Megashark Vs Crocosaurus: One glass of wine was not enough...

Warning: Movie not as awesome as DVD cover appears

Megashark Vs Crocosaurus is one of the lamest movies I've watched in a long while.  And for The Queen Of Cheese, that's saying something. 

Asylum Productions recycles the surprisingly enjoyable Megashark Vs Giant Octopus storyline, but brings in a giant, prehistoric crocodile instead.  I'm all for recycling ideas and churning out B-movies, even C and D movies.  But this ended up being an endurance test to sit through the entire thing.  That's why I finally cracked open my 1999 bottle of Castillo Del Corzo red wine and had a tall glass while I vowed I would make it to the end of this "movie".

What makes this bad, and not in a good way?  Absolutely no love given to the script.  It's a mish mash of plot holes, random associations, and completely wooden characters that give you nothing to grab onto.  The weak attempts at humor just make it more pathetic.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm glad they at least tried to put some funny in there, but with a story that discombobulated it just falls flat.

Add to that an ensemble of actors who seem like they could have done so much better than this "movie'.  We have Sarah Lieving as the hard nosed military type person first sent to recruit Jaleel White as the lone survivor of the Megashark's attack on a Navy ship, and then Gary Stretch as the less than savory guy who takes advantage of natives to make a buck, and somehow has enough manpower and connections to capture and transport a gigantic Crocosaurus across the ocean.  We even get a surprising amount of screen time for poor bastard Robert Picardo, who I loved way back when he was on China Beach, and am vaguely aware of from Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis. Jaleel White survived child star fame, only to be in something this bad?  Gary Stretch has an impressive resume, but this role definitely leaves a black hole in it.  Sarah Lieving has a lot of roles under her belt, too.  I've seen her in a few, including Beast Of Bray Road, and I know she has more talent than this role showcases.

There's a lot of chemistry amongst the cast, despite the distracted, lackluster script.  I suspect a lot of the issues with Megashark Vs Crocosaurus are due to brutal editing to fit a certain time constraint.  With the way the scenes jump around with very little connectivity, the way characters are thrust together with casual mentions that they know each other and have prior conflict, and giant plot craters, the actors can only deliver their lines and hang on until the bitter end.  There could have been genuine camaraderie among the characters, but any scene that could have made you care is probably on the cutting room floor.

This is soooo much better than the sequel!Let's talk about the special effects.  Maybe it was the tall glass of wine, but the graphics weren't that bad, all things considered.  But then again, all things considered, the CGI didn't have high standards to live up to.  There's plenty of recycled CGI of the Megashark, and some good looking CGI of the Crocosaurus.  There's more footage of the creatures than there were in MegaShark Vs Giant Octopus, but Asylum saved some bucks by showing lots of shadows in the water instead of actual creatures.  At least a little love was there in the details, even though the details were still as sparse as ever for an Asylum Production.

Megashark Vs Crocosaurus had no plot, managed to waste a lot of actor's talents, and an hour and a half of my time.  This one is so bad I won't even buy the DVD if I see it on sale for $5-like I did with a squeal of delight when I spotted Megashark Vs Giant Octopus for that price a few months ago.  The poor clerk in Fred Meyer's may never be the same.

Ferocious Planet: Nibbles more than it bites...

Run! Bad career moves are right behind you!After suffering through Your Highness and it's total lack of funny, when I sat down to watch Ferocious Planet the next day my expectations for anything to ever be good again were way, way down there.  That's probably why I found enjoyment in this hollow ripoff of Savage Planet (which didn't have much to inspire with itself), or any other B-movie offerings that came before it.

This wasn't horrible.  The graphics on the monsters were pretty good.  Not as good as the DVD cover would have you believe, but that's typical.  I can forgive less than stellar CGI when there are other elements that keep my interest.

There are a lot of characters to keep track of, at least in the beginning.  Naturally they start getting picked off one by one, so we get down to a core group for the majority of the movie pretty fast.  John Rhys Davies barely makes it to the first commercial break, but that's just as well.  He's better than a movie like this and it makes me wonder if he takes these roles because he thinks they'll be fun, or if he's just that tired.

What really won me over was the well placed humor through the whole movie.  Finally a newer movie that gets it!  Fine, give me melodrama, give me action, even some blood and gore.  But make sure you break it up with some humor.

It's not even over the top humor.  It's surprisingly subtle things all throughout.  One liners here and there, looks exchanged between the characters, and just simple dialogue between them, as well.  It makes you feel a little more at home in this parallel dimension they got themselves thrown into, and  makes the threadbare script just a minor annoyance.

Most notable of the cast besides John Rhys Davies is poor bastard Joe Flannigan, of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis fame.  He's also so much better than a role like this, but he plays it with charm, so you can't help but root for him to survive  until the end (and what will surely be an even more pallid sequel).  He's the main reason this movie had some warmth, depth, and humor.  I look forward to seeing him in what will surely relaunch his career, Spore.  Sadly for Mr. Flannigan, it looks like a movie right up my alley, so I'm not  holding my breath for a sudden jolt in his fame after it airs.

