Halloween II (2009) – Director’s Cut

The director’s cut of Rob Zombie’s Halloween II is a mixed bag. Some of the changes in the director’s cut improve the film, while others are really unnecessary. There’s an additional scene during Laurie’s escape from the hospital that fixes a confusing edit in the theatrical cut, but it’s so outlandish that it also kind of spoils the “it was all a dream” reveal at the end of the sequence. There are more scenes of Laurie in therapy which help to explain her mental state. There’s also an entire subplot about Laurie and Annie’s strained relationship, which goes a long way to explain Laurie’s weird waking nightmare about murdering Annie while dressed up as a young Michael Myers. Loomis is an even bigger prick in the director’s cut. And there are even more scenes featuring Sheri Moon Zombie, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. There’s a different cut of Sheriff Brackett’s reaction to seeing Annie’s dead body, which is a real bummer because it’s awful. It might be the worst thing Brad Dourif has ever done in a film and it pains me to say that. The ending is also different. Instead of seeing Laurie take out Michael inside the shack, Michael busts through a wall and gets gunned down by the cops. It feels like Rob Zombie was going for something like the ending of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or The Wild Bunch, but it actually comes off as an inferior retread of the ending to The Devil’s Rejects.

Rating: 54% 

(Image from Wikipedia)

Halloween II (2009)

aka H2

When I sat down to rewatch Rob Zombie’s Halloween II, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen the movie since it was originally in theatres. Back then, I took umbrage at being asked to show ID at the movie theatre. Now, as an elderly man, no one ever asks me to show ID. One time, a few years ago, I thought I was going to have to show ID and so I asked the young woman at the counter if she needed to see my ID and she kind of did a soft little chuckle to herself before assuring me that it wasn’t necessary. I don’t think she did it to be mean, but, if I’m being honest, it kind of destroyed me a little bit. That was probably ten years ago now, and still that wound has never fully healed. Ah, the sands of time. How they slip through our fingers. But I digress. Having rewatched Halloween II, I’m not sure if it was meant to be a passion project for Rob Zombie or a giant middle finger to anyone who criticized his first Halloween film. Maybe, it’s both. Either way, the Rob Zombie of it all has been significantly amped up for the sequel. The Laurie Strode character went from being a realistically human character spouting unrealistic dialogue to what I have to assume is a stand-in for Sheri Moon Zombie. And while I might be willing to believe that Michael Myers somehow survived getting shot in the face at the end of the first movie, you’ll never convince me that Laurie, a young woman in 2009, wore Kiss t-shirts and had a poster of Alice Cooper in her bathroom. The first hour of Halloween II is focused on the aftermath of the events from the first film. A bleak where-are-they-now for the survivors. Which will be confusing if you didn’t watch the director’s cut of Rob Zombie’s first Halloween. I can definitely remember thinking, “wait, I thought Loomis died in the last one.” Well, in Rob Zombie’s H2, Loomis is very much alive and everyone hates his guts. He doesn’t have much impact on the plot, so I have to assume he’s there just because Rob Zombie wanted to work with Malcolm McDowell again. The last forty-five minutes of the movie hew closer to a typical slasher movie. The finale hints at a possible new direction for the series, but it would seem that this particular pocket of the Halloween franchise has truly been abandoned. Props again to Rob Zombie for some great casting choices including, but not limited to, Howard Hesseman, Bill Fagerbakke, Margot Kidder, Caroline Williams, Octavia Spencer and Sean Whalen.

Rating: 55%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Scream 7

Sidney’s daughter, Tatum, is now 17 years old. The same age Sidney was when the Ghostface killer went after her and her friends. Despite her best efforts to put the past behind her and shield her family from her past traumas, Ghostface isn’t quite done with Sidney yet. Who’s behind the mask now, is it one of Tatum’s friends or has someone from Sidney’s past returned from the dead? After two leftfield sequels and boatloads of behind-the-scenes drama, Scream brings everything back to square one. While this entry in the series doesn’t get too bogged down going over “the rules,” the characters keep bringing up Sidney’s absence from Scream VI. Gale Weathers and the Meeks-Martin twins return again but don’t really have much impact on the plot. While the public reception for Scream 7 seems to have been at least somewhat negative, I thought it was still better than Scream 3.

