The Punisher

In the early 90s, I was a regular reader of Punisher comics. At the same time, I was not allowed to watch 1989's The Punisher. Even though my parents turned a blind eye to the violent comics I was reading, they held firm when it came to keeping me from seeing R rated movies. Maybe they were just happy I was reading. Who can say for sure? So, until very recently, The Punisher remained a mystery to me. Watching it now as an adult, I was struck by how cheap it looked. This shouldn't have come as a surprise to me given that it was made by New World Pictures, a company started by Roger Corman. Dolph Lundgren's look as the Punisher never quite worked for me either. He looks like a cross between the Terminator, Ghost Rider and Jerry Only from The Misfits. Some of the early sequences in the movie had serious slasher vibes, which I quite enjoyed. But you can tell that they tried to soften the impact of the film's violent nihilism by having the Punisher spend a good chunk of the movie trying to save some kidnapped children. Of the three Punisher films released so far, I would put 1989's The Punisher in the middle. Not the best, not the worst.

Rating: 63%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Power of Kroll

Tensions are already running high when the Doctor and Romana arrive on the third moon of Delta Magna. The local tribe, referred to as the Swampies, are at war with the crew of a large scale methane refinery. Things are further complicated when the Swampies deity, Kroll, emerges from the depths and begins to consume anything that moves. The Power of Kroll is a decent serial with fairly decent effects. However, the look of the Swampies, actors painted green wearing "tribal" garb and painted cornrow wigs, is ridiculous. There's no real denying it. As far as the plot goes, it isn't anything particularly groundbreaking. We've seen similar, and slightly better, versions of this story in serials like Doctor Who and the Silurians and Terror of the Zygons.

Rating: Oh look, it's coming this way%

Daylight

After a massive explosion, a group of people become trapped inside the Holland Tunnel. With the water levels rising and a rapidly dwindling air supply, it's a race against time to save them. Their only hope, a cab driver named Kit. Daylight is an underrated action/disaster film. The practical effects still look great today. The cast is really good as well, with a number of them giving really standout performances. Is it a realistic movie? No, not at all. But, if you're looking for verisimilitude in a 90s action blockbuster, you might be an idiot.

Rating: 73%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: One of the survivors is played by Danielle Harris, star of Halloween 4, 5, the Producer's Cut of 6 and the Rob Zombie duology.

The 'Burbs

Ray Peterson can't seem to enjoy his vacation. He becomes obsessed with the strange lights and sounds coming from his neighbor's house. Nobody on the block seems to know anything about Ray's neighbors, the Klopeks. On the surface, they seem to be a quiet family who keep to themselves. But, buried just below the surface, something truly strange might be going on. Joe Dante's The 'Burbs is an absurdist comedy with a Twilight Zone edge. In his first role as a father, America's Dad Tom Hanks leads a terrific cast that includes Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Corey Feldman and Henry Gibson. The 'Burbs has a great sense of scale. The whole movie takes place on one street and yet everything is given a grand sense of significance. The movie's dialogue is snappy and all of the main characters are unique and well defined. The 'Burbs is an excellent showcase for Joe Dante's comedy and horror sensibilities.

Rating: 78%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: A couple years before he played Hans Klopek in The 'Burbs, Courtney Gains played Malachai in the original Children of the Corn. 

The Mask

1994 was the year that Jim Carrey really blew up with The Mask arriving that summer, in between Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Dumb and Dumber. And Carrey is the perfect actor for The Mask. He's able to convincingly portray both the docile bank clerk Stanley Ipkiss and his cartoonish alter ego. Carrey's incredible physicality also helps to sell the character beyond the practical effects and outdated CGI. The Mask's cast is rounded out with performances from Cameron Diaz, Richard Jeni, Amy Yasbeck and intelligent design propagandist Ben Stein. Though a fairly minor film, in the grand scheme of things, The Mask is easily one of the better comic book movies of the 1990s.

