Absolon (2003)- Christopher Lambert (1 ½ )

Director: David DeBartolomé

Stars: Christopher Lambert, Kelly Brook and Lou Diamond Phillips

Genre: -  Sci-Fi | Action | Thriller

MPAA Rating:  (For Violence)

Running Time: 96 Mins

Tagline: "They Control Us All"

Synopsis:

{According to IMDB}

"In a world ravaged by disease, he's the only cure... and the last hope for human-kind. "

Discussion

First of all, I love Christopher Lambert’s movies, specifically The Highlander movies (even if they are cheesy) Even if I do love his films; this one is not one of them. I am assuming 99.9% that Lambert was broke around the time of this movie. This is one f the silliest films about global virus and chaos I have ever seen. I mean it is so Goddamn unconvincing, it takes place in 2010 (we are now in 2011) and the future looks like 1999. I mean they do explain that a virus and some shit caused things to go weary; yet I have a hard time believing technology would be this bad. It even contradicts itself-in one scene we see Lambert seeing a third dimensional view of a crime see via computer…and then outside everyone has crappy cars wtf?

Ok, so let’s set aside my disclaimers and get to the flick. Lambert plays Detective Norman Scott. He is on the search of why a scientist was killed at point black in his own home. Through investigations we find out he was killed due to a cure he was working on. Which reminds me, if I have not mentioned it yet (which I have) this movie takes place in the future 2010 (ahem) and a virus called NES or something like that has ravaged humanity, and population has decreased. The only cure is ABSOLON, a drug that needs to be taken every day to prevent the virus from supposedly not spreading. I say supposedly because we find out later (spoiler alert, like it matters anyway) that the drug was being used by the government to control the population, so they can depend on the cure, which in fact was a similar form of the virus. It seemed the virus had disappeared years ago. Talking about government, it seems that in this future the president and leader lives in a black room with only one chair and a monitor.

This movie was just plain bad, sure i laughed at some unintentional things. I.e. Kelly Brook not being able to act for shit…even if she can’t act she is still hot, her boobs are huge by the way, and that is very important for me.  Also there is a scene that seems they didn’t fix in post production: Kelly Brook talks and nothing can be heard for a couple seconds…I was laughing. The other thing is also the stunts, for some reason, since the movie came out during The Matrix craze, there’s is a big deal of slow motion and fast edits to resemble that movie…yet it fails in epic proportions.  They even have the villain played by Lou Diamond Philips dress like Neo. He wears the shades, the coat, and even holds a futuristic gun, which looks like a rip-off from Robocop’s gun. I can keep going on and on about the ridiculousness that takes place in this “futuristic” film. Lastly we are supposedly being told this film perspective of a young boy who met Lambert’s character. I have a hard time believing that because he only met him for 10 min and he was merely a 12 year old…he wasn’t in the whole deal. By the end of the picture, to make matters even more hilarious, he is telling the story to his grandson. So the grandpa is either lying or he smoked a blunt…one of the two. Anyway this movie was funny, yet pretty bad. Im disappointed Lambert, I really am.

DVD

I got this DVD back in 2003 in a bin of 4 for 20 at blockbuster (yes I recall when and how I got my Movies) the thing I hate about blockbuster DVD’s though is the actual cases; I always discard them and put them in their own individual cases, or in an album…Even if they are shitty like this one. SO yeah I am not expecting this clunker to be available anytime in the future on Blu-Ray. I hope never LOL

Video

The movie is presented in 1:33:1. The aspect is for your regular non-widescreen TV, I am not surprised because this was a Sci-Fi Channel Original film…back then they didn’t bother with releasing them in widescreen. Now with the advent of HD-TV and Blu-Ray…They actually release them in that aspect. Anyway, Absolon has very low contrast, the colors never pop up. I saw this in my room, in my old TV (not HD-TV) and the whole thing had worse quality than an average VHS tape. That’s all I can say about the video.

audio

The audio is a 2 Channel surround sound. It is quite crummy and downright atrocious. The sound was very cheap. I was constantly annoyed by the cheap soundtrack that involved only a computer synthesizer. The gunfire also sounded unrealistic and mediocre. 

  

bottom line

 Bottom Line? Really? you know what to do! Avoid the turkey

The Rock (1996)- Sean Connery (4)

Director: Michael Bay

Stars: Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage and Ed Harris

Genre: Action/Adventure/Crime

MPAA Rating: R (strong violence, language and a sex scene)

Running Time: 132Mins

Tagline: "Get ready to rock!"
 

