I was also a little less impressed with Escape From New York.

I personally love all of Carpenters movies. But I think they are an acquired taste.
Escape movies, Halloween, Thing, In the Mouth of Madness, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, The Fog, They Live, Big Trouble in Little China, Assault on Precinct 13.

What impresses so many who watch it is Carpenters multiple talent. He composes the score, writes the scripts, produces and directs. At the same time his movies are dated to their era so watching them now has less affect than when they came out. I grew up on a lot of them so they were more effective at their original release dates. But some of the charm still remains. The Plisken character is funny because of his "Couldn't care less" attitude and when he plays Jack Burton in Big Trouble, he is this stand your ground kinda person. It's what made Kurt Russell in the 80's.

Well i finally got around to watching Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

I think MacGyverGod rated this one a while ago so I wont get into too much.

This entry actually serves as a sequel as well as a reboot to the original Robin Williams movie directed by Joe Johnston back in 1995. This time round the mysterious game ends up in the hands of four high school kids who discover the game which has now evolved into a video game console and are drawn into its strange attraction. Soon enough all are thrown into a world of crazy animals, hunters and some insane motorcyclists.

I honestly thought this was going to be a disaster however I was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable it was. It does not try to damage the original in anyway but at the dame time does its own thing. The cast snap together and all work well.

Jumanji 2 is already on the way but for now this makes for a fun watch. I did wish i could have seen more interaction between other animals like the original and even throw in an occasional hunter or two but that did not happen. Also regarding timelines that are tread upon like the original are not as well tackled as the first movie tackled them. Still, I give it a well rounded 3 and a half stars.

Same here. I went without expectations and it was very good. The movie is still playing, while it's been a month ago since I 've seen it.

Last night I saw Bloodsport and The Punisher.

Bloodsport.

A Jean-Claude Van Damme film and one of his first leading roles. He plays Frank Dux, a man who goes AWOL from the military to compete in a martial arts contest called the Kumite. A contest shrouded in mystery. The police are send after him played by a young Forest Whitaker who follows him to Hongkong to bring him back to the United States. Dux refuses and runs away but manages to participate in the tournament. And as you might know how these martial-arts movies goes, the ending is quite predictable.

Apparently the movie is based of the real Frank Dux's life, though there is doubt of how much of it is true. The movie claims Dux has several world records on his name but none is confirmed also the existence of mystery and illegal contest as the Kumite has not been confirmed. Dux is the only one to have mentioned, nor has it ever been confirmed or denied by others that the contest existed.

This is a very typical 80's movie on martial arts which seems to have borrowed a lot from Rocky IV. Guy participates in contest, meets a girl, girl doesn't want him to fight, best friend of guy gets hurt, protagonist and antagonist share a look, they fight in the end, movie's over. The girl is very stereotypical about the bloodsport, not understanding what it's all about.

You can compare the movie to Enter The Dragon as well but Enter The Dragon is far more superior, despite a few nicely staged fighting sequences. Keep an eye for Herman The German, Donald Gibb, Lao Che from Temple of Doom (who plays JCVD's trainer) and Bolo Yeung from Enter The Dragon.

Despite the movie did manage to get success, I don't think it was that good. Too much Rocky IV in my opinion, but it is considered a cultfilm and a favorite amongs JCVD fans. I give it 2 stars.

The Punisher (1989).

This is the original Punisher movie starring Dolph Lundgren. Lundgren plays Frank Castle and has killed 125 people over 5 years. When the local hotshots are forced to work together with the Yakuza after their children has been kidnapped, they send Castle to find them.

Though another trashy movie, this one was much more fun. Even after The Expendables, I'm still amazed Lundgren can actually speak without sounding like a Russian fighting machine. Still have him do one stare down and I will always expect a 'You will lose,' or 'I must break you.'