Rating: 65%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Androids of Tara

After arriving on Tara, the Doctor decides to take the day off and do some fishing, leaving Romana to find the next segment of the Key to Time on her own. To her credit, she manages to find the segment pretty quickly. Soon after, she meets Count Grendel of Gracht, possibly the most devious man on Tara, kickstarting a back and forth battle for control over the entire planet. The Androids of Tara is an average serial. The setting is odd, aside from the presence of lifelike androids and some electrified weaponry, it's an entirely medieval world. With a few minor adjustments, The Androids of Tara could easily have been a historical story from the show's early years. The Doctor is in fine form here, throwing out plenty of witty remarks but, otherwise, it's a fairly forgettable story.

Rating: My hat's on fire%

Kindergarten Cop

Tough as nails cop John Kimble goes undercover as a kindergarten teacher, heartwarming hilarity ensues. Kindergarten Cop probably shouldn't work. It bounces back and forth between bleak violence and earnest sweetness, coming dangerously close to saccharine schmaltz. And yet it succeeds by way of its cast and script. The kids, some of whom seem way too old to be in kindergarten, are delightful. And the script gives Arnold plenty of opportunities to flex his comedic and dramatic muscles. My own mother, who has zero interest in Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, calls Kindergarten Cop "cute." Truly making it fun for the whole family.

Rating: 75%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Miko Hughes, who famously played the "Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina" kid, was also in Pet Sematary, Wes Craven's New Nightmare and Spawn.

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

The original I Know What You Did Last Summer was a straightforward, some might say formulaic, whodunnit slasher. It was well cast, well shot and it arrived at a time when audiences were hungry for throwback slashers. The sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, arrived in theatres some thirteen months later and bombed pretty badly. It's not hard to see why. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is very contrived. The original film didn't leave a lot of room for potential sequels, so the movie has to jump through a few hoops in order to establish its premise. The sequel also goes a little overboard with the number of dream sequences and fakeouts, which really slows things down during the first two acts. The mostly new cast handle themselves fairly well, especially Brandy, Jack Black and Jeffrey Combs. But even though I Still Know What You Did Last Summer isn't exactly reinventing the wheel, it's not a slog. It looks good and it borrows elements from some great old school slashers.

Rating: 61%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Spawn

I saw Spawn in the theatre, back in 1997, when it was first released. I honestly wish I could remember my impression of the film at that time but it has long since faded from memory. What I can tell you for sure is that last night, as I was taking the cellophane off of a ten year old DVD copy of the movie, I had a chuckle when I read the cover which boasted that Spawn was "The special-effects movie event of the year." Just for reference, 1997 was the same year that Titanic, The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Men in Black were released. I bring this up mostly to confirm something that you probably already knew, the special effects in Spawn are dog shit. And the rest of the movie surrounding those effects isn't much better. It's kinda like Tim Burton's version of RoboCop with a hint of The Greatest American Hero mixed in. And the soundtrack, which I definitely had on CD, sticks out like a sore thumb now. Hearing Marilyn Manson and Sneaker Pimps drown out dialogue as Spawn walks through the alleyways will make you think, "Wow, 1997 was a very different time."

Rating: 58%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Stones of Blood

The Stones of Blood starts simply enough, the Doctor and Romana's search for the third segment of the Key to Time takes them to the English countryside. There they discover some strange goings-on involving a group of modern-day Druids and a stone circle. Soon after, the absurdities begin to pile on top of one another. There's an alien impersonating a Celtic goddess, a trio of bloodsucking stone monoliths, a spaceship stuck in hyperspace and a trial lorded over by a pair of justice machines. It all sounds a little disjointed, and in some ways it is, but it ends up being a fairly decent story. It's also the first story in a while to include some horror elements, with the killer stone slabs stalking and killing some unsuspecting campers.