Synopsis:

{According to IMDB}

"A renegade general and his group of U.S. Marines take over Alcatraz and threaten San Francisco Bay with biological weapons. A chemical weapons specialist and the only man to have ever escaped from the Rock attempt to prevent chaos."

Discussion

It is curious, even funny you might say, how all of Michael Bay’s movies are similar in style. The recipe for a Michael Bay movie is the following: Big Explosions, 360 degree shots over the protagnist as he gets up from an explosion, quick edits, fast cuts from important dialogue into shots of city landscapes….in all, these ingredients gives the audience the perfect recipe for a Michael Bay Trailer…ahem I mean Movie Trailer... I’m sorry, it’s that his movies at the end of the day are just a big fat 2 hour and 30 min trailer. Which brings me to another point, why are Bay’s movies always over the 2hr marker; like Bad Boys 2 ran for a total of 147 min...WTF? Anyway, To the point…The Rock is number 1 of the 3 only good Michael Bay films (the other’s being Bad Boys 1 and Armageddon) The Rock , even if it has most of the ridiculous music video edits and flashy car chase scenes, it is still perhaps one of the better action films of the 1990’s

After being discharged from the service, General Hummel (Ed Harris) decides to unite a group of soldiers and steal a deadly gas named VX Gas. A gas that when enters the nervous system, it turns it into shit. According to Nicolas Cage’s character, he describes the gas like this: “cholinesterase inhibitor. Stops the brain from sending nerve messages down the spinal cord within thirty seconds. Any epidermal exposure or inhalation and you'll know. A twinge at the small of your back as the poison seizes your nervous system,Your muscles freeze, you can't breathe, you spasm so hard you break your own back and spit your guts out. But that's after your skin melts off” In other words, you turn into shit, that simple.  The general and his men take the island of Alcatraz hostage, in the island are civilians visiting the park on tour, now they are inmates for the day (yes, that was a joke, you may laugh) The FBI decides to get its top men in biochemists: Stanley Goodspeed, an eccentric guy who works for the government diffusing bombs and other biological weapons. Assigned to the project is also Commander Charles Anderson (Michael Beihn)  who is the leader of the men who wil be sent into the island to attack the renegade soldiers/mercenaries in the island. But, there is still one guy missing: Sean Connery, the convict who escaped the prison before, he knows the island better than anyone else, so they will need his assistance, clever no?

In between the gunfire and explosions thought the flick, we find out there is an ulterior motive to the attack: money, the general talks about patriotism, defending his nation, and that he saw men die in war and not getting proper burials. But in the end it is about getting paid mula.

So what exactly makes this movie work? Well i have to say that aside the action, it is defiantly a combination of a smart plot (rare thing in a Bay film) and perfect casting; Sean Connery as the Convict who once escaped the prison and the nerdy biochemist played by Cage. I think this movie and Face Off are perhaps one of the better action packed films of the 90’s. I would also add Con Air, but haven’t seen that one yet, i have heard from many that it has the same recipe for mayhem..And that to me is just perfect. Anyone interested in showing this off on your HD-TV, read below, this is for you.  

 I have own The Rock on DVD only once, there are two versions of it on DVD. The standard non-anamorphic DVD (which I owned) and the Criterion DVD, which i believe is out of print. But no worries, most of the features on that edition are on this blu ray.

Here is a list of the special features 

Audio Commentary

The Rock world premiere

Navy SEALs on the Range

Hollywood: Humphries & Teague

Special effects for dive

Action Effects: Movie Magic

Outtakes

Secrets of Alcatraz

Jerry Bruckheimer interview

Theatrical trailers

TV spots

Video

The video presentation on this blu ray is fucking epic; the quality of the 1080p surpasses the DVD counterpart by light-years. First of all, like I said earlier, the DVD i own was non anamorphic, meaning that it looked atrocious on an HD-TV. The only way to view it on the plasma screen was to use the zoom button, which caused the actors to look out of focus, and with little to no detail. Thankfully, to the advent of blu ray, we can now see The Rock as it was intended. The transfer I must say is spot on perfect; for a movie that is 15 years old it looks spanking brand new. You can thank that to Bay’s extensive use of lighting and flashy edits and strange camera angles.  The only complaint I had with the blu ray was the darker scenes, they tended to have some artifacts here and there, but nothing too distracting. Overall this is defiantly a demo disc to show off to friends.

