 

  The whole thing is hobbled by a shoe-string budget but also suffers from indifferent acting, lazy storytelling and an overall approach best described as "ham-fisted."  

 The director suddenly switching over to slo-mo at odd moments doesn't help and just makes it even more obvious that the fight scenes are performed by utter newbies. 

   At one point the Attorney pulls the Angels into his office to give them their new assignments - then in the very next scene he meets up with them again to give them their assignments once more. 

Like I said, ham-fisted. 

 On the plus side....Hmm...I'm struggling a bit.

 If you're a fan of modern building design then the record label's headquarters is open and airy and I wouldn't mind working there. Otherwise, "Hood Angels" really has nothing to recommend it. Even the music is crap.

How much did I pay for this: 75p 

Was it worth it: Not in any way, shape of form. Not even for comedy value. 

Because I know some of you won't take my word for it, here's the trailer:

I watch these things so you don't have to.

You're welcome.

That's all folks. 

Cheapo DVD Review: Bunraku

Starring

Josh Hartnett as a wandering gambler in a nice hat

Ron Perlman as an axewielding  crimelord in a horrible hat

Kevin McKidd as a well-dressed psycho 

Gackt as a wandering samurai. No hat.  

Woody Harrelson as a wise bartender

Demi Moore as Ron Perlman's mistress and really fed up with it.

Mike Patton from Faith No More as The Narrator

" In a world without guns, a mysterious drifter (JOSH HARTNETT) arrives in a strange town terrorised by the ruthless Woodcutter (RON PERLMAN) and his army of thugs, headed by the vicious Killer #2 (KEVIN McKIDD). The drifter is forced to trust a young samurai (Japanese superstar GACKT) looking to restore his family's honour, and the local bartender (WOODY HARRELSON) with his own secret score to settle, as they team up to destroy the Woodcutter's tyrannical and corrupt regime. Using cutting-edge visuals and breathtaking fight choreography, BUNRAKU, also starring DEMI MOORE, is a wholly new and original take on the action and martial arts genre: KILL BILL meets SIN CITY."

  I can truthfully say I've never seen anything quite like this film. 

 The story is that old standby "two blokes team up to face a common enemy" but it's the visuals that are so memorable.  "Sin City" and "The Spirit" are the closest parallels I can think of - two other films that go in for a  hyper-stylised, comic-book aesthetic - but while they opted for stark blacks & whites Bunraku has something that can best be described as "Musical Theatre" - vivd colours, sharp lines, odd perspectives, snazzy outfits.
 Which is why in the opening scene, where two colourfully-attired rival gangs are facing off, I was genuinely expecting somebody to start singing.
 Later on "The Stranger" stages a one-man assault on a police station where we follow him from floor to floor laying waste to the inhabitants while looking in from the outside, like peering into a fold-open dolls house. The whole thing is impressive to behold and may well have been done in one continuous shot.

 "Bunraku" is a traditional Japanese puppet theatre and in keeping with the theme all the exterior sets are made up of 2D flats that rise like a pop-up book for every scene-change. Sounds daft but it works.

  The cast is impressive. Ron Perlman and Woody Harrelson are always worth watching, no matter what they are in, young guns Josh Hartnett and Gackt more than hold their own and the same could be said for Demi Moore.
 Everybody does a fine job but for me the most interesting character was Kevin McBride's swordstick-flashing Killer#2. Yes, that's all the name he gets in this film.
 Killer#2 may be a bit of a dandy but  he's also a ruthless bastard with a tendency to kill his own henchmen when they piss him off.  For some reason his broad Northern accent (Mancunian?) makes him just a little bit more menacing. He could well be the best villain the Bond films never had.

  I enjoyed "Bunraku" but I can definitely see it being a film that divides opinion. Hell, even while I was watching it, I couldn't quite work out  what I thought. This is a film that dances along the fine line between "Visually stunning" and "Pretentious" and that line is different for each person watching.

 How much did I pay for this? £1.
Was it worth it? Very much so. Great cast, good, inventive fights and as I've mentioned already, the visuals are some of the most striking I've seen lately. If you fancy something that tries to be a little different "Bunraku" might be up your strongly lit, plywood alley.