Another movie with a couple of familiar faces including: Jeroen Krabbé, Kim Miyori (Second Chance) and Nancy Everheard (Amy Chandler from Log Jam). Everheard plays a pretty big role in this one as a cop who investigates Frank Castle. She does look a bit like Zoe Ryan with that short hair, but she sure wasn't bad looking either. It's like Log Jam tried to cover that up a bit.

The Punisher was not great but far from bad. 2,5 stars.

Both of those movies are guilty pleasures of mine.

Watched I Am Number Four on Netflix last night. I watched it once before, but couldn't remember what it was aboout, though I did remember that I kinda liked it.

Well, for what it is, it wasn't a bad movie. I thought, though a bit typical, it was pretty decent. I was talking to one of my friends about it and he agreed that there should have been a sequel to it. I believe there is one that was shelved after the first movie flopped.

Such a shame actually... I liked it.

I saw the Commuter last night.


Its turning out to be a bad day for Insurance salesman Michael (Neeson) and on his daily commute home, meets a mysterious woman who gives him a challenge of finding a passenger on board in exchange for $100 000. All seems too good to be true when Michael decides to put his curiosity to the test to find out a sinister plot to cover a conspiracy.

This is your typical Neeson movie in which has similar references to movies like Non-Stop. It is however an intriguing film and is a fun watch. Some nice surprises are Vera Farmiga & Sam Neill. I give it 3 and a half stars.

Then I decided to watch Star Wars The Last Jedi again.


I already reviewed this movie so i wont get into too much. But when i originally saw it, was a little displeased about a few things. Still, I gave myself time to embrace the film for what it was and grew a different opinion of it. Watching it a second time, i can honestly agree with my review of it. It is a really good film with so much put in. Granted, its not perfect. But it is a Star Wars film and comes with all the bells and whistles.

My review still stands. 4 stars!

Enter The Dragon.

Bruce Lee is send to participate in a martial arts contest organized by a Mr. Han on a private island. Han once was a student of a Shaolin temple but banned because he didn't honor their code. Lee is supposed to go as a secret agent to find another Asian operative that was send by the British intelligence and disappeared there. Along the ride are two Americans: Mr. Roper, a gambler on the run from the mob and his best friend Williams who is on the run for the police.

Enter The Dragon meant Bruce Lee's international breakthrough. Unfortunately his untimely death prevented a further career. He staged the fight sequences for this movie, imagine what he could've achieved if he was alive in the 80's and 90's, not only for staging it but in his acting career as well. Just check out his fight scenes with O' Hara and Han at the end of movie. Some of his kicks had to be slowed down because he was lightning fast.

Enter The Dragon is the only movie I have ever seen of Bruce Lee. That and The Bruce Lee Story but Lee was played by Jason Scott Lee. The movie introduced martial arts to the western world and was a box office hit at the time. Keep an eye out for a young and unknown Jackie Chan as the thug who tried to kiss Lee's sister and gets kneed in the groin for it. Also in the cave fight he grabs Lee wearing a brown kimono, Lee reverses the move and snaps his neck. You got to look quick and good because he only shows up for mere seconds. Chan and many others followed in Lee's footsteps but no one was ever as good as he was. I'd say the next best martial artist would be Jet Li. Strong and fast. Also interesting was that the actor who played Han didn't speak English. He had to mouth his words and was later dubbed by another actor.

Anyway, the movie gets 4,5 stars from me. "Waaaaah!!"

You got some catching up to do!

Big Boss
Fist of Fury
Way of the Dragon
Game of Death

I watched Oculus the other night. It comes off as a pretty typical horror/thriller movie, but it's actually much better then you'd think. The movie keeps you guessing as to what is real and what isn't. Horror/thriller movies tend to be rather predictable, but this one... not so much.

This is my kind of horror movie.

I also watched 300 last weekend. Not a bad movie, but definitely focused on the visual aspects than anything else. Story wasn't half bad, but it was a fun movie to watch. Lots of men in speedos... XD

Yeah, well I know them. But they're hard to find. I think my best chances are fleamarkets.

