PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back 2016

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back 2016 Based on the Lee Child novel Never Go Back, screenplay by Richard Wenk, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, directed by Edward Zwick.

This time Jack is killing baddies in Washington DC. He was there to meet Major Susan Turner, a contact in the military. He arrives at her office to find she's been accused of espionage. Soon after Jack is framed for the murder of Turner's lawyer, he's arrested and taken to the same military jail as Susan, he escapes when he sees two of the baddies headed for Turner's cell. He saves her from being murdered and they go on the run. 

TThings get more complicated with the intro of a young woman who might be Jack's daughter Samantha. The baddies try to kill her but that fails. Jack, Susan and Samantha head for New Orleans, more people get killed, eventually Jack gets what's going on and crushes the baddies plan. Turns out Samantha isn't his daughter. Jack leaves and heads out on the highway, looking for a ride.

As entertaining as the first film. I'd watch this one again too.

Jack Reacher 2012

Jack Reacher 2012 Based on One Shot by Lee Child, screenplay and direction by Christopher McQuarrie. I hadn't read any of the books, they aren't the sort of novel I'm interested in, there's a lot of them, I suspect they're fine for the right reader.

Tom Cruise beats up some baddies in a story about some scummy businessmen who get what they want by intimidation and murder. Lots of punching, running and shooting. Good cast and a decent script. I'd watch it again sometime.

Shockwave: Countdown To Disaster 2017

Shockwave: Countdown To Disaster 2017 Written by Blaine Chiappetta, Rafael Jordan and Ari Novak, directed by Nick Lyon.

A secret government military group has developed a device that creates earthquakes of great magnitude. It's been set off and there's only 2 people who can stop it. a used to be married couple that are experts in some sciencey thing. It's a race against time and the earthquakes get more and more frequent.

It's all pretty much familiar, I don't mind that so much but there's not much here that gets the film to average for me. It scores a 4.2 on the IMDb and that's about it for me. I saw it over on Amazon Prime. Trying to get a random SF movie in to keep up with more current product. At least the product that gets put in the free with Prime section. A lot of the movies don't stay free for long. Not that I think I'm missing anything when they do.

The Last Stand 2013

The Last Stand 2013 Written by Andrew Knauer and directed by Kim Jee-woon. I've only seen one of the director's movies. I enjoyed The Good, The Bad, The Weird.

Arnold is a sheriff in a small town in Arizona. It's right across a canyon from Mexico. Some baddies turn up on Harry Dean Stanton's farm and Harry doesn't last too long in the movie. Peter Stormare is one of the baddies. Luis Guzmán is one of Arnold's deputies, Johnny Knoxville is a colorful local character with a big ass gun collection.

Forest Whitaker is an FBI guy who's in charge of transporting a captured drug lord. The drug lord has a passel of pals and they pluck him out of the street with a giant magnet on a crane. The drug lord drives off in a fast car, headed for the border. He's got more pals and those pals have machine guns. The road blocks don't last long and dead cops litter the highway.

The baddies at Harry's farm have been busy, they've built a bridge over the canyon. The baddies have some trouble ahead as Arnold's deputies have found Harry's body. The drug lord hits the town only to find they're ready for him. The baddies don't fare to well against Arnold and company.

here's plenty of gun fire, car chases, explosions and wisecracking. It's a decent action film that was fun enough to watch. I'd watch it again someday.

Friday Night Movies 891

Ilya Muromets 1956 Written by Mikhail Kochnev, directed by Aleksandr Puusko. A Russian fantasy film that was released in the US under the name The Sword And The Dragon. Sadly, it was released released in the US by Roger Corman and he chopped 6 to 7 mins out of the film. It was the feature film in episode 617 of the 1994-1995 season of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I'd seen that version several times over the years but not since around 2005.

Ilya Muromets is a big guy who lives in Kiev. He's been unable to use his arms and legs since he was a child. He has to watch some Tugars raid his village. The local men are killed and the some of the women are kidnapped to be entertainment for the Kalin. Some travelers cure Ilya and give him a big sword they'd gotten from a giant warrior.

Ilya sets off to Kiev to help fight the Tugars. On the way he captures a monster. On arrival he presents it to the Knyaz Vladimir the Fair Sun and pals up with a couple of other warriors. Vladimir has an advisor who's selling out the country to the Kalin. He gets Ilya put into prison for 10 years. Ilya's wife and son are kidnapped and sent off to the Kalin. The son is trained to be a warrior, he's also not given any info on who his father is, eventually father and son are pitted against each other. The pair bond when the son finds out Ilya is his dad.

There's even a dragon to fight. The sets are expansive and there's plenty of extras in the battle scenes. The story is a bit draggy but it's entertaining for the most part. Not sure I would need to buy the DVD.