Rating: 64%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Leprechaun: Origins

A group of college students are backpacking through Ireland when they stray from the beaten path to check out a sleepy little village in the country. At the pub, they meet Hamish, who offers to show them some of Ireland’s oldest historical relics. What the kids don’t know is that they’re actually being offered up as sacrifices to a leprechaun. Dun dun duuun! Is Leprechaun: Origins a dumb movie that tries to rip off Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Predator and Tremors? Yes, yes it is. Is it the least Leprechaun-y Leprechaun movie? Also yes. However, it may surprise you to learn that Leprechaun: Origins might be the most well-made movie in the Leprechaun series. Am I saying that it’s a good movie? Hell no. There’s just an incredibly low bar to clear when it comes to quality in the Leprechaun franchise. Find out for yourself. Or don’t. That’s fine too.

Rating: 57%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell

After a team of researchers in Nunavut are mysteriously killed by an unseen creature, a plucky young intern suggests that it looks like the work of Graboids. One phone call later, Burt Gummer and his estranged son are on a plane to the Canadian Arctic. Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell is very similar to Tremors 5: Bloodlines, while simultaneously serving as quiet remake of the original Tremors film. And even though there technically aren’t any new evolutions/variations of Graboids featured in the film, the Graboids in A Cold Day in Hell are able to launch themselves out of the ground and fly through the air like the sandworms in Beetlejuice and Dune. The effects are almost entirely CGI, though there are a few practical explosions and lots of viscera being splattered all over the cast. At various times, it seems like the film is setting Jamie Kennedy up to become the franchise lead for future sequels, but a quick Google search reveals that he isn’t even in the follow up to A Cold Day in Hell.

Rating: 59%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines

After one of their kin gets arrested, a trio of inbred mutant cannibals descend upon the small town of Fairlake, West Virginia. With most of the local law enforcement busy at a nearby festival, only the Sheriff, a drunk and a group of college students are left to defend the police station against the cannibals’ onslaught of violence and destruction. Moving the action out of the deep woods and into civilization makes for an enjoyable twist on the Wrong Turn formula. As does the inclusion of Doug Bradley in the role of Maynard Odets, patriarch of the cannibal clan. But, while those updates to the formula are refreshing, this is still a Wrong Turn movie filled with cheap looking special effects, dumb characters and gratuitous nudity. Wrong Turn 5 borrows heavily from classic siege movies like Rio Bravo and Assault on Precinct 13, along with horror staples like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Motel Hell and Saw.

Rating: 58%

(Image from IMDB)

Howling IV: The Original Nightmare

Not a remake or a reboot, Howling IV: The Original Nightmare is a slightly more faithful adaptation of The Howling’s original source novel. In this version, author Marie Adams heads off to a remote cabin in the woods after she experiences some strange visions. Splitting her time between trying to repair her strained marriage and helping her new friend Janice, Marie discovers that the town she’s staying in might just be full of werewolves. As far as werewolf movies go, Howling IV is pretty light on werewolves overall. I thought maybe they were skimping on werewolf footage in the movie to avoid a harsh rating but, in the third act, there’s a five minute sequence where a character’s flesh melts off into a goopy puddle. It’s gross and it goes on for a long time. Way longer than any scene in the movie that actually features a werewolf.