Based on the novel by Steve Alten. Directed by Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure). Starring Jason Statham, Cliff Curtis and Ruby Rose.

Oh, Jedi!

I have been watching this one closely for awhile now. They started work on it beginning of last year.

Although Turteltaub is directing, I was opinionated about his choice of cast. Still, looks like a fun watch in a cheesy kind of way. Saw the trailer yesterday too.

I rather have that they know how it might look and couldn't care less about it as in: 'Yes, we know it's a stupid movie, it's illogical and doesn't make sense, but we don't care, we just had fun with it and that's what matters most,' then they would've tried to be taken seriously and failed at it big time. I think this one was also going to be linked to Godzilla and King Kong or they're going to at least use Meg in the shared monster universe. Wouldn't be surprised if the whole operation is financed by the same company we've seen in Kong and Godzilla simply to have it linked.

We'll see, the movie is set for August.

Mission Impossible II.

Well, I've seen them all but this one is the least interesting one of them all. Just with almost all of John Woo's movies there has been studio interference and this one greatly suffers from it. Originally this movie was supposed to be 3,5 hours long. The studio had cut 90 mins of the movie and trimmed down a lot of the violence. I guess his achievement with Face/Off didn't pay off well enough to give the director carte blanche or at least the necessary credit.

So the movie is about a decease called Chimera that would kill everyone in 20 hours after being exposed. There is also a cure called Bellerophone. Both named after the Greek mythology characters. After a scientist is killed and the decease is taken it's up to Ethan Hunt to find it and to destroy it. But matters are complicated when he is caught and needs to find the cure instead.

Because of the massive cutting the plot suffers greatly making it rather thin and the overblown action sequences loses some impact. Where as the first one received critique for it's complicated plot, this one gets it for being a dumb plot. Again, Tom Cruise goes all the way in his stunts while Woo was not comfortable with it. Check out that mountain climbing scene he insisted on doing or in the final fight when Cruise insisted on his fellow actor to use all his strength for a knife stunt in which the knife stops at less than an an inch from his eye. Sometimes I think Tom Cruise really is crazy but on the other hand I admire him for doing his stunts himself. But there were a few other stunts that seemed so out of character for Ethan as well as for the movie itself. He performed kicks, jumps and backflips that are physically impossible (yeah, I know what the movie is called), but it didn't seem like Ethan or Mission Impossible at all. Ethan is a skilled fighter but he's not a martial artist.

This one is definitely flawed, he's not bad (I've never seen a bad Tom Cruise movie) but he's not great. It belongs down the list with Days Of Thunder and Jerry Maguire. 2,5 stars.

You didn't like MI2? Sheesh! It was one of my favorite! And that score by Zimmer! Felt like the only one that carried a love theme and did it well.

Jerry Maguire? You didn't like??

Didn't like is putting it a little harsh, more like 'not great' just like Jerry Maguire. It's been a while since I've seen that movie, I also wrote about that here somewhere. Vanilla Sky was much better.

I don't really dislike it but this is the least interesting one of the M:I franchise and one of Tom's lesser movies. Strangely enough it performed better at the box office then Gladiator and was the highest grossing movie of the year 2000. Zimmer's score... too much noisy Rock. Again I don't dislike it but this is also or maybe his most least interesting work. Or maybe he simply got tired of doing those action movies and you hear this in his score. He wanted to play with the big boys and in the same year he delivers the score of Gladiator. He doesn't want to play with the big boys, he leads the big boys! That is Hans Zimmer. Peace!

