REVIEW: Robot Ninja (1989)

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Robot Ninja: C+

“I am the Robot Ninja, and I kick ass”.

This is what the hero of the movie says the first time he appears in costume. That line is way more awesome than “I’m Batman” or Superman’s “A friend”. But here’s the problem: the hero is A) Not a Robot. B) Not a Ninja and C) Does not kick ass, and in fact gets beaten to death by criminals at the end of the movie.

Spoilers? No-because the whole time you’re watching the movie you’re thinking “This idiot is going to get killed….and that’s just fine with me”. As a plus, the actor is very handsome. I sincerely hope he’s enjoying his life as a bartender in West Hollywood and has pride in having this movie under his belt.

The Robot Ninja is this dude who decides that he should do good things for the community, and then goes out at night and gets his ass kicked by muggers and black people. A lot of times. Then he starts shoving sheet metal into his wounds. This does not make him stronger. He never learns Ninjitsu or gets a computer brain. He just covers his wounds with sheet metal.

The Robot Ninja is a comic book artist by day. Besides his night life ineptly fighting crime, he starts drawing comics that predict the future. At the end, he illustrates the cause of his own death and goes and gets killed. And he’s such an idiot, it makes total sense. And he doesn’t just die, he bleeds out while drawing his last comic-which is of him being dead. Roll credits. Then you can turn it off and do something else.

Bruce Ward (Robin from the 60’s Batman show) plays his boss and is all fat and gay and shit, which I dug. At least watch until Robin starts yelling and then injures his own hand. It’s pretty funny.

Also, there’s this one criminal who is pretty awesome. You’ll know him when you see him. He’s a terrible actor but you can see he’s really trying to do a good job. I give him an E for effort, but an F in “not being shitty”, which makes him average. That seems fair to me.

All in all, this movie is entertaining because it’s ineptly made but you can tell that the people who made it were trying their best. Please join me in honoring Robin and all of these low achievers who brought us this shit-covered gem.

REVIEW: Mr. Brooks (2007)

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Mr. Brooks: F

Mr. Boring. Just awful. If you are in the mood to watch some bullshit, here it is.

Costner plays an un-scary Patrick Bateman-like popular yuppie by day, schizophrenic serial killer by night. He winds up taking another psycho under his wing and they kill people. I think the writers were going for a dark character study with this one but the tortoise-like pace and lack of chemistry between Costner and Dane Cook put me to sleep. Mr. Brooks’ arguments with his sinister alternate personality are externalized as his id appears in the form of some annoying dude for like a thousand of these “debate” scenes.

Demi Moore is the best part of this movie. You can quote me on that. She is a hot-shot cop who sniffs around the old murder files and starts to pick up on Brooks’ shit.

SPOILER: One of the reasons the movie didn’t get a UV: Mr. Brooks outsmarts Dane Cook and murders the fuck out of him with a shovel.

I guarantee that you’ll see every kill coming a mile away and the dialogue is fake as hell. No one talks like the people in this movie. Even the deranged Brooks debates about murder are goofy as fuck:

“Finding someone you think would be fun to kill is a bit like, well it’s a bit like falling in love. You meet a lot of candidates, and you like some of them, and they’re nice. But they’re not right. And that special one comes along, and your heart beats faster, and you know that’s the one.”

If you thought that was “deep,’ you should check this film out. You’ll probably have an existential meltdown when Dane Cook works some of his jokes into the movie.

REVIEW: Hellraiser 3 (1992)

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Hellraiser 3: C

Hellraiser 3 keeps in line with Hellraiser 2 in that Pinhead is still trapped in a fucking rock. He somehow got his identity divided and exists simultaneously as his human self and the demonic cenobite. His human self is stranded in a black hole somewhere while his cenobite self is the only part of him trapped in stone. That’s mostly where the original ideas stop. Then the old Hellraiser formula kicks in…

Pinhead, while trapped in the rock, has to use his limited supernatural powers of intrigue to temp some idiot into opening the cube with the promise of accessing new levels of hedonism that walk the line of pleasure/pain. JUST LIKE IN THE OTHER MOVIES WHERE HE NEEDS HUMANS TO SUMMON HIM. Only through this can he fully bust out of his rock and start ritually hooking motherfuckers. Things start going his way when douchey 90’s Night-at-The-Rocksbury club rats become mesmerized by the box and start getting murdered. JUST LIKE IN THE OTHER MOVIES WHERE PEOPLE START IRONICALLY START DYING BECAUSE OF THEIR INFACTUATION WITH THE BOX. The club owner is the hedonist/evildoer character who will inevitably empower the cenobites through his own shittiness. JUST LIKE IN EVERY OTHER HR MOVIE. He buys the Pinhead rock thinking it is cool modern art, some assholes are systematically slaughtered by the power of the cube, and (of course) some do-gooder gets wise to what’s happening. JUST LIKE IN THE OTHER FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKING MOVIES! The temptation gradually becomes manipulation, and then becomes possession.