Rating: 40% 

(Image from IMDB)

The Final Conflict

aka Omen III: The Final Conflict

Damien Thorn, now 32, is tapped to be the American Ambassador to the United Kingdom. His first mission: prevent the second coming of Christ. Meanwhile, a group of priests plot to kill Damien before he can fully ascend to power. Now, this might sound like an odd thing to say about a movie where dozens of newborn babies get murdered, but The Final Conflict is actually kind of tame when compared to the first two Omen films. Likely because of all the baby murdering, most of the kills are either implied or happen off screen. There’s a pretty gruesome suicide early in the film but there’s relatively little to no gore after that. Sam Neill is good as Damien, but the Omen series was built on a killer kid foundation, so having a middle-aged Damien doesn’t hit in quite the same way. Also, Jerry Goldsmith’s score, which was so memorable in the earlier films is entirely forgettable in this entry.

Rating: 68%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Urban Legends: Final Cut

After talking to a helpful security guard, Amy Mayfield finally decides on a premise for her thesis film: a serial killer whose murders are based on urban legends. Trouble is, once filming begins, Amy’s cast and crew start getting killed off. Urban Legends: Final Cut, while a decent campus-based slasher, really plays it fast and loose when it comes to structuring the kills around urban legends. Most of the kills are on theme, often mirroring the kills featured in the film within the film. That said, some of the kills are just kills for kills sake. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, I think we can all agree that a slasher movie needs plenty of kills. It’s just that when you’re making a sequel to an urban legend themed slasher, you really ought to stay on brand more. I mean, the movie’s not called Urban Legends and Then Some: Final Cut, am I right?

Rating: 60%

(Image from Wikipedia)

[Rec]

While taping an episode of the show While You’re Sleeping, Angela and her cameraman Pablo tag along with some firefighters on a medical emergency call. Things quickly spiral out of control after the woman they’ve come to help attacks one of the police officers who has responded to the call. When the firefighters attempt to get the injured officer out, they soon discover that the building has been sealed from the outside. The authorities refuse to let anyone out of the building, citing the need to prevent a deadly infection from spreading. Before long, all hell begins to break loose as the infected start to attack the residents and the responders. [Rec] is a very well made found footage zombie movie. It’s fast paced with great gore effects. There’s some complicated lore that gets parcelled out over the course of the movie, but it never bogs things down. The runtime is fairly short but once the movie finds its groove, it’s a bloody bullet train racing towards a killer final shot.

Rating: 77%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Hard Boiled

Tequila, a “shoot first, ask questions later” style Police inspector, is forced to team up with an undercover cop to take down a group of gun smugglers. Along the way, they might even learn to trust one another. Hard Boiled was John Woo’s last epic Hong Kong action film before making the transition to Hollywood. As far as Woo’s Hong Kong masterpieces go, Hard Boiled is the only one that feels like it’s taking a little inspiration from American action films. A few of the set pieces feel inspired by Die Hard and the sax drenched score is giving serious Lethal Weapon vibes. But make no mistake, Hard Boiled is still peak John Woo heroic bloodshed, with plenty of grand action set pieces and a third act that is almost entirely shoot outs.

Rating: 83%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Awakening

On a trip to visit Tegan’s grandfather, the Doctor actually manages to get the TARDIS to take everyone to the correct time and place for a change. However, after escaping from a crumbling church, the Doctor and his companions are arrested by some 17th Century soldiers. It turns out there’s a war game going on in the village and everyone is taking it very seriously, a little too seriously perhaps. Has the historical re-enactment brought about some collective madness or is there something far sinister lurking in that decaying church? So far in the Fifth Doctor’s run, two-part stories have been a bit of a mixed bag. Black Orchid largely worked by telling a smaller story, while The King’s Demons suffered from trying to cram ten pounds of crap into a five-pound bag. Even though the plot of The Awakening is far from watertight, so much so that even the Doctor can’t explain why some things happened the way they happened, the pacing is brisk and all of the supporting characters are well defined.