Audio

The sound is just as good, presented in an uncompressed 5.1 PCM Surround Sound; this mix freaking blows the roof top. I had the sound at about 45, the gunfire sounded authentic and in pristine clarity. The only issue is that in some cases the gunfire overshadows the music, in some instances that is. But aside that, the sound quality goes hand in hand with the video, epic.

 Bottom Line

Buy it, don’t hesitate, this is a winner. The best choice you will make for a blu ray movie. I got this one when it first came out, so it was a bit pricey, now it goes for as little as 10 bucks on special days in places like best buy or FYE

Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (2011)- Shia LaBeouf (2)

Director: Michael Bay

Stars: Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Tyrese Gibson

Genre:  Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

MPAA Rating:  (for intense prolonged sequences of sci-fi action violence, mayhem and destruction, and for language, some sexuality and innuendo)

Running Time: 157 Mins

Tagline: None

Synopsis:

{According to IMDB}

"The Autobots learn of a Cybertronian spacecraft hidden on the Moon, and race against the Decepticons to reach it and to learn its secrets. "

discussion

I have never fully understood the real appeal of these films. Yes, I know it’s just robots fighting each other, no one is seeing them for plot. But Michael Bay needs to stop pretending that he has a smart franchise on his fingertips, because he does not.  I will admit I was entertained, at least the movie did that for me; it however does not excuse the film of the sufficient plot holes that can fill up a whole Encyclopedia Britannica. Like a friend of mine said “The Movie was one B.S. wrapped over another B.S.” and honestly it is true; something as simple as logic, seems to be completely absent from the film. For example: at the beginning of the film we witness one of the primes crash landing on the moon, his ship begins to explode…wtf? There is no oxygen in the moon! When will Hollywood understand that in order for an explosion to take place, oxygen must be around…and space lacks it (actually there isn’t any)

So this time around, Sam, “the big hero” gets a medal from the president of the US (Obama himself) but aside his honorable contributions to the country; he just can’t get anyone to hire him.  So for a lengthy time of the picture we have Sam and his parents, which we see less of (thank God, can’t stand the mom) trying to get him a job and his life back in order. Before I forget, as we all know, there is a new bimbo (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) who by the way can’t act for beans; when will studios learn that Models are for modeling…Learn from Cindy Crawford, she did horrible in Fair Game.  Ok, so back to the film, Sam eventually gets hired by Bruce Brazos (John Malcovich) who seems to be obsessed with the color yellow, he even goes as far as almost firing someone for bringing a red cup into an all yellow room.  Sam uncomfortable at the position he is being offered, refuses the position, yet eventually takes the job. For about 1hr or so we have a whole story about Sam and his girlfriend and the shit going down in his life…all of this could have been shortened down to 30 min.  All the audience really cares is the autobots fighting the decepticons, that’s it.

When we finally get to the good stuff, which last for almost another hour, I began to feel like Bay can never make a movie short; which reminds me, this movie is almost 3 hours long.  Before I get into the fight sequences and the “good stuff” let me explain what is going down. Aside Sam’s “life problems” we find out the supposed real reasons why we never went back to the moon. It seems that alien life was found. So for the beginning of the film we see some footage of the 60’s and one of the Apollo missions landing on the moon. Oh before I forger, I was giggling at how cheap the CGI version of John F. Kennedy looked. I mean they can make giant robots transform into cars, destroy an entire city…yet we can’t make a human look decently real? JFK looked too red and almost alien like, they over enlarged his eyes to the point of deformation. Anyway, we find out that the decepticons are planning to bring back their home planet into the earth. They will need the help of two people, who I cannot reveal, it will ruin the film. But I will tell you shit goes awry, havoc takes place, robots fight, tables turn and people get betrayed. Yet, it’s a Bay film; good guys always prevail and win.