When Pinhead finally busts out, two things happen: some decent carnage occurs as he summons cenobite backup (one cenobite uses possessed CD’s to telekinetically slice people), and a sub-plot is fully exposed that (I think) explains that Pinhead’s identity spilt somehow resulted in the total corruption/evil of rock-Pinhead. Apparently, the human-Pinhead (who, again, was trapped in a vortex the whole movie) was the only thing keeping the original Pinhead from being a ruthless asshole. The Pinhead consciousnesses fuse and him becoming more complete somehow vanquishes him. Okay. The ending is some “THE END” with a “…?” after it shit. JUST LIKE…

 

REVIEW: Raptor Island (2004)

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Raptor Island: D+

I watched Pterodactyl the other night. When  I saw that Raptor Island was next, I let out a long breath, sadly mumbled “fuck it,” resigned myself to the idea of watching it, and thought about my life during the credits of Pterodactyl.

Lorsnzo Lamas leads a team of soldiers in pursuit of (what else?) terrorists to fucking Raptor Island! You can see where this is going and what kinds of shenanigans to expect. Cheaply rendered CGI raptors feast on soldiers and terrorists alike. All the same ingredients of Pterodactyl and all the same lamentable movie-making. My favorite Lamas quote (with a straight face, standing over comrade’s fallen body): “Secure his body men; I don’t want those raptors gettin to it!”

I included an image of the raptors so you can see the level of CGI we’re dealing with. Not only do you have to suspend your disbelief and pretend that Lamas is anything other than a pill-head with a bad tan, but you also have to pretend like those fucking feeble, shivering polygons that slunk around to the same 30 second clip of “raptor” noise are dinosaurs.

REVIEW: Pterodactyl (2005)

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Pterodactyl: D

Pterodactyl is ptero-terrible but I was entertained during most of the movie.

Some scientists/students on a field trip meet some terrorist-hunting Marines in the woods in rural Turkey and all of a sudden, pterodactyls start eating everyone! How’s that for a plot, asshole?

The CGI looks like PS1 but who cares; if you sit down to watch this movie, you know what you are getting yourself into. This movie was made during a unique window of time in which CGI in horror films was just god-awful and Sharknado had not been made yet. Bad movies with post-Sharknado era self-awareness that are “so bad, they’re good”  were not being mass produced for mainstream audiences, so any movies like Pterodactyl that didn’t take itself seriously wasn’t doing so because the filmmakers thought they would get paid. It was because the movie was a piece of shit and/or no one cared. This is part of why I don’t hate this movie: I don’t feel like it not taking itself seriously is a gimmick being sold to me.

Anyway, if you were hoping for something at all like Jurassic Park, prepare to watch that hope get eviscerated by a pterodactyl. Check this out: Coolio plays one of the soldiers! His only role in the film is to blast shit with automatic weapons and deliver one-liners. When the terrorist ringleader gets dropped into the dactyl nest at the end, Coolio lowers the assault rifles he holds in each hand and quips “Damn! Judgement by dinosaur!” while the dactyl babies tear the guy up.

There is a plot worse than most video games’ and a lot of guns, dinosaurs, and carnage. The movie didn’t age well. Don’t watch it unless you love Coolio or you have brain damage or both.

 

REVIEW: Alien Seed (1989)

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Alien Seed: D

Welcome to B-movie Heaven! Alien Seed is one of the most low budget pieces of garbage I have ever seen but it is so fun to watch.

“So bad it’s good” is a thing now, and I agree that it is a legitimate concept, but it is totally subjective. What I think is bad-good, someone else might think is bad-bad and vice versa. All you can do is make your case, so disagree if you want, but to me, this movie is 24 karat bad-good.

This was the first time I watched a movie and organically experienced the “so bad it’s good” phenomenon. This was probably circa 1997, so video stores and Fangoria were the only way you found out about stuff like this. There was no “buzz” about Alien Seed; watching bad movies was relegated to nerds (like me) who laughed at MST3K. There was no mainstream adoration of crap like this. We were living in a pre-Sharknado age when then SciFi channel played shitty movies for people to watch unironically.

If I sound like a hipster (“I liked garbage before it was cool!”), that’s not my point. I just want to emphasize the special place this movie has in my heart because I found it with all the same likelihood you’d find treasure at a landfill. My love for how cheap and awful Alien Seed is was ahead of its time, so I can never forget it.