Rating: Now everybody stay perfectly calm and still%

Amazon Women on the Moon

A loose compilation of sketches lampooning modern life and entertainment, Amazon Women on the Moon is one of those movies that “they just don’t make anymore.” Not so much because of the content, though some of it runs a little edgy and risqué, but mostly because they don’t really make theatrically released comedies anymore. And, similarly, sketch comedy films have been largely absent from theatres since their heyday in the late 70s. Amazon Women on the Moon incorporates contributions from five directors, including Joe Dante and John Landis. And, as the opening credits inform us, it features ‘lots of actors.’ Even though it’ll never be on the Mount Rushmore of 80s comedies, Amazon Women on the Moon still contains a few great gags.

Rating: 69%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Legend of Drunken Master

aka Drunken Master II

After attempting to get around paying customs on some ginseng, Wong Fei-hung stumbles into a plot to smuggle valuable artifacts out of China. Using his drunken boxing skills, Wong Fei-hung tries to put an end to the cultural theft and fight for the rights of some local steel mill workers. How is the smuggling related to the labor dispute? Don’t worry about it. All you really need to know is that this movie is full of great fight sequences. It's nearly 80% action set pieces, with each one getting a little bit bigger than the one that came before. For example, if fighting an axe gang isn’t enough for you, how would you feel about a big showdown over hot coals?

Rating: 82%

(Image from Amazon)

Warriors of the Deep

After an encounter with a military drone, the TARDIS arrives at an underwater missile base. Before the Doctor can get started on repairs, the base is attacked by Silurians and Sea Devils. With the base’s forces outgunned, the Silurians and the Sea Devils begin their countdown to the complete destruction of all life on Earth. Warriors of the Deep plays like a Second Doctor “base under siege” story, only bleaker. Despite a strong script, Warriors of the Deep struggles in the special effects department. It’s pretty clear that all of the actors playing monsters are having a hard time moving around in their costumes. The Sea Devils have been redesigned, with them now wearing Samurai armor for some reason. Warriors of the Deep is a good story overall, even with its dark and abrupt ending.

Rating: Perfect. Almost%

Meatballs Part II

There’s trouble at Camp Sasquatch when the camp across the lake, Camp Patton, threatens to revoke Camp Sasquatch’s access to the lake. What’s a Summer Camp without a lake? Going for a Hail Mary, Coach Giddy strikes a deal Colonel Hershy, whichever camp wins the Champ of the Lake boxing match at the end of the Summer wins the rights to the lake. After Camp Patton takes out Boomer, Camp Sasquatch’s boxing hopeful, it’s up to a juvenile delinquent counselor-in-training named Flash to save the day. Spoiler alert: he gets some help from a visiting alien named Meathead. Meatballs Part II is a goofy 80s comedy that wants to be edgy and raunchy at times but never crosses the PG line. The cast includes Richard Mulligan, Kim Richards, John Larroquette, Paul Reubens, Archie Hahn, Jason Hervey and Donald Gibb. Meatballs Part II is a dumb movie filled with tons of gags, many of which have not aged well, but it maintains an easygoing charm.

Rating: 61%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: In one scene, some of the campers are seen watching director Ken Wiederhorn's 1977 Nazi zombie movie Shock Waves.

Above the Law

Nico Toscani is one of the toughest cops on Chicago’s vice squad and he’s aiming to put away Tony Salvano, one of the city’s most notorious drug dealers. But, when the feds get involved, Salvano walks and Nico is told to stay away. Refusing direct orders, Nico stays on the case and soon discovers that Salvano is mixed up in more than just drugs. With each new clue in the case leading back to Nico’s time in the CIA. Above the Law, Steven Seagal’s debut film, is a decent movie that is clearly working very hard to set up Seagal for success. The opening mixes details of Seagal’s own life into his character’s backstory, establishing Nico Toscani as a super badass with an unflinching moral compass. The film’s Chicago setting also adds some unique flair to the movie. Seagal is backed up by a decent supporting cast including Pam Grier, Sharon Stone, and Henry Silva, along with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance from Michael Rooker. Steven Seagal and director Andrew Davis would team up again in 1992 for the far superior film Under Siege.