Here's the trailer.
 

 

 That's all folks. 

DVD Review: Red Reaper (2013)

"For a thousand years the Reapers guarded mankind from the demons that wait in the dark. Now, at the beginning of a new age, the Reapers are betrayed and slaughtered. Only one Reaper remains - Red, and she's out for revenge.

 The Red Reaper was traded to the demons by the Teller witch - her own mother. Rescued by the Reapers, a sacred clan of human/demon warriors, they raised her as their own, even though she was more demon han the rest of them. She was untrained, untested and shared none of her mother's magical abilities. She couldn't even see the future, her mother's greatest gift. Until the day she did - and it changed the world forever." 

  As soon as I saw the cover for this DVD , I  plucked it off the shelf. There may even have been a little cry of "Ooh. Cool."  Having said that, I couldn't help thinking that the cover art looked a little familiar. 

Back in 2008 Robert Rodriguez had plans to do a remake of a certain barbarian heroine. The project stalled due to other commitments and when putative star Rose McGowan suffered an arm injury that made sword-swinging impossible, everybody lost interest. 

 However, there were a few teaser posters released. Including this one.

 Basically somebody thought "That's a cool pic. Let's rip it off." 

 Anybody want to see what the original DVD cover looked like? 

 No charging knights, no chainmail bikini and no bright crimson hair. Since none of those things actually appear in the movie, this is a much more honest cover.  I also would have been less likely to buy it. 

Now I've got my usual grumblings out of the way, what's the film like? 

Umm... Let me put it this way...

 I stuck "Red Reaper" in the DVD player , ready for some sword & sorcery fun while I had my Monday night Kebab.  Twenty minutes later, I switched it off and dug out my book instead.   

  It took another two attempts before I finally managed to sit through the whole thing. 

 A film about a gorgeous, redheaded, half-demon swordswoman - and I was bored. 

  How the hell did they manage that? 

  Part of the problem is that "Red Reaper" takes too long to get going. The first half of the film centres around heroine Aella having fun with her secret boyfriend Prince Eris, training and having flashbacks. Lots of flashbacks. Or they might be visions. Either way, there's a shitload of them in this film. 

 Plot device or blatant padding, you decide. 

 Aella isn't easy to root for at this point. Considering she's 100 years old (part-demon, y'see.) the Red Reaper seems to spend a lot of time acting like a hormonal teenager sulking because Daddy keeps telling her to tidy her room. At one point she's reduced to glaring at her love rival from behind a pillar. 

  Things pick up a bit when Aella is ambushed by a gaggle of archers who want to drain her semi-human blood but the momentary flurry of excitement leads into an overlong headtrip as Aella battles her inner demons or something. 

  Finally we get some proper demon-slaying as the bad guys launch an attack on the Reapers and thin them out quite badly, paving the way for the demons to make their overdue appearance. 

 By the way, the demons all look like they are moonlighting from Norwegian Black Metal bands. I was half expecting somebody to start gurgling about "Frost" and "Satan" and so on. 

 The fact that Act III of "Red Reaper" involves a lot of people running about a forest in slow motion only added to my amusement. 

 Finally Aella decides to get her game face on but by that point it's far too late. Some quality violence might have rekindled my interest but all the slow-mo and editing tricks can't disguise the fact that the swordplay is really nothing special.  

    

  While I was writing this piece I happened to stumble on Writer/Director/Star Tara Cardinal's bio.  By all accounts she had to battle tooth and nail to get her film made. The co-production company stole the budget, so she became a pro-wrestler and a medical guinea-pig to raise the money. Footage was lost, a distribution company tried to steal the footage for a Steven Segal vehicle and only a personal intervention from Uwe Boll, of all people, got the project finished.  Even the aforementioned  DVD cover switch seems to have come as a shock to Tara and her team.  It really is quite remarkable and I have to admire Cardinal's tenacity.

Details HERE  

  

 But while I wish Tara Cardinal every success in the future, I really cannot recommend "Red Reaper"

Sorry.

Trailer here.

That's all folks.