Overall, Ferocious Planet had a lot more going for it than many movies of its ilk.  It had a decent cast, halfway decent writing, well placed humor, and pretty cool looking beasties.  It was certainly a better way to spend an afternoon than the last movie I paid good money to see.

Blue Demon: The most terrifying floating plastic triangles you'll ever see!

Look out! It

Blue Demon is yet another entry into the "demonized shark" movie category. A secret lab funded by the government is researching ways to control sharks to do their bidding. The scientists believe they are doing work to benefit mankind, but unbeknownst to them the government has other plans. Plus, there's someone hijacking their project with deadly results. dun, dun, dun, dun!

That's about as serious as the movie gets, and I was so very happy to sit and waste an hour and a half of my time on it. It has a lot of goofy extras to it to provide much needed humor, and doesn't go for the gore factor. This is a funny, good time movie with a decent cast to back it up.

I've made it clear that I think Dedee Pfeiffer is very difficult to tolerate onscreen for more than a few minutes at a time. She's twitchy. She's fidgety. I think they keep messing with her dosage. But in the very cheesy, gloriously ludicrous Blue Demon, she fits wonderfully! Her cutesy act isn't nauseating. Her overly-caffeinated persona makes sense as a quirky scientist who's just a bit too smart to speak with us 'regular people', let alone have more than basic social skills. Plus, she's balanced out very nicely by her co-star, Randall Batinkoff, who plays her long suffering, potentially ex-husband. He's the anchor that lets your eyes focus while she vibrates and hums herself practically into another dimension.

The rest of the cast all fit this odd little movie just perfectly. We have Josh Hammond playing a weird little lab assistant named Avery that you keep expecting to start talking about surfing, but plays with the computers instead. There's also Danny Woodburn who plays the uptight, possibly corrupt, boss to our lab gurus, Lawrence Van Allen. He easily steals every scene he is in, and it's not because he can't help but stand out because he's so much shorter. He's got remarkable screen presence, and makes his character the most believable of the lot as he yanks food out of their hands because they're not paying attention to him, and alternates between making the lab gurus lives hell, and needing an antacid to deal with them.

Then there's our big, bad, evil military character, played by Jeff Fahey. He plays a character named, of all things, General Remora. Right there you know for a fact this movie is not taking itself seriously, which is why I love it so morbidly. Jeff Fahey plays it to the hilt, clenching cigars, spitting out orders, seething with righteous indignation when he's questioned. He's out to create a military weapon, gosh darn it, not out for a day at the beach!

But the cast is just the icing on the cake of Blue Demon. The "short bus" special effects are a riot, and almost painfully bad. I swear to god the shark fins in the water scenes are just waterproof cardboard cutouts painted black and on the slowest motor they could find. When people are frantically trying to get out of their way, I checked my watch several times just to make sure I hadn't fallen into some kind of slow moving time warp. In all of those scenes I could have gotten up and microwaved another bag of popcorn and not missed a thing.

The little bit of CGI they went for is actually pretty good. They give the sharks expressions, and have them zip back and forth (not unlike the frenetic pace of Ms. Pfeiffer). Yes, it's so obviously blue screen out of the water it's laughable, but it just adds to the cheese factor, so I forgive.

If you're tired of shark movies that flash way too much chomped flesh at you, Blue Demon will be a pleasant respite. If you're also tired of movies taking themselves too seriously, especially when they should know better, this will be a breath of fresh air. And if you've been given a headache trying to keep up with Dedee in other movies, I think you'll be as shocked as I was at how tolerable, and even likable, she is in Blue Demon.

With Discovery Channel airing Shark Week, Blue Demon should be on your watch list to help get over all that darn reality and education they insist on adding to their quest for ratings. It also has the added bonus of plenty of giggle factor! This is a Queen Of Cheese "must see", or at least "must watch once, and wonder what the heck is wrong with that Queen Of Cheese to think this is watchable...". Enjoy!

The Gamers: Dorkness Rising: Awesome. Simply awesome!

Awesome. Simply awesome!

I came so close to dismissing The Gamers: Dorkness Rising when Netflix suggested it. But there was something about the idea of a bunch of adults sitting around playing D & D and taking it way too seriously that called to me. Not that I ever played D & D, mind you, but I knew plenty of people who did.

This independently made movie by Dead Gentlemen Productions is actually a sequel, but with more money behind it. For an independent film, the special effects are pretty slick, the costumes well designed, and the sets very authentic. It looked like they rented out a Renaissance fair location in the off season, or something.

The story centers around a man trying to write a Dungeons & Dragons module, but having problems finishing it because his buddies screw around while playing, so they never actually get to the end of it. In his frustration he tries to keep them under tight control, which in turn makes them figure out more outlandish things to do to undermine him and screw around with the game even more.

