Creepy, crawly, radioactive fun!

With Halloween approaching, it is my duty to remind you to keep the fun apace with the frightful for those movie marathons countless of us will indulge in. I can appreciate a good scare, but I need a good laugh along with it, because after all, I am The Queen Of Cheese. I need giggles. I need cheese. I need plots lifted from old black and white sci-fi thrillers that were funny mostly because they were so cornball bad. I need Eight Legged Freaks, and so do you.

We have the small, isolated town of Prosperity where the most popular jock tries to get in the pants of the lady sheriff’s hot daughter, young kids ride their bikes everywhere without much concern from their parents, local kooks collect spiders, and trucks drive through with radioactive waste. There’s also a mayor trying to revitalize the town after the mining has died by building an eyesore of a mall with the theory that people will just gravitate towards it like a moth to a flame. Reenter the long lost son of one of the mine workers who left over a girl (naturally), who is now the hot lady sheriff. We get painful attempts at him romancing her, lots of scenes with the young son trying to warn the town that spiders are coming to get them, all punctuated by the mildly delusional narrations of the town’s only apparent radio broadcaster.

The plot isn’t important, and the writers knew it. Instead they focus on the colorful characters populating the town (and soon the cocoons of one ton spiders). They also pay a lighthearted tribute to small town life against the backdrop of wonderfully CGI-ed spiders leaping through the air, skittering after their prey, lunging from trapdoors in the sand, or just lumbering through main street because they’re the big bad tarantula that can. The fact the spiders occasionally roar like a lion, mutter obscenities, and giggle fiendishly is all just icing on the cake.

Even if you’re afraid of spiders, you need to give this movie a chance. David Arquette (Scream) fits perfectly in his “lovable loser trying to win the girl of his dreams that he lost by punching out her jerk of a boyfriend back in high school and that’s why he left without a word and now has a lot of explaining to do” character. His aunt Gladys is divinely played by Eileen Ryan, right down to the cigarette habit that helps save the day. Kari Wuhrer is recovering from Sliders by playing a tough, beautiful, believably intelligent lady raising her two precocious kids single handed, while juggling her career as sheriff. Her eldest daughter is a barely recognizable Scarlett Johansson (before the bleach blond hair and what I think is some cosmetic work) who does a good job being a snotty teenager who still loves her mom, no matter how much she resents still living in this little town. Scott Terra is the little brother obsessed with sci fi movies, and who naturally no one believes because he’s a kid who’s obsessed with sci fi movies. Rounding out the main characters is Harlan, our conspiracy theory radio broadcaster, played by Doug E. Doug.

Whoever did the casting on this film did it with care and made sure the chemistry fit. This wasn’t designed to be a blockbuster, by any means (especially since it was up against Spiderman of all things), so they didn’t try to get a “name” to sell it. As a result the large cast all meshed together to form a believable community of small town folk just trying to jab a pitchfork in the belly of that spider trying to get in through the mall door.

The graphics on the spiders are a huge selling point for me, as well as the acting and the writing. Someone did a lot of research to get the variety of spiders right, and tended to the project with the love it deserves. Little things like spraying perfume at a giant spider demands that you see the mandibles frantically waving the offending scent away, or else why bother?

Eight Legged Freaks is one of my ‘go to’ movies when I need a good laugh. The fact this movie embraces the cheese and giggle factor make me love it all the more. I have pushed this on to friends and coworkers to initiate them into the world of cheese with good results. I now insist those of you who have not experienced this wonderfully cheesy movie treat yourselves now that the Halloween sales are on! For those who already know and love this movie, do as I will, and pull out your copy for a Halloween (or any time) viewing, and giggle away!

Tags: b-movie, bug attack, cheese factor, creature feature, David Arquette, Doug E. Doug, Eight Legged Freaks, Eileen Ryan, giggle factor, Kari Wuhrer, Leon Rippy, Matt Czuchry, movie review, popcorn munching afternoon, Rick Overton, Scarlett Johansson, Scott Terra

Lots of action, lots of cheese, lots of fun!

If you go to see G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra expecting a plot, you’re completely missing the point of a summer blockbuster like this. You’re supposed to be going for a good time, to see lots of action, cool C.G.I., and some cheesy, cheesy goodness! There’s sort of a plot here, but it’s threadbare, just enough to hang the goodies on. For The Queen Of Cheese, that was plenty for a rip roaring good time, one making me anxious for those two sequels Dennis Quaid is already lined up for.