Rating: Anyone for tennis?%

Commando

Someone is killing the former members of John Matrix's Special Forces team. Someone with a score to settle. That someone has about 12 hours to live, they just don't know it yet. Commando is a balls to the wall 80s action flick stuffed to the gills with steel drums and squealing saxophones. It's light on plot and logic but heavy on explosions and bloody squibs. Arnold's character in Commando is very quippy, tossing out almost as many barbs as death sentences. The supporting cast includes Alyssa Milano, Rae Dawn Chong, Vernon Wells, Dan Hedaya, David Patrick Kelly, Bill Duke and there's even a cameo appearance from Bill Paxton as an "Intercept Officer."

Rating: 72%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Summer School

Freddy Shoop, Oceanfront High School's laid back gym teacher, gets roped into teaching a remedial English class over the summer break. Shoop's students are "unmotivated, irresponsible," and according to the vice principle, "not too bright." But, with his job on the line, Shoop makes an attempt to get through to the kids. His methods are a little unusual, but dammit, they sorta get results. Summer School is a fun and fairly light 80s comedy. Not too mentally taxing, which is appropriate given the subject matter. While the plot is fairly simple and standard, Summer School is blessed with a bevy of fun characters: a surfer girl, a dumb jock, a nervous nerd, a girl with an undiagnosed learning disability, a foreign exchange student, a pregnant girl, a kid secretly moonlighting as an exotic dancer and pair of nutty gorehounds named Chainsaw and Dave. Mark Harmon is great as Shoop and Kirstie Alley showcases the fun and flirty banter that would serve her so well on Cheers. Summer School, it won't feel like homework.

Rating: 71%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Shawnee Smith, who played Rhonda, was also in 1988's The Blob, Who's Harry Crumb? and a couple of the Saw films.

Howard the Duck

Howard the Duck is just minding his own business, perusing pornography, when he's sucked through a portal in space and transported to Earth. He lands in Cleveland, Ohio, where he's immediately attacked by punks. The setup is very similar to what happened to Supergirl when she arrived on Earth, just without Matt Frewer and the threat of sexual violence. Howard eventually meets up with Beverly and becomes the manager of her band, Cherry Bomb. Then things take a turn and it becomes a race to stop an evil alien from bringing the Dark Overlords of the Universe to Earth. Howard the Duck is all over the place. It's a comedy. It's an adventure movie. It's sci-fi. It's a half-assed mishmash of all those things and more. It was neither successful nor well received at the time. Some still consider it one of the worst movies of all time. I wouldn't say it's that bad. It's definitely muddled and misguided but it also has an absorbing appeal that keeps me coming back to it every so often.

Rating: 65%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: David Paymer played a scientist in the movie. He also played a scientist in Night of the Creeps, which came out around the same time as Howard the Duck.

The Pirate Planet

The Doctor and Romana trace the second segment of the Key to Time to the cold, uninhabited planet Calufrax. Only, when they arrive, they find that the TARDIS has actually materialized on the planet Zanak. Zanak, a populated world teeming with advanced technology and an overabundance of precious gems, appears to be lorded over by the tyrannical and partially mechanical Captain. But Zanak also holds a dark secret and only by teaming up with the Mentiads, a mysterious group with psychic powers, will the Doctor and his companions be able to uncover the mystery of Zanak and find the next piece of the Key to Time. The Pirate Planet is probably most famous for being the first contribution to Doctor Who by Douglas Adams. Adams would go on to write two more stories for Doctor Who as well as being the script supervisor for the show's following season. There is some overlap, both in concepts and characters, between Adams' work on Doctor Who and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is hardly surprising given that he was working on both around the same time.

Rating: Don't panic%

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory

Terrorists hijack a super secret military weapons satellite with the intention of blowing up the Pentagon. To avoid detection, they plan to launch the attack from a moving passenger train. Just one problem, Casey Ryback happens to be on that train. Those terrorists don't stand a chance. If Under Siege was Die Hard on a boat, then Under Siege 2 is Die Hard on a train. The only problem with that being that trains are inherently small, cramped spaces. Any action sequence happening inside the train has to be shot very close up, making the fights a little hard to follow. Under Siege 2 hits a lot of the same beats as the first movie but the action feels a little watered down. The cast is a little underwhelming as well, which is hardly their fault. How could they compete with Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey? Beloved TV crankypants Kurtwood Smith and Jonathan Banks are underused and Katherine Heigl, playing Ryback's niece, is given very little to do.