The Blackout: Invasion Earth 2019 Written by Natalya Dubovaya, Ivan Kapitonov and Svyatoslav Podgaevskiy, directed by Egor Baranov. 

I had watched this before and have linked that post in the title. I found it as entertaining and still think it's kind of draggin' in the 2nd act. Parts of the movie are impressive but most of us were disappointed in the ending.

Friday Night Movies 886

The Knight Of Shadows: Between Yin And Yang 2019 Written by Liu Bohan and Jian Wen, directed by Vash.

Every couple of years I go out and look for Jackie Chan DVDs, there's usually something I haven't seen yet. In this action fantasy movie Jackie is a demon hunter who lives in a house on a pinnacle of rock. He shares the place with some fairly friendly demons. Jackie hunts bad demons and that's a good thing, the nearby town has a nasty but beautiful lady demon who's collecting 16 year old girls. They've been imprisoned in a tapestry until lady demon is ready to suck out their souls to prolong her life. The town's magistrate is upset because his daughter is the latest girl to disappear. Jackie soon figures out what's up but he's got a fight on his hands, that lady demon is a nasty piece of work.

There's plenty of action and running about during the movie, much of it augmented by CGI sets and characters. There's plenty of flying through the air, one of Jackie's demon pals can turn into a flying boat with Reed Richard arms. Good thing, what with living on the top of a pinnacle of rock and someone falling off the boat all the time.

I enjoyed the movie, especially the first half, the last half bogs down here and there with all the melodrama concerning the romance of two characters. It's colorful film with beautiful and stunning scenery. I liked the film's sense of humor. Glad to have picked up a copy, I'll want to watch it again sometime.

Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes 2020 Written by Makoto Ueda and directed by Junta Yamaguchi.

A guy discovers his TV is a portal to the future. Trouble is, it's only two minutes ahead. All the action takes place in a small apartment block. The man lives in an apartment above a restaurant, his TV is broadcasting an image from the restaurant below that two minutes in the future. Several people interact with themselves from two mins into the future. Odd complications start happening when they try to extend the time from 2 mins to 4 mins etc. It looks bad when some criminals come by but the time police will help sort that out.

It's all filmed in one long take with everyone moving about from place to place in the building. They do quite well on that. Not that I was trying to catch them out on the action, I was having enough to do to keep up with the story. I enjoyed it, it's more entertaining and clever than many of the recent Indy time travel films that I've seen. Many of those were tragically dull with story's that end tragically because the scientists were stupid. This film has a fun premise and a good sense of humor. The acting was alright and the characters believable. I doubt I'll get the DVD, I might never get around to it again.

Friday Night Movies 882

Benny Loves You 2019 Written, produced and directed by Karl Holt. It's a British horror comedy about a murderous puppet with Karl playing the main character.

Karl still lives with his parents, he's a toy designer who's having a poor time at work where he's not coming up with interesting toys. On his 35th birthday his parents are killed in a freak accident, nearly a year later he's about to lose the family home because he's crap at his finances. He's never had to survive on his own because he stayed at home with mom and dad. Karl is a big loser at work too, he's fallen so far in the company the owner fires him. He then hires him back for a low level job with a big pay cut. Loser that Karl is he stays on.

While packing up he's convinced himself he needs to adult up and he decides to throw Benny, his favorite toy as a child, into the bin. Benny becomes a homicidal murder machine, starting with all of Karl's stuffed toys and then grinding up the neighbor's cat with a lawnmower. Karl calls the police and they come by, they think he's been stalked by someone but they can't find any evidence of a break in.

Benny kills the estate agent and Karl has to clean up and hide the body. The police turn up to pick up a camera they left there. More and more people are killed and everywhere Benny goes turns into an abattoir. For no reason that any of us could understand Karl hooks up with his co-worker. Most of the other co-workers are killed when Benny is taken to the office by that co-worker. Benny can't stand anyone but him getting any of Karl's love so he tries to kill her. Lucky for them the local coppers save their lives and help cover up Benny's murder spree by blaming it on one of Karl's co-workers. It's OK he was a pretentious twat and no body liked him. Besides, who would believe it was a puppet anyway.

The movie struggles to be funny, many of the jokes fall flat. I found it predictable and I'm usually pretty blase about that sort of thing. It could really have used a punch up in the script department. I think Karl is a better director than he is a writer. He made a decent looking film that cut together pretty well. I did get a few laughs out of it, Benny was usually entertaining. I don't feel I need to see it again but I was glad to have seen it. That Benny doll above is about $35 on Amazon. A little too much for me but I like it.

Bleeding Steel 2017 Written and directed by Leo Zhang. I bought a copy of the Blu-ray because I like to have Jackie Chan movies. I don't keep up with him though, I'm usually playing catch up. I see from a quick scan on Amazon I need to order a few more Jackie films. I'll have to go check the IMDb and make a list so I don't miss any. I'm not sure I'm that interested in the mountain climbing movie.