Rating: 62%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Five Doctors

Using forbidden technology, previous incarnations of the Doctor (along with some of their favorite companions) are kidnapped and dropped off in the Death Zone on Gallifrey. At the center of the Death Zone stands a dark tower containing the Tomb of Rassilon, the final resting place of one of the most powerful Time Lords to have ever lived. The path to the dark tower would be treacherous on a good day, but the same technology used to transport the Doctors has also brought some of their most dangerous enemies to the Death Zone. The Five Doctors was a feature length special commemorating the twentieth anniversary of Doctor Who, much like how the The Three Doctors celebrated the show’s tenth anniversary. Though William Hartnell is seen in an archival clip at the beginning of the special, the role of the First Doctor was played in the rest of the special by Richard Hurndall. Hartnell had passed away a couple of years after appearing in The Three Doctors. Also of note is the fact that Tom Baker declined to participate in the special, though he and Romana are still seen via footage from the at-the-time unreleased and incomplete story Shada. The returning Doctors are all paired up with some of their more notable companions including the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan, the Brigadier and Sarah Jane Smith. There are even cameos from K-9, Mike Yates, Liz Shaw, Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe. The Five Doctors is fairly well made and entertaining. It’s clearly motivated by nostalgia and fan service but it’s never cloying or obsequious.

Rating: A man is the sum of his memories%

I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)

A group of friends cause a traffic accident which leaves a man dead. They form a pact to cover up the incident and never speak about it again. One year later, someone starts sending members of the group threatening messages. Sound familiar? It almost sounds like a remake of 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer. But it’s not a remake of 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer because it features characters from 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer. And it’s the reliance on the characters from 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer that most brings down 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer. Well, that and the running time. And the multiple unnecessary endings. And the misandry. And the unlikable characters…

Rating: 54%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Nowhere to Run

After escaping from prison, Sam encounters Clydie, a young widow, and her two small children who are being harassed by an evil land developer. Sam’s efforts to protect Clydie and her children only lead to increased pressure from the land developer and his hired goons. Nowhere to Run wants to be a lot of things: an action movie, a lighthearted comedy and a tender romance. Unfortunately, it never quite nails the tone of any of these things. The cast, at least, is great. JCVD plays Sam, Rosanna Arquette plays Clydie, Kieran Culkin plays Clydie’s son Mookie and Joss Ackland knocks it out of the park as Franklin Hale, the diabolical land developer. While Nowhere to Run isn’t an outright bad movie, it never really coheres into anything particularly good either.

Rating: 57%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The King's Demons

Instead of arriving on Turlough’s home planet, the TARDIS appears next to a jousting match in the English countryside in the year 1215. Everyone in the crowd is understandably freaked out, except for King John and the mysterious French knight Sir Gilles. Only, they aren’t really King John and Sir Gilles, they’re actually Kamelion, a shape shifting robot, and the Master. With the help of Kamelion, the Master intends to depose the actual King and prevent the signing of the Magna Carta. Not a bad idea for a story, right? Too bad it’s half as long as a standard Doctor Who serial. At just two episodes, it’s not long enough to flesh out the plot, the stakes or any of the new characters. There’s not even enough for the regular cast to do. Turlough spends most of the story locked up in a dungeon and all Tegan gets to do is complain about being cold. At the end of the story, the Doctor grabs Kamelion and heads off in the TARDIS without even trying to clear up any of the confusion surrounding his appearance.