Rating: 62%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Great Outdoors

For Chet Ripley, it was going to be the perfect vacation. A week on the lake in Wisconsin, far from the hustle and bustle of Chicago. Nothing but fishing, family bonding and hot dogs. But that was before Chet's brother-in-law Roman showed up. As much as I love The Great Outdoors, it's a bit of a shaggy dog story. The crux of the plot doesn't really come in to play until the third act. Based on the film's trailer, there were probably a number of deleted or alternate scenes that didn't make the final cut. And, given the movie's lukewarm reception, there likely won't be a Planes, Trains and Automobiles-style home video release containing the lost footage. That said, I couldn't care less. I grew up watching The Great Outdoors and have endless affection for John Candy and Dan Aykroyd.

Rating: 80%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Supergirl

Kara Zor-El, Superman's cousin, lives in peaceful tranquility in Argo City. But after the city's power source, the omegahedron, is lost, Kara leaves Argo City for Earth. There, she runs afoul of some witches and Matt Frewer. Not Matt Frewer in a literal sense. He's an actor. And, in this case, he's playing a trucker wearing an A&W shirt who tries to assault Supergirl. It's pretty weird. But definitely not out of place in a weird movie like Supergirl. The beginning of the movie sets up a ticking clock, Kara only has so much time to retrieve the omegahedron before bad things happen back at Argo City. But, once she gets to Earth, that ticking clock is totally ignored so Supergirl can spend a bunch of time enrolling in and hanging out at a boarding school. The special effects in Supergirl are all over the place. There are some really good effects, like in the sequence where an invisible monster attacks Kara at the school. And then there's some really cheap looking green screen flying sequences that look like total crap. Supergirl is a bit of a mess. It's probably not as bad as you may have been lead to believe, but it's also hard to recommend.

Rating: 58%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Hart Bochner, who played the lovestruck groundskeeper Ethan, played Ellis in Die Hard.

The Ribos Operation

The Doctor and his new K9 unit are all set to go on holiday when they are interrupted by the White Guardian. The Doctor reluctantly agrees to take on the task of recovering the six segments of the Key to Time. With each segment having been scattered throughout the universe and disguised to hide its true form. To aid in his quest, the Doctor is paired up with the young Time Lord (Time Lady? Lady Time Lord?) Romana. Their search for the first segment takes them to the planet Ribos. There they encounter con artists, war criminals, psychics, heretics and blood-thirsty monsters. The Ribos Operation feels a lot like one of the Third Doctor's adventures on Peladon, combining courtly intrigue with crumbling caverns in the best possible ways. The sets, the costumes, the characters and the script are all top notch. The Ribos Operation is a real breath of fresh air after some of the stale stories from the previous season.

Rating: It's either Romana or Fred%

Under Siege

Before he became Russia's favorite son, Steven Seagal used to do all of his fightin' and killin' for America. And never more patriotically than in Under Siege. In the film, Seagal plays Chief Petty Officer Casey Ryback, a super secret badass hiding out in plain sight as a cook on the USS Missouri. After mercenaries take over the Missouri, Ryback springs into action and almost single handedly brings down the bad guys before they can offload the ship's nuclear arsenal. The action in Under Siege is top notch, with countless gun fights, fist fights, knife fights and at least one throat rip. The cast is rounded out with plenty of familiar faces like Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Busey, Erika Eleniak, Colm Meaney, Raymond Cruz and President George H. W. Bush. Under Siege is, in all likelihood, the best movie Steven Seagal ever made or ever will make.