The cast is huge, so that is a bit distracting at first, but once things get moving you’re able to stay focused on the main group. There are also a couple of cameos in pivotal roles, such as Jonathan Pryce as The President Of The United States, and Brendan Fraser as Sergeant Stone, responsible for whipping the two newest Joes into shape. Otherwise we have several character on the good and bad side to keep up with, and every single one of them was cast very well.

On the good guy side we naturally have Dennis Quaid as General Hawk, the man in charge of the Joes. He’s likable and charming, as only Dennis Quaid can be. Already on his team is Breaker, played by Saïd Taghmaoui, Heavy Duty, played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, the awesome Snake Eyes, played by Ray Park, and the surprisingly not-irritating Scarlett, played by Rachel Nichols. Freshly recruited are Duke, played by Channing Tatum (who I still giggle over being in Step Up), and Ripcord, played by Marlon Wayans. This whole bunch have good chemistry together, making them a lot of fun to watch. All of the players keep their roles subdued, since an over the top performance would have just been lost in all of the over the top action and C.G.I. I was happy that the story skipped over a whole bunch of “you’re the new guy and don’t deserve to be here” crap they could have done. They hinted at it briefly, but quickly glossed it over to make them a team.

On the bad guy side we have a bunch of actors who get to have a lot of fun being bad. Christopher Eccleston (Dr. Who) plays James McCullen (and future Destro). Lee Byung-hun plays Snake Eyes’ rival, Storm Shadow, with lots of spectacular fighting as a result. Sweet little Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays the evil Cobra Commander, and does it so well I didn’t recognize him. There’s a small part played by the wondrous Arnold Vosloo as Zartan, a master of disguise. They weave his part in well, and leave it hanging wonderfully for the sequels. And because it wouldn’t be G.I. Joe without The Baroness, we have Sienna Miller playing it to the hilt. There’s an awesome fight scene between The Baroness and Scarlett which goes above and beyond the typical “we have to have a girl fight” scene.

Okay, there’s a plot in here somewhere, but I didn’t really care, since I was so distracted by the wonderful explosions and tons of great action. It centers around nanotechnology and missiles built to exploit them. Naturally they’re dangerous weapons and end up falling into the wrong hands, and then the good guys have to chase them. There’s an underwater military base, some sweet gadgets and vehicles, and lots of firepower. What more do you need, really?

Despite a lot of folks giving G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra negative reviews, it still opened number one at the box office this weekend, and I think has secured the production of those two sequels. The action is intense, but I think even younger viewers won’t be overwhelmed by it, and will just be delighted at all of the eye candy in front of them.

I will be snapping this up on DVD the week it’s released, I enjoyed it that much, and will be in line opening weekend when the sequels do come out. I highly recommend giving this a viewing while it is on the big screen, and checking any high expectations for complex plots at the door. Go in expecting what I did, which is a cheesy good time with lots of giggle factor, and you will be very, very entertained!

Tags: action flick, action movie, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Arnold Vosloo, Baroness, Brendan Fraser, Byung-hun Lee, Channing Tatum, Christopher Eccleston, cobra, Dennis Quaid, Destro, Duke, G.I. Joe The Rise Of Cobra, giggle factor, Grégory Fitoussi, Jonathan Pryce, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marlon Wayans, movie based on a toy, movie review, Rachel Nichols, Ray Park, Ripcord, Saïd Taghmaoui, Shana 'Scarlett' O'Hara, Sienna Miller, Stephen Sommers, Zartan

Look out! It's a floating triangle moving very, very slowly towards you!

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!

Tags: b-movie, Blue Demon, cheese, creature feature, Danny Woodburn, Dedee Pfeiffer, giggle factor, Jeff Fahey, Josh Hammond, movie review, Randall Batinkoff, shark attack movie, Shark Week

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”!

Tags: Dungeons And Dragons, giggle factor, independent movie, movie review, role playing games, The Gamers Dorkness Rising

I would have loved it if it weren't just another stupid zombie flick...

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.

Tags: gore for the sake of gore, Grindhouse Presents Planet Terror, movie review, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Rose McGowan, zombie movie, zombies

Pretty to look at, but not a lot of depth...