Seriously, it's hard to say anything bad on Tom Cruise's career or Hans Zimmer's. Everything they worked on was always immediately a hit. Zimmer's first American movie was Rain Man also starring Cruise. One I still haven't seen either. Zimmer always pulled all the plugs in his movies whether it's a sucky action comedy like Bird On A Wire or the biggest special effects movie ever seen like Gladiator. Same thing goes for Cruise. I don't think he ever made a movie that has hurt his career. And that's a rare thing. You can say whatever you like about Cruise and his controversial history with scientology but more importantly his career stands like a rock. He's got less movies but even those were mostly a success. If you ask me that's a guy who knows what he's doing.

Right you are. Cruise is a man who gets the golden roles in his career. Zimmer is already lined up to do the live version of the Lion King & the next X-Men - Dark Phoenix.

Zimmer's doing the music of the next X-Men? I thought he quit the super hero genre after Batman v. Superman. Maybe he was just on a break then.

The Firm.

Another Tom Cruise movie and one of few I haven't seen yet, based on a book by John Grisham. Cruise plays a young promising attorney who gets hired by 'the firm'. The firm reels him in and spoils him with welcoming gifts: a new house, a new car, trips to the Cayman Islands. His wife is however a little more reluctant. When shortly after he is tenured, two of his co-workers die in mysterious circumstances, he begins to realize the firm might have a dark side that tries to keep him and his wife in line.

Not a spectacular one but a very intriguing one that keeps you hooked with it's plot even for 2,5 hours. It was a lengthy movie but once the plot kicks in and Tom Cruise has to stay one step ahead of everyone else the movie takes a fast pace. Good movie. 3,5 stars.

His comedy days are over.

Saw the trailer to this yesterday. This goes in line with his recent crisis in his personal life. His girlfriend took hr own life and for the last couple of years has had numerous wrongful death law cases thrown at him.

That's been a few years. I just also found out this movie was made in 2016 and only now a trailer has been released. The movie on imdb is known as True Crimes.

Ready Player One.

To me it all started with a very promising trailer. A futuristic action/adventure involving a poor kid from a trailer park who plays a game set in virtual reality that is filled with easter eggs of the 80's pop culture. The game is in fact a contest created by the now deceased owner of the game, who has hidden three keys. Those who find it, will inherite the designer's fortune and shares to become the solo owner of the entire game. There is also the evil corporation who wants the keys for their own ends. Parzival and four of his friends embarks on the journey to win the contest.

Apparently this was based on a book, released 7 years ago. One that seems to become very popular now. You really got to see this one on the big screen. Spielberg obviously had fun making this one though he claims this was his third most difficult movie he ever made along with Jaws and Saving Private Ryan. The movie is filled with easter eggs, some are right in front of your eyes, others you need to search. So you really got to pay attention or you might miss it. There are cars, characters, objects, monsters from games, movies, books, songs, you name it, it's there. When I watched the movie I felt like Spielberg understands us. He gets it. And it shows again one thing, everything crossovers. Something I have only learned in the past few years. It's a shared universe, which is bigger then we can ever imagine.

This was a wild ride. Spielberg's first since Tintin in the action/adventure genre and one of his best since I even think Jurassic Park. His best on special effects since JP, that's for sure. I'm sure if Ready Player One has done it's run it might become as succesful as JP or at least come close to it. This movie gets 4,5 stars.

Who knows, maybe I might read the book someday.

Great, look forward to seeing it.

Yep also Alan Silvestri's score was very good and a great mix. You can clearly hear some of the A-Team movie in it but the best thing was he also goes back to his 80's style, something I think he left since The Mummy Returns. This is the third Spielberg movie without a John Williams score due the scheduling conflicts because Williams was preoccupied with Spielberg's last movie: The Post. Still I think Spielberg made the right choice and Williams preferred to work on The Post instead. Silvestri is one of the last composers that remain of the 80's, all the others are either dead (Kamen, Horner, Goldsmith) or they debuted at the end of 80's like Zimmer or James Newton Howard.

The Departed.