Rating: 72%

(Image from Wikipedia)

WarGames

David Lightman's quest to get a sneak peek at some upcoming computer games puts him on the FBI's most wanted list after he accidentally engages with a military supercomputer. With a ticking clock counting down to armageddon, David must find the system's creator in order to prevent global thermonuclear war. WarGames is a Cold War-era action adventure sci-fi romp that gets more and more out of date with each passing year. What keeps WarGames watchable all these years later is its cast, with Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy oozing charm while being backed up by a bevy of recognizable character actors. Come for the five inch floppy disks, stay for the endless rows of blinking lights.

Rating: 75%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Matthew Broderick's hacker buddies were played by Maury Chaykin and Eddie Deezen. Eddie Deezen was also in Critters 2: The Main Course.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Much like Spider-Man 3, the movie that killed Sam Raimi's Spider-Man series, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is overstuffed with characters and storylines. And even though there are three villains in the movie, none of them get a whole lot of screen time. The Rhino bookends the film, Electro gets sidelined for a good chunk of the movie and Harry Osborn doesn't even become the Green Goblin until the last forty minutes of the movie. Just like the first Amazing Spider-Man film, the sequel invests more time into the backstory of Peter's parents. Which, ultimately, has very little impact on the plot. There are some well acted dramatic scenes in the movie, which is to be expected given the high caliber of the cast. The movie's biggest flaw might be that there's just not enough action and excitement. The ratio of tears shed to punches thrown might be 1:1 and that's just not a good formula for a Spider-Man movie.

Rating: 61%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Invasion of Time

The Doctor returns to Gallifrey, under mysterious circumstances, to claim the Presidency of the Council of Time Lords. Right away, Leela senses that something is wrong. The Doctor is acting strange. Stranger than usual, at least. After his induction, the Doctor appears to betray the Time Lords by helping the Vardans invade Gallifrey. While everyone else believes the Doctor to be a traitor, Leela remains convinced that the Doctor's actions are only part of a bigger plan. After the Vardans are defeated, it's revealed that they were merely pawns working under the direction of the Sontarans and the invasion of Gallifrey has only just begun. The Invasion of Time is a fairly middle of the road serial hampered by some poor lighting and production design. There are several scenes in the TARDIS control room that are lit in a weird magic hour style that makes no sense given the location. Most of the scenes on Gallifrey are very dark, possibly to cover for the lackluster sets. The serial ends with Leela and K9 staying behind on Gallifrey, ending their travels with the Doctor. Though, in a weird moment that breaks the fourth wall, the Doctor reveals a large cardboard box in the TARDIS containing another K9 unit.

Rating: Never heard of it%

Sidekicks

A shy kid moves to a new state. At first, he has trouble fitting in. He gets bullied at school and he can't get that one special girl to notice him. But all of that changes once he starts to learn martial arts. If you think I'm describing the plot of The Karate Kid, you'd be right but you might be interested to know that I'm also describing the plot of Sidekicks. In Sidekicks, that shy kid, played by Jonathan Brandis, is constantly getting lost in elaborate daydreams where he and Chuck Norris fight bloodless battles against hordes of nondescript bad guys. These daydreams, which are probably what got the movie made in the first place, tend to bog down the film, as they happen frequently and do nothing to advance the plot. Most of the action sequences in Sidekicks are riffs on earlier Chuck Norris films like Missing in Action and The Hitman. Thankfully, Sidekicks has a decent supporting cast, which includes Beau Bridges, Mako, Danica McKellar, Joe Piscopo, Richard Moll and Gerrit Graham. At the end of the day, Sidekicks is a pretty generic rip-off of The Karate Kid but it's not entirely charmless.

Rating: 59%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Jonathan Brandis played the young Bill Denbrough in IT.