Early on the writer decides to invite one of the player's ex-girlfriends to join the game, feeling that new blood, and an intelligent female at that, would help. The fact he obviously has a slight crush on her doesn't hurt his cause. So they all start a new game with the experienced players laughing at the newbie's choices for her character ("You only have 81 hit points!"), at least until a scene where she slays all of the foes in one turn. The bickering and bantering back and forth is what drives the movie, even with the entertaining medieval yarn being spun for game play.

To add to the ludicousness, one of the other players decides he will play a female in the game, and keeps arguing that this character isn't evil, but merely "chaotic neutral". This is in doubt whenever the sorceress does things like blow up a farmhand just because he's taking too long to give directions. In the game world this character flips back and forth between a gorgeous blond woman, and the player in drag.

This isn't a high octane movie by any means, but I was glued to the screen the entire time, and laughing most of my way through it. Between a gender-bending sorceress, newbies kicking ass, a bard that constantly gets killed (begging the question why anyone would want to play a bard) in between seducing every female character he meets, a warrior priest who tried to be an elf on top of that, and a goody-two shoes warrior trying to keep them all under control, the game play is a riot. Even for someone not all that familiar with the intricate workings of D & D, you'll get the idea just from the arguing among the real world characters.

There's just enough drama from the real world to keep things from dragging. One of the players (the ex-boyfriend) is just plain a jerk, and the type of guy who screams about the rules until the rules put him at a disadvantage. We get glimpses of the players out in their 'real world' to give a little background, but there's never too much to get us sidetracked from the real heart of the movie: the new module being written.

The Gamers: Dorkness Rising is extremely well written. The actors, all unknowns, play their parts to the hilt. This is a wonderfully done independent movie, and one I will be adding to my wish list on Amazon.

For anyone who has ever played D & D, Magic: The Gathering, or any of those role playing games, or even just known someone who did, this movie will entertain you, maybe make you cringe as you see yourself in some of the characters, and will give you a strong urge to pull out that dusty box from the closet you've refused to acknowledge for so many years. The Gamers: Dorkness Rising is a Queen Of Cheese "must see"!

Grindhouse Presents Planet Terror: Why did it have to be &%*!# zombies?

I would have loved it if it weren
Campy dialogue. Ridiculous plot. Absolutely no scientific validity to things like launching yourself into the air with a bazooka and surviving, let alone being able to fire a machine gun attached to a stump of a leg. There was tons of things about this movie I really liked, even loved. Yet I didn't love it. In fact, I was glad to finally have it be over. And why? Because it was another stupid, lazy zombie flick.

I just can't get into zombie movies. They bore me to tears, and make me feel ripped off. There's no real thought put into a zombie movie. Gas, toxic chemical, weird voodoo or something of that sort is turning people into flesh eating, mindless fiends that are only stoppable by cutting them to pieces, shooting them to pieces, or otherwise reducing them to goo. If you get bit, you'll become one, too. Mankind is doomed. Whatever.

There's no cool villain to root against. Often we get pointless deaths just to provoke some kind of a reaction from the audience. Barring that, the movie relies on lots of splatter to get a reaction. I'll give Planet Terror nods to that. There is plenty of gore for the sake of gore, which is another lazy fallback that makes me yawn.

This movie frustrated me to no end because it has cheese all over it. A go go dancer calls herself Cherry Darling and wants to be a stand up comic, yet gets insulted when people point out her name sounds like a stripper. Then when she loses a leg she cries "How am I going to be a stand up comedian now?" That's just beautiful! Then as she's walking around with the leg from a table as a prosthetic, the renegade soldier ordering her around calls her "Peg." Priceless! There is a ton of cornball dialogue and character interaction that make me laugh, but then it all went to rot when I had to deal with the damn zombie/people turning into zombie scenes.

Plus, the story drags. Maybe it flowed better in the shortened double feature version, but the full length just keeps going and going and going with lots of diversionary scenes with secondary characters just meant to fill up time. Yes, they're interesting, but the movie could have been over at least half an hour earlier, and I wouldn't have been disappointed.

I do appreciate the uniqueness of how this movie blends 70's stylings with modern. The costumes are full-on 70's, the cars are sweet classics, but then we have people text messaging all over the place. It gives the whole thing a surreal feel. The addition of little details like "missing reels" and the simulation of old projector film adds to the right atmosphere.

The cast all do great in their roles, no matter how scattered and small they may have been. Naturally Rose McGowan steals the show, between being "I can't help but hate her" beautiful, and having the right delivery for her cheesy, cheesy lines, and being able to shoot at people with her leg and make it look believable. There are tons of cameos, as well, including Bruce Willis and Quentin Tarantino.

If this just wasn't a zombie and gore for the sake of gore story, I would be a happy camper. However, it is a zombie and gore for the sake of gore story, so no matter how many cheap laughs it gave me, Planet Terror will never be a movie I watch again, let alone own. If you love Robert Rodriguez movies and zombies and gore, you're in for a treat. If you're like me and demand a little bit more from your cheese, you'll be disappointed, and a little nauseated.