I was curious about this particular adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl, which I enjoyed reading so much despite (and maybe because of) plenty of artistic license with history. I was disappointed the movie left out so much of the novel, changed “facts”, and presented us with a husk of the great historical fiction the writer delivered.

The Other Boleyn Girl is certainly beautiful to watch. The costumes are gorgeous, hair and makeup, and all the little details just so. The settings are lush, shots of the castle are done in such a way that it looks ominous, just in case you forget that this isn’t going to be a tale with a happy ending. But there’s no substance here. The script is the usual tripe we’ve heard in every other ‘historical drama’. This should have been a dark drama about political intrigue, an emotional tale about two young sisters pitted against each other to further their family’s interests, and an interesting examination of societal mores, including incest and homosexuality. Philippa Gregory’s novel is certainly much more in depth, and while I understand the need to cut for time, what they chose to cut weakened the overall story instead of getting to the actual meat.

All that being said, I enjoyed the movie. I guess I’m just not picky enough about these kinds of films to be mortally offended that a good book is reduced to a cheesy movie. The dialogue is often stilted because they were trying to make it sound all historical and dramatic, so there’s some cheap chuckles for me there. Seeing the attention to detail on the costumes in comparison to the story also amused me. What did impress me was the quality of the acting.

Eric Bana plays the notorious King Henry VIII, although he barely gets enough screen time to develop his character. He plays the younger, still physically attractive Henry, and rolls with the script that portrays him as a man willing to toss aside his kingdom’s well being just to get a pretty young thing into his bed. Jim Sturgess plays the Boleyn sister’s brother, George, who is also horribly underused. But since his character in the book is torn by his painfully loveless marriage to Jane Parker, his emerging homosexuality, and inappropriate fascination with his sisters, I guess filmmakers were too nervous to tackle those issues. What little we see of George is well played, however.

The other Boleyn family that we see are the father, mother, and uncle. The father and uncle are stereotypes, with the father loving his daughters, but letting his ambition override this to let them be whored out. The uncle is just a sleaze. The mother, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, is polar opposite to her character in the book, and actually loves her daughters, and speaks out on their behalf. Again, all characters are acted well, despite major script limitations.

Then we have the sisters. I truly didn’t think Natalie Portman could pull off the Anne Boleyn of the novel, who is portrayed as cruelly conniving and ambitious, and viciously jealous of her sister, Mary’s, ‘good fortune’. The movie tones Anne down quite a bit, making her more sympathetic, and giving Natalie Portman a chance to prove she can act, despite not being allowed to in those last Star Wars movies. She is believable as an ambitious, strong willed young woman willing to do whatever it takes to become queen, yet still loves her sister and brother, and the daughter she gives birth to. Ms. Portman, I am duly impressed.

Scarlett Johansson plays a sweet young Mary who is put in front of the king after Anne blows her first chance. Once again I was surprised at how well this actress did with the role. She could have gone all “Mary Sue” on us and been so sweet that you want to slap her around. Instead she shows us a young woman who initially resists being used as a pawn, then falls in love with the king, and then is cast aside for her sister. Through it all she shows us her anger at her family, and especially her sister, for these betrayals, but makes us believe that she still loves Anne without making Mary look like a doormat.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie. If I hadn’t read the book first, I would have enjoyed it more because I wouldn’t have known how much they butchered it. But cheese is cheese, and while not as trashy as Showtime’s The Tudors by any means, this has a soap opera appeal I can’t stay away from. I will seriously consider adding this one to my permanent collection.

Tags: Eric Bana, Henry VIII, Historical Drama, JIm Sturgess, King Henry, Kristin Scott Thomas, movie review, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Tudors

The Earth has to deal with a serious case of sunburn, or something...

The world is in danger again. This time the plot focuses on global warming, and how much methane is in our atmosphere. I promptly got distracted by jokes about cow farts, and don’t really know the ultimate outcome.