Extraterrestrials get the brilliant idea to inseminate some random woman with their “Alien Seed” in the hopes that her hybrid offspring will trigger a doomsday (or second coming, depending on how you look at it) on Earth. A reporter named Timmons, played by this guy who is a worse actor than a mannequin on a skateboard, somehow figures out what’s happening and takes it upon himself to be the woman’s protector a la Kyle Reese from Terminator. The guy can’t even deliver his fucking terribly written lines correctly when he arrives at the woman’s apartment with Chinese food.

Knock-knock-knock.
“Who is it?”
“Take-out.”
“I didn’t order any.”
Timmons aggressively storms into her apartment.
“I did.”

This exchange is so wretched and miserable that the first time I saw it, it became an inside joke with my friends and me for over a year. He looks like Steve Blackman on estrogen supplements.

Amid all this exciting Chinese food eating and not-acting, along comes Erik Estrada, a mad scientist who also figures out the Alien Seed situation. He concocts a plan to kidnap the woman, harvest the alien-baby for his own twisted agenda, torture / reveal his plan to Timmons, and laugh a lot. Check it out: Erik Estrada is the best actor in the film! Next to Timmons, he looks like Sir Antony Hopkins.

A B-movie cat and mouse game ensues. There is a deplorable car chase that is full of bloopers and sped-up footage and no special effects beyond that. There is no alien action because, face it, they couldn’t even afford a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers level of alien make-up.

I had a hard time figuring out when the movie was taking itself seriously (if ever) and when it was embracing the stench of its own schlock. The fact that there is a shred of question here should be a testament to Estrada’s acting. If you are in the mood for everything ugly from the 80s and sub-Dolamite production, here’s your bad-good diamond in the rough.

REVIEW: Shutter Island (2010)

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Shutter Island: B-

It begins as a cerebral noir that reveals itself as a “twist” film early in the second act, making for a real anti-climactic ending. I’d say my interest was peaked after about the first 20 minutes of the film, but Scorsese doesn’t give us enough credit for this one and flaunts all the pieces you need to put the puzzle together way too soon.

Leo is a persnickety fed dispatched to the island, which serves as a massive mental care ward for the criminality insane, to investigate a missing persons case. Things get crazy when all the crazy crazies go crazy and crazily act especially crazy. Fun drinking game: take a shot whenever anyone makes a cryptic statement that is left unanswered by other characters on screen. Double shots for dribbling inmates. You’ll be at the hospital in no time!

The acting is solid and the set designs are impressive. It is hard to get attached to any of the characters, though. The only one you develop a relationship with is Leo and he just does his thinking-owl face and pursues a plot/sub-plot that you’ve already figured out before he can even get to them. Maybe you get creeped out by semi-abandoned insane asylums that have that 19th century feel to them. If so, there are probably two scenes that will give you a cheap shiver. Other than that, there’s nothing to get scared about. Even the mummified/skeletal patient who gives the Shutter Island “shhhh” isn’t scary. She looks like someone who gets drunk off of pink wine and plays bridge with my Grandma.

There’s a quasi-Shyamalanian “twist” at the end that is supposed to be some kind of pay off for sticking around through about 90 minutes of predictability, and it is enough to bump the movie down a grade. All in all, there is a cool atmosphere and some decent talent but The Happening called and wants it’s storytelling back.

 

REVIEW: Death From Above (2011)

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Death From Above: F+

Professional wrestling is a tough sport that basically chews up people and spits them out once they become ineffective and outdated. Nowhere is that harsh reality more on display then in the new Kurt Angle / Sid Vicious foray into cinema. Kurt Angle plays an average everyday hick who stumbles upon an ancient tablet and once he reads it he becomes possessed by some centuries old spirit. I made the comment during the film that Kurt Angle looks like he was legitimately drunk during the filming and, lo and behold, it was brought to my attention that he has been arrested twice for DUI’s in the last 12 months. Regardless, the drunk and pilled-out Angle the starts stalking some other local hick who holds an ancient amulet he wears as a necklace, because Angle needs this piece to bring the master of evil into our world. This local hick is played by James “Wildcat” Thompson of TNA fame and his buddy is Matt Morgan of WWE fame circa 2005.

Throughout this shit-fest we get about 7 minutes of Monster Truck stock footage, about 4 seconds of mud covered breasts from chubby local strippers, Angle killing Tom Savini and former WWE and ECW wrestler Rhino, and some of the most low budget kills ever put to film.

Kurt Angle does not change his baggy jeans, or black shirt the entire film, and looks about as bad as one could look while still being functional. The conclusion of this film is also fucking awful; as Angle is trying to kill the Wildcat, Sid Vicious appears for his 28 seconds of screen time and while you would expect an awesome fight between the ring legends, all you get is Vicious pulling out a rubber lizard from Angle’s throat and then stepping on it. This film is like a metaphor for Angle’s career post WWE; a fucking downward trajectory.

If I were to hear that Angle died in the next 6 months ,I would not be shocked in any conceivable capacity.