One thing that I found laughable, and even Tyrese says it in the film “The Decepticons always get the good shit” Still, it doesn’t matter because the autobots always win. But this time around I think the humans did more than the autobots. They came late into the battle; the humans were fully equipped and kicking ass already.  The thing I don’t understand with Bay is why he doesn’t work on making the fights more noticeable. Let me explain, I can never really tell sometimes who is fighting who. At one point we have 11 autobots fighting on the ground, and at the beginning there were only 9. I think Bay thinks we are retards or something…actually I think he does think we are. Something as simple as Geography he gets wrong; Sam is staying in D.C. we see from his window Skyscrapers like if it were Los Angeles or New York, yet there aren’t any high visible skyscrapers in Washington D.C. Well, whatever, the thing I want to get to is the final battle. There is a scene, which last so fucking long, where Sam and all the crew, new and old, are trying to survive from this snake looking robot, that is about to destroy a huge skyscraper. That sequence is entertaining, yet in the real world (were the law of physics and gravity exist) things would go differently.  In the film, we see the snake decepticon, using their tentacles through the skyscraper and destroying everything around. The building is fist shot at in the side, it falls slowly (slowly as in 15 min) towards the front.  While it is being shot, explosions are coming out of the snake looking thingy majigy, I have no clue why, it looks cool, yet it makes no sense.   Then the building brakes in half, and somehow there are people still inside alive and well. Which brings back, how the fuck does the chick survive with those high heels? A friend of mine, who was at the theater, noticed this too. He pointed out that she was wearing flats later on, yet we never see her change them.  Aside that notion, her and Sam are almost left entirely unscratched as if nothing ever happened.

In the end we all know we see these movies for the effects, which never fall short of amazing. Yet Michael Bay needs to learn that we want some real story, not “pretending to be smart story” I swear, he puts some nice Linkin Park music or some dramatic chanting music that has been used in every freaking movie trailer and thinks we are gona fall for that shit. He even ripped of Hanz Zimmer’s score of Inception. He took the “dream is collapsing” and made his own version, which sounds entirely identical to the original source. We hear this as the soldiers are parasailing with fancy gliding gear towards the city. I really can’t stand this, I mean I had an enjoyable time in the film, yet I feel cheated. I feel like I was but raped, I liked it, yet I know it’s wrong. (Yes that was a Gay joke, you may laugh) But seriously, the audience is not idiots; we want more substance, with the nice style, but keeping it intelligently. And at the end of the day it may be only a movie, but its $14.50 for these movies on Real 3D.  So it is not cheap guys. By the way, “Real 3D” is bullshit, this movie had acouple of shots that standed out, but i have seen some movie in the format that look plain chep. To name a few: Saw 3D, Resident Evil.  The thing with 3D needs to stop,its just a gimmick to attract people to the cinema. Concluding, I had fun, but it’s a stupid movie, nothing more nothing less. Perhapd slightyl better than the second, I still prefer the first. At the end of the day I have a difficult time difereintiating between all 3 films, there all the same shit: Robots killing of other Robots. Yes, it’s cool, but it gets old quickly. Let us hope there isnt a 4^th…But knowing Bay, he will milk a 4^th entry for sure..Its a profitable franchise, So we shall see what happens, you be the judge.

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999) 4 ½ [Top 200]

Director: Hiroyuki Okiura

Stars: Yoshikazu Fujiki, Sumi Mutoh &Hiroyuki Kinosha

Genre:  Animation | Drama | Fantasy

MPAA Rating:

Running Time: 102 min

Synopsis:

{According to IMDB}

"A traumatized member of an elite para-military police force falls for the sister of a female terrorist courier who died in front of him on duty. "

Discussion

Let me start of by saying that I am no anime expert. The only two anime cartoons I followed growing up where Dragon Ball z and Sailor Moon (Yes, Sailor Moon was awesome) but aside those two, I never grew onto the craze of the whole Japanese animation. However, a friend of mine who loves and is extremely into anime recommended this one along with a few others. She convinced me that there are intelligent anime out there. Because before she told me this, I saw most anime as silly, and at times over the top cartoons. Yet, after viewing this one, I was left with so many emotions; all of which were positive. I have never seen such greatly written animation in my life, the characters felt real, not cartoony nor comical. The whole movie played out as how Hollywood movies should be: authentic, original, fresh and mind boggling.

Jin Roh begins with an excerpt explaining that Tokyo in the future will go through a war, of which poverty and misery will arise. There will be renegades from police squads joining rebels in protest against the government. Because of this the government implements into action the Wolf Brigade: Specially trained soldiers to eradicate all forms of threats to the government, that being domestic or foreign terrorist who want to oppose the government. After this excerpt, we are introduced to the protagonist “Kazuki” a dedicated Para military soldier who witnesses a young girl detonate a bomb in front of him. Due to this incident he ends up traumatic and shocked. We, the audience, see through Kazuki’s eyes how he goes through the emotions and nightmares.  He later falls for the sister of the girl who died in the suicide bomb. We see slowly grow the affection between the two characters. I was extremely impressed and loved the allusions to the red riding hood story; giving a metaphor, so to speak, of how Kazuki is the wolf, and the girl is the Red Riding Hood.