The Last American Virgin

The Last American Virgin is simultaneously a raunchy sex comedy and a tender coming of age story about friendship and unrequited love. The film is also jam packed with new wave hits by Blondie, The Cars, Devo, The Police, Journey, Oingo Boingo, and U2, among others. The soundtrack seems to have been a major marketing tool, as many of the bands featured in the movie were also listed on the poster. The Last American Virgin is a remake of the popular Israeli film Lemon Popsicle. Both films were written and directed by Boaz Davidson and were produced by Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan, the go-go boys behind Cannon Films. What makes The Last American Virgin stand apart from similar films is its ending. I won't spoil it here, but I will tell you that it's a surprisingly poignant gut punch of an ending. 

Rating: 63%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Lawrence Monoson played Ted, the vintage porn enthusiast, in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter and Diane Franklin played Monique, the French foreign exchange student, in Better Off Dead.

The Amazing Spider-Man

The least interesting part of any super hero film is the origin story. It's even less interesting in a reboot. The Amazing Spider-Man spends almost an hour, nearly half of the film, on Spider-Man's origin story. The movie also spends a lot of time on plot threads that don't really go anywhere, like the mysterious death of Peter's parents or the search for the man who shot Uncle Ben. It's hard to tell if the movie is setting things up for the sequel or if it's just working from a bad script. Also, the casting in The Amazing Spider-Man doesn't really work for me. No one delivers a bad performance but none of the actors feel particularly suited for their roles. Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker feels a little too cocky for my taste. That said, I think Garfield's performance in Spider-Man: No Way Home did a lot to redeem his version of the character. At the end of the day, The Amazing Spider-Man isn't a bad film, it's just underwhelming and forgettable. Not exactly a great launching pad for the reboot of a high profile character.

Rating: 62%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Underworld

In the seventies, Doctor Who started using a special effects process called colour-separation overlay (CSO), an early form of green screen technology. The results weren't always convincing, but it allowed the budget-conscious show to put actors into any number of exotic locales. When done well, CSO was hardly noticeable. When done poorly, CSO could be very distracting. The Underworld serial is a prime example of bad CSO. A lot of Underworld, fittingly, takes place underground in caves. But instead of filming in actual caves, which had been done well in earlier stories like The Mutants and Revenge of the Cybermen, CSO was used extensively to insert the actors into cave backdrops. The end results were far from seamless. Logistically, I can understand why they did it. Trying to have K9 move around inside an actual cave would have been impossible. But, unfortunately, the CSO winds up tarnishing an already mediocre story. As far as the plot goes, Underworld is very similar to the First Doctor story The Ark. So much so that I can't really be bothered to recap it here. Ultimately, Underworld isn't a terrible serial. At the very least, it's better than The Invisible Enemy, which isn't saying much.

Rating: No hard feelings%

The Octagon

Scott James, played by Chuck Norris, is a retired karate champion and a bit of a dick. Scott's estranged brother, Seikura, is running a ninja training academy for terrorists somewhere in South America. Everyone in Scott's life is either trying to convince him to put a stop to Seikura and his men or they are actively getting killed by Seikura and his men, sometimes both. If Scott decides to take action (would it be much of a movie if he didn't?) he'll need to get past all of the terrorists and all of the ninjas in order to face his brother, one on one, in the Octagon. ("The Octagon" is a reference to the terrorist training camp, because it's kinda shaped like an octagon. We get to see plenty of the camp throughout the film, but the octagon-ness of it all isn't really something that gets shown or remarked upon until the last twenty minutes of the movie. You would think that, since they decided to call the movie The Octagon, it might be more prominent in the film, but not so much.) Much like JCVD, Chuck Norris is a kicker and he kicks the shit out of a whole bunch of terrorists and ninjas in this movie. The Octagon also features Spaghetti Western legend Lee Van Cleef and Art Hindle from The Brood and the original Black Christmas. I could talk about The Octagon all day long. It feels like a movie that was tailor made for me. I urge everyone to check out The Octagon if, for no other reason, just to hear Chuck Norris's super echoey overdubbed monologue. It's all stilted and whispery. It's great.

Rating: 59%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Ernie Hudson, of Ghostbusters fame, is in The Octagon, briefly.