Jackie is a cop with a dying daughter, he's on his way to the hospital to be with her but police work interferes. He gets involved with a massive fight with a grotesque costumed villain called Andre and his black leather clad henchmen. They're after Doctor James and his metal heart. There's a big battle and Jackie blows up the villain. Jackie is lucky to be alive but he finds his daughter has died.

Thirteen years later we meet some other characters in Sydney Australia. Turns out that Jackie's daughter didn't die, she received the Doctor James metal heart and magical cell rejuvenation serum. She's grown up in an orphanage and doesn't know that Jackie is her dad. More costumed villains show up, the baddie from the big explosion among them. There's plenty of action as Andre tries to kidnap Jackie's daughter. He wants her blood for a transfusion.

The action scenes are big and noisy, there's plenty of bullets flying, high tech pistols blasting, explosions and people jumping around and punching each other. There's a big fight on the roof of the Sydney Opera House and you really get a good view of the roof tiles. Sadly the script is so poor that it lets the movie down. It's filled with nonsense and cliches, it lacks any good humor. The dubbing isn't very good either. I bought my copy from Hamilton Books and it's the Canadian edition. It only has English or French audio, the US has a Mandarin track. I put that on my Amazon Wishlist. It might be worth the tenner.

The Last Warrior 2018

The Last Warrior 2018 Written by Vadim Golovanov and Rustam Mosafir, directed by Rustam Mosafir. A Russian called The Scythian over there. It's a fantasy tinted 11th century drama with lots of killing.

Life among the Russian tribes in the 11th century is hard and dangerous, they don't get along well and it's all about power over your neighbor. The Scythian tribe has fallen in statue and numbers, they are reduced to being mercenaries for the more powerful tribes. A Scythian raiding party steals Lutobor's wife and child so he goes after them with a Scythian guide called Marten. There's plenty of fighting and slaughtering. The fights are fairly good, it's a bit Mad Maxy at times, it's hard to be original when it comes to that sort of thing anymore.

Mixed in with the fighting is a bit of character development and a bit of commentary on the changes in their lifestyle. I wouldn't want to live there, then. Entertaining to see in a movie. There's plenty of cool scenery, sets, costumes and makeup. Plenty of gore too. Someone's getting something lopped off every every few mins. More for the fan of that sort of thing.

A-X-L 2018

A-X-L 2018 Written and directed by Oliver Daly. The film was funded by Kickstarter, there was a 2015 short as a proof of concept. The feature flopped at the BO, making $8.5 mil on a $10 mil budget, and this is Oliver's first and only feature film. At least so far. He doesn't even have a Wikipedia page but he has an IMDb listing.

Some smug overconfident guy called Andric is head of a robotic dog project for Craine Systems. It's a military project. One day the dog runs off and a young dirt bike rider called Miles finds him hiding in the desert. The dog is programed to pair with it's soldier. All the soldier has to do is press the remote. Miles presses the remote and the dog is his new killing machine pal. It's not that kind of movie, no one gets killed. It's a teen action film with a big CGI robot dog who's more interesting than the teens. That's kind of sad in a way.

The critics didn't care for the movie much, it does better on the IMDb where it scores a 5.3. The main complaints I see in the comments are it's clumsy, derivative and forgettable. Sadly, valid complaints. There are certainly many better man robot films. I didn't care much about the characters but I did like the dog some. The CGI on the dog was quite good but I didn't buy the design. Perhaps I've seen too many General Dynamics videos. There's really nothing original in the film. The villain is so much like a thousand other smug pricks working on secret military projects. I gave it a 4 on the IMDb, I noticed I was bored during some parts of the film, mostly the teen melodrama, there's a rival on the dirt bike track, a girl to fight over, and some dad business I could do without. Still, another SF title on the list. Someone was nice enough to pass the DVD along to me, I'll keep it, don't know if I'll get to see it again.

Everly 2014

Everly 2014 Story by Yale Hannon and Joe Lynch, screenplay by Yale Hannon, directed by Joe Lynch.

Salma Hayek is mistress to an Asian crime lord and scumbag. He finds out she's working with the police against him and sends some men to kill her. They fail, so more and more come, they all die. The police are bought off and no help. They just want to contain the mess to the one building.

There's plenty of action set pieces with blood and gore. The dead bodies pile up. There's also a lot of sadistic torture activity, including a visit from a guy called The Sadist, he likes acid in the face. It's all style and noise, if you strip out the action scenes there's little story left. I didn't like the characters much. Sadly, I've bought the DVD, it was only a couple of bucks, and I'm doubting I'll want to watch it again. Live and learn.