Jin Roh is a very slow and pacefull film that I suggest you take your undivided attention when viewing; do not text or multitask on this one, this one deserves full concentration.  I viewed this movie 3 times- the first in English, the other 2 in Japanese. All tracks were excellently executed, I have seen bad dubs before…that is why I would avoid dubbed movies, but here, it is eloquently and marvelously dubbed with great voice actors. I felt the emotion; the characters grow in each sequence in the dubbed edition (same in the jap version) this anime left me astonished at not only the story but the conclusion (which I won’t ruin) it was well closed, yet I was not expecting it at all. I honestly believe anyone who is interested in anime, or is new to it like myself, should go out and buy it…because I will.

DVD

I got this DVD from a friend (like I mentioned) I didn't get to see the special features because I only got the first disc. I however did see the movie 3 times. First in English dub, then in Japanese 5.1 Surround Sound and lastly in Japanese DTS. I will go over each one individually

Video 

Jin Roh is presented in 1:85:1 Widescreen. The quality is overall pretty decent, keep in mind this is animation, not live action. The style of animation in this movie is kind of fuzzy, yet expressive in emotion...if that makes any sense. I didn’t notice any artifacts in the print, or any signs of video compression. Overall the source seemed intact to me.

Audio

The audio in DTS was more profound than its 5.1.Souround counterpart. I noticed it more in the scenes involving the protesting; where explosions and gunfire took place. I had very little to no complains with the audio quality of either 3 versions. But the winner is definitely the Japanese DTS

Bottom Line

Buy it, yes buy it now! I am already thinking of ordering my copy after I finish this review. This is definitely a masterpiece of modern anime cinema. SO BUY IT NOW! You wont be dissapointed, I promose that for sure.

Theatrical trailer (american version)

The Trail Beyond (1934)- John Wayne (2)

Director: Robert N Bradbury

Stars: John Wayne,Verna Hillie & Noah Berry

Genre: Western/Action/Adventure

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Running Time: 55 Mins

Tagline: None

Synopsis:

{According to IMDB}

"Rod Drew hunts for a missing girl and finds himself in a fight over a goldmine as well. "

Discussion

Before John Wayne starred in Big Budget westerns like True Grit, The Searchers, Rio Bravo and Who Shot Liberty Valance; he began in low budget westerns throughout the 1930’s. These B-Westerns were produced by Lone Star Productions. Most of the films produced by Lone Star had similar plots, mostly always involving thieves, missing gold, and banditos; In other words, your typical stereotypical western. On a side note, It is curious- Wayne had starred in The Big Trail (1930) a bigger budgeted western, yet it did not launch his career. It was not until 1939’s Stagecoach, that he obtained recognition. So in between the time of these two films (from 1934 to 1937) Wayne did these cheap low budget westerns. The Trail Beyond is one of those, low budget and produced by Lone Star Prod, and it is a perfect example of your stereotypical western.

John plays Rod Drew; he is in search of a long lost niece from a friend of his.  Of good will, Drew goes in search of her in the mountains of Canada (it's actually California) In his search, Drew re-united with an old friend in a train; the friend, however, gets in a big fight over a bad hand of poker. Drew helps his friend out and they manage to escape from the feud and leave the train. After the short introduction of these principal characters, we meet the villains...some badly portrayed French baddies. I have never seen such poor attempt at impersonating a French accent in my life; I was laughing uncontrollably, not only at the accent but at the wardrobe and thin moustache common in a stereotypical French man. Anyhow, Wayne's character stumbles upon a cabin, were some skeletons have been left behind with a map to a lost gold mine. In begins the plot: Wayne must prevent the baddies from getting their hands on the map and the gold...how original, no?

I wasn’t too impressed with this mediocre western, then again it's an early Wayne western...so it is excusable. Like I said earlier, Most of the Lone Star Westerns involved the same plot. I didn’t dislike this one, yet I’m not so amicable about it. You might actually find this John Wayne flick in a pack of 20-50 movie collection. The Price range for the movie pack goes from 5-10 dollars. The Box Set I own is from Brentwood Studios, I got it for 10 bucks, so there, and it’s pretty cheap.  Just don't expect good picture quality. You have to keep in mind that these movies are over 70 years old, the quality is not exactly up to par with today's standards; unless it has been remastered, which it hasn’t in this case. So, overall, the picture quality in most of these westerns is below average. I will let you be the judge; I will post a link below to the full movie since it is available to public domain