The remake of the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affaires starring many familiar faces: Leonardo Di Caprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, Jack Nicholson en Vera Farmiga. Di Caprio plays a young cop named Costigan who has to infiltrate in a gang run by gangster Frank Costello (Nicholson) while Sullivan (Damon) has to infiltrate in the police unite as an informer. Both men knows there is a mole and they have to try to uncover their identities to save their own hides in the end.

A great entertaining movie by Martin Scorsese and also one of his best in his long line of classics. The movie never gets boring with it's quick pace. It's one of those that grabs your attention and don't let go until the end credits role about 2,5 hours later. 4,5 stars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ilK1ZaOwc

Kong '76 is underrated

On Friday I saw Tremors 2 Aftershocks.


Earl Bassett (Fred Ward), one of the hero's of the first film is approached by an oil tycoon to get rid of more graboids that have now infested the Mexican border. Earl is promised $50,000 for each graboid he kills but knowing that he cannot face the monsters alone, Earl recruits Burt Gummer (Michael Gross), another veteran of the incident in Nevada, to supply the firepower. There is only one problem: The Graboids have now evolved to attack above ground...

This is pretty much more of the same antics the first film provided but it a fun movie to watch. It's ridiculous, funny and worth a watch. I give it 3 stars.

Apparently there is a 6th movie coming starring Jamie Kennedy.



No Escape.

Jack Dwyer and his family are moving to an unnamed country (probably a fictional version of Cambodia, the movie was shot in Thailand) in South-East Asia. He was send there by his company Cardiff that is specialized in water systems. On the plane they meet a British man named Hammond who is on vacation. Hammond helps them out at the airport and brings them to their hotel, the same one as he is. The hotel sure ain't no Hilton since the service of most electrical systems are down: no telephones, no tv, no internet. While Jack goes to the bar, he meets Hammond again and they have a chat. The following morning when Jack goes to buy a newspaper he finds himself in the middle of an uprising that seems to take over the entire city. The police is easily overrun by protesters just like the hotel the Dwyers are in and the angry mob starts killing people left and right. Jack reunites with his family and they try to escape via the roof. On the roof they learn that the protesters are angry because foreign corporations are controlling the nation's water supply. That includes the company Jack works for. After being cornered by angry rebels who grabbed Jack and his wife Annie, Hammond shows up again bringing the family to safety. Hiding on the roof of a brothel, Hammond explains Jack he is responsible for the uprising, since he is working for the British government who talked companies like Cardiff to make deals to own the country's water supply. That way they own the land. Hammond also tells Jack the only way to escape is to follow the river to Vietnam. When the rebels attack them again, they run for the river to go the border.

This was a movie that looked very promising in the trailer and started of pretty good. An American family getting caught in the middle of a coupe on their first day of their new home. Unfortunately when the movie gets going the story gets a bit on the thin side while the action sequences are pretty violent and brutal. The story however is not deepened out enough and neither are the characters which is a pity. There was a real good story here but once the action starts the movie is only about the family who tries to survive in a war stricken city followed by violent scenes and quiet scenes. The concept of going to the border has been used so many times before, including many early episodes of MacGyver. But the movie and the concept still seems so relevant now since the refugee crisis in 2015 (the same year the movie was released). Technically the Dwyers became refugees from as soon the uprising has started and they try to go for the border on a boat to seek asylum in another country. This could've been a great Mac episode or movie.

The movie might have an unlikely lead as he was played by Owen Wilson, who plays mostly comedy roles. This was his first dramatic role since Behind Enemy Lines. Though he did manage to carry the movie. His wife was played by Lake Bell and Hammond was played by Pierce Brosnan. Much praise for the action scenes but because of the thin storyline... 2,5 stars.

Yup, i have seen it the trailer. Just playing catch up for now.

I see that there might be a rebooted tv series too via Amazon Prime with Bacon returning to the series.

I'm on my way to see a special pre-screening of the new Avengers later today. Scored myself a couple of free tickets which is pretty cool. Will give a spoiler-free review later.