Rating: You don't have to pretend%

Cloak & Dagger

Davey Osborne has a powerful imagination and everyone in his life (his father, his friends, the police) thinks he needs to grow up a little bit. So, when a real-life spy scenario falls in his lap, it’s not long before Davey realizes that he’s on his own. Cloak & Dagger is a Hitchcockian spy adventure for kids that has a dark tone that could only have come out of the 1980s. Henry Thomas stars as Davey and Dabney Coleman plays a dual role as both super spy Jack Flack and Davey’s struggling father. At times sweet, suspenseful and violent, Cloak & Dagger is a forgotten gem.

Rating: 72%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: William Forsythe, who played Morris, would go out to star in films like Out for Justice, The Rock and The Devil’s Rejects.

Return of the Street Fighter

aka Blood of the Dragon

Released a few months (!) after the original Street Fighter, Return of the Street Fighter finds Terry Tsurugi once again going up against the Mafia and the Yakuza. And I kind of wish there was more to it than that. Despite being only 83 minutes long, Return of the Street Fighter is padded out with training montages, weapons demonstrations and three flashbacks to the first film. Sonny Chiba’s action sequences are all good but whenever he’s not on screen, which is a little too often, the movie really drags. The violence has been toned down this time around which seems like an… interesting choice. Fans of the first film will still find plenty to enjoy here, but Return of the Street Fighter pales in comparison to the original film.

Rating: 63%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Enlightenment

After a cryptic warning from the White Guardian, the TARDIS materializes inside the cargo hold of an Edwardian racing yacht. Below decks, the crew seem normal enough but the officers running the ship turn out to be from a race of eternal beings. And, did I mention, the yacht is in outer space. Enlightenment, the third and final part of the quote unquote Black Guardian trilogy, is a decent serial overall. Technically, it feels underlit. It makes sense thematically, everything is happening on centuries-old ships in outer space, but it doesn’t make the story any easier to watch. At the end of Enlightenment, Turlough breaks his pact with the Black Guardian and essentially becomes a full-fledged companion of the Doctor, though Tegan, as ever, remains skeptical.

Rating: Don't be an idiot%

That Thing You Do!

After winning a talent show, a young band from Erie, PA find themselves on a whirlwind tour through the music industry that takes them all the way to Hollywood and the top of the charts. Tom Hanks’ directorial debut, That Thing You Do!, is an endlessly charming look at the rock and roll dream circa 1964. Impeccably well cast from the leads all the way down to the minor characters, That Thing You Do! oozes charisma. The key, of course, is the titular song, “That Thing You Do.” It’s fun and catchy and never gets grating over time, which is important because it gets played a dozen times over the course of the film. The fast pacing propels the movie, which is especially noticeable if you watch the extended cut. Nearly forty minutes longer, the extended cut is not necessary viewing but makes for a fun companion to the original theatrical cut.

Theatrical Cut
Rating: 80%

Extended Cut
Rating: 75%

(Image from Wikipedia)

A Good Day to Die Hard

John McClane travels to Russia after finding out that his estranged son is in prison. Things do not go as planned from there. A Good Day to Die Hard, the fifth and (hopefully) final film in the Die Hard series feels kind of like it’s just going through the motions. Every action set piece and every twist and turn in the script feels like it was taken from one of the earlier Die Hard films. Any time there’s a moment between McClane and his son, it’s just, “bicker, bicker, bicker, joke, joke, joke and on to the next plot point.” There’s one decent car chase sequence in the film but, for the most part, it just feels like John McClane and his son have been shoehorned into a movie that’s completely unrelated to the Die Hard franchise.

Rating: 62%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Terminus

After Turlough sabotages the TARDIS, the Doctor and his companions find themselves on a ship headed to Terminus, a leper colony at the center of the universe. Terminus is a fairly grim story overall, since most of the characters in it are either dying or struggling to survive inside a Kafkaesque nightmare. Structurally, it’s interesting because our main characters are mostly separated from each other throughout the story. Nyssa gets infected with Lazars disease and winds up in quarantine for a lot of the story. The Doctor spends most of his time running around with some raiders who’ve mistakenly boarded the same ship, thinking that there was some precious cargo they could steal. And Tegan and Turlough end up navigating their way through a series of service tunnels and hatchways. At the end of the story, Nyssa decides to stay behind on Terminus to help find a proper cure to Lazars disease, ending her time as one of the Doctor’s companions.