Masters of the Universe

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was a gold mine for Mattel in the early 80s. It made sense that they would try to translate that success into a feature film. Why they chose Cannon Films to make that happen remains a mystery. What we do know is that the movie bombed and was a key factor in Cannon's eventual bankruptcy. Watching the movie now, it's clear that Cannon invested some serious cash (by their standards) into the production. It's a very expensive looking low budget film filled with costumed extras and decent special effects. It's also clear that Cannon and Mattel pulled the plug early and He-Man and Skeletor's climactic battle had to be cobbled together on the fly with no money. It's not surprising that the movie disappointed audiences when it was first released. Nobody went into a He-Man movie expecting to watch the girl from that Springsteen video mourning her dead parents. Despite the film's flaws, I can appreciate it for what it is. I mean, how can you hate on a movie where Billy Barty tries to talk to a cow?

Rating: 62%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Batman & Robin

When Batman Forever came out in 1995, I was all in. I saw it in the theatre twice, I had the poster on my wall, I had the soundtrack, I wore Batman Forever branded gear from head to toe, and I even had one of those promotional mugs from McDonalds. And yet, by the time Batman & Robin came out in 1997, I couldn't have cared less. I didn't see it in the theatre, I didn't get the soundtrack, I couldn't give a shit about the movie. I cared so little about Batman & Robin that I realized, while I was watching it earlier this week, that I had never actually watched the movie from beginning to end before. I wish I could tell you that it's not as bad as people would have you believe, but they've pretty well got it right. Much like how Batman Returns really amped up the Tim Burton-ness of it all, Batman & Robin is swimming in Schumacher. There's more neon, more cartoony sound effects and more allusions to the 1966 TV series. Not even well thought out allusions either, they have Commissioner Gordon dressed up like he's Chief O'Hara for some reason. So, long story short, if you've never seen Batman & Robin before, don't. Or, if you have seen it and you're considering revisiting it, don't.

Rating: 50%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: When we first see Mr. Freeze in his lair, he's forcing his henchmen to watch the Rankin/Bass classic The Year Without a Santa Claus.

The Sun Makers

The TARDIS touches down on Pluto. Expecting only a barren planet, the Doctor is surprised to find that Pluto has been thoroughly terraformed and industrialized. The Doctor and his friends soon discover that most of the people on Pluto are living under the oppressive thumb of "the company." With only a small group of rebels living in the tunnels under the cities. Our heroes join up with the underground and launch a rebellion against "the company," so that everyone might have the chance to breathe freely under Pluto's six artificial suns. The Sun Makers is a good serial marred by low production value. Some of the sets look very unique and elaborate while others look incredibly bland and unfinished. And they're all poorly lit. I liked the script and the characters and some of the production design but this has to be one of the cheapest looking Doctor Who serials I've ever seen.

Rating: I always whisper when I'm opening safes%

Bloodsport

US Army Captain Frank Dux is traveling to Hong Kong to compete in an underground fighting tournament known as the Kumite. When he gets back to the States, he'll either be in handcuffs or a coffin. Bloodsport starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. Coming soon to a TV near you.

Bloodsport, JCVD's first starring role, is a lot of fun. If you can get past some of the weaker acting and the formulaic plot, there's lots to enjoy. The supporting cast includes Donald Gibb (aka Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds), Bolo Yeung and Forest Whitaker. That's right, Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker is in this movie. The fighting is well done across the board, but my favorite part of the movie might be the montages. There are so many montages. There's a montage at the beginning of the movie, introducing the audience to some of the various fighters we'll see later competing at the tournament. There's an extended flashback/origin story montage for Frank Dux, showing us how he came to learn martial arts and his reasons for entering the Kumite. There are also competition montages, chase montages and there's even a sad bus ride montage. And, in case you were wondering, JCVD does the splits in this movie not once, not twice, not thrice, but seven freakin' times.

Rating: 75%

(Image from Wikipedia)