Rating: Well, it never worked before%

The Garbage Pail Kids Movie

Some people will tell you that The Garbage Pail Kids Movie is one of the worst movies ever made. And, while it is bad, it’s not nearly as bad as people would have you believe. I don’t mean to suggest that it’s misunderstood or that it’s secretly a cult classic. I can’t really offer up any defense for the movie. But I get why they made it. Making a movie based on the then popular Garbage Pail Kids cards probably seemed like a good idea at the time. It’s just that pretty much every choice that they made after getting the rights to the cards was a bad choice. The plot is dumb. The human characters are fairly unpleasant. And the Garbage Pail Kids themselves, as seen in the movie, are unsettlingly gross. That might seem like a weird critique to make given that the Garbage Pail Kids cards are also gross. But the level of grossness that can be enjoyed coming out of a wax pack is a lot different than that of the uncanny monstrosities who spend ninety minutes constantly farting, wetting themselves and playing with their boogers on the big screen.

Rating: 50%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Rambo III

Colonel Sam Trautman and the CIA track down John Rambo in Thailand, hoping to enlist him in a dangerous mission to supply rebel forces in Afghanistan fighting against the Russians. Initially, Rambo refuses to go. Other than competitive stick fighting for money, Rambo has mostly left violence behind. But after Trautman gets captured, Rambo goes to Afghanistan and joins up with the Mujahideen (yes, that Mujahideen) to fight the Russians and rescue Trautman. Rambo III is basically a rehashed version of Rambo: First Blood Part II. It feels very formulaic, it’s a little too quippy at times and, if you’ve read the summary above, you may have noticed that the movie’s politics have aged like milk left out in the desert sun. That said, the action set pieces are all well done and the movie moves at a decent pace. I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I might on this recent viewing and, spoiler alert for a future review, it’s definitely not the worst entry in the series.

Rating: 63%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Mawdryn Undead

There’s a lot going on in Mawdryn Undead, almost too much if I’m being honest. Despite that, it still manages to be among the very best Fifth Doctor stories up to this point. It introduces us to Turlough, who will become one of the Doctor’s companions by the end of the story, even though he’s been tasked with killing the Doctor. It reintroduces us to the Black Guardian, the big bad from the Key to Time saga, who’s behind Turlough’s murderous mission. It also brings back Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, retired from UNIT, now working as a teacher at Turlough’s school. And yet all of that is just window dressing for the main storyline about Mawdryn, a scientist who’s been horribly mutated by stolen technology from Gallifrey. The rest of the plot is filled with time travel paradoxes and complicated moral conundrums. The whole story is bursting at the seams with great ideas. Plus, you get to see Turlough try to cave in the Doctor’s skull with a big rock.

Rating: What would you say if I told you I was looking for my TARDIS?%

Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend

A paleontologist and her husband journey deep into the jungles of Central Africa looking for Mokele-mbembe, a strange creature that may or may not exist. What they find is a blast from the prehistoric past: a family of living dinosaurs. But, when an evil paleontologist learns of the discovery, it’s a mad dash to keep “Baby” safe and rescue the mother from the military. Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend is an adventure movie that borrows some elements from films like E.T., Dumbo and Raiders of the Lost Ark. While I definitely saw this movie as a kid, very little of it stuck with me. And, after seeing it again, I couldn’t imagine showing it to a young child today. I know it came out in the 80s, when traumatizing children through film was commonplace, but no kid should ever have to watch the scene where Baby cries over its father’s corpse, while vultures pick at his flesh. Also, there’s a scene where Sean Young and William Katt try to get in on in front of Baby. It’s weird.

Rating: 59%

(Image from Wikipedia)