I remember Solar Attack decides that the way to save the world is to shoot nuclear missiles at the North Pole. Okaaay…. Sounds reasonable in a B-movie world, I guess. Then there’s something about Russians versus Americans, and all that old Cold War conflict coming to the surface now that an American billionaire used Russian technology to launch his personal manned craft into low orbit, but it blew up, killing an American astronaut/pilot, and everyone wanted to blame the Russian technology, but it was really because of a huge “coronal mass ejection” that lit the methane in the atmosphere on fire and incinerated him, and then the billionaire knows what’s really going on but no one will believe him now, but he has friends with Russian subs so he takes matters into his own hands to save the world… and stuff.

All I really remember is that after a slew of disaster movies in my recent viewing history, this one at least didn’t have a precocious kid that needed a healthy dose of discipline and a lesson in manners. This one at least didn’t have a contrived treacle-filled sub-plot about family sticking together through tragedy, or society trying to carry on in the aftermath of disaster. This at least just stuck to questionable science, showed plenty of pretty lights to make sure we know there’s lots of “coronal mass ejections”, and a requisite fist fight/action scene or two.

It just didn’t keep my interest, however. I don’t think it’s all the movie’s fault. I think it’s because I’ve seen so many of this genre of film in the last few days, and just got burned out. I know I fell asleep a couple of times trying to watch it, but there wasn’t anything going on that made me sit up and take notice. It’s just another typical “we’ve got to save the world…again” movie.

I watched it mostly for Mark Dacascos since he’s sunk to the level of Casper Van Dien and Lorenzo Lamas. Decent actor, has plenty of action star chops, but he’s not so good that he can rise above mediocre roles like this. Sometimes he’s funny, and then sometimes intentionally so. I also watched it for Louis Gossett Jr, an actor I feel deserves more respect than a movie like this. I didn’t watch it for anything else except a morbid curiosity about how bad this would get.

To sum this up, I tried to watch yet another disaster movie, and got absolutely nothing out of it, including an even halfway decent review. I’ll give it another try in a few months and see if my “disaster movie tolerance level” has subsided, but I don’t have high hopes that anything will save this movie for me.

In the meantime, I’m eagerly awaiting my next movie from Netflix, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, and the following trailer will tell you why!

Tags: disaster movie, Disaster Movie Tolerance Level, Joanne Kelly, Louis Gossett Jr, Mark Dacascos, movie review, Solar Attack, solar flares, Solar Strike, Sugith Varughese, We Have To Save The World Again

Really needed more beasties...

Merlin And The Book Of Beasts is another stretch of the story about King Arthur, Camelot, Excalibur, Guinevere, Knights Of The Round Table, and all the rest of those medieval romantic sort of tales. It’s been years since King Arthur’s death, and presumably that of his son/enemy Mordred. Merlin has ensconced himself within the forest with magical booby traps to keep the world away. We see a group of knights traveling into this forest, seeking him out, with one knight conspicuously with their face guard down at all times to hide their true identity. Right off the bat with a cheap trick like that to keep you from knowing we have a warrior princess in our midst, I’m bracing for huge disappointments, even after an opening sequence featuring killer butterflies.

So we quickly discover that Princess Avlynn is our mystery knight, and she wields a satisfactory sword. She manages to come face to face with the antisocial Merlin, explains the world has gone to hell at the hands of a dark wizard, they need his help and wisdom, and so on and so forth. They banter back and forth, James Callis playing Merlin with the proper demeanor, but with a distracting, annoying affectation to the delivery of his lines. If he had dropped the overly forced deep and gravelly thing, I would have enjoyed his performance a whole lot more. Laura Harris plays Avylnn well enough with the lines she’s given, but I was so distracted by how unnatural her hair looked that I paid more attention to that than anything she said or did.

But I digress. Avylnn ends up calling Merlin a coward because he refuses to help her, she rejoins her party, they travel along a road only to be attacked by a dragon soldier, and Merlin makes his completely anti-climactic entrance to save the day and join them after all. From here on out it’s just a matter of sitting with a cup of coffee and hoping for some better beasts than what we’ve seen so far.

We get some decent Gorgon action, but that’s about it. I was really hoping for lots of beasts being unleashed onto our heroes so they could pass the time more entertainingly by battling them. Since the plot left me so cold, some cheesy CGI action would have warmed the cockles of my heart, and made me more amenable to thinking this wasn’t just a waste of my time, and the actors’.

For a typical Camelot regurgitation, this was tolerable. It just wasn’t what I expected. From the previews I expected fights among warring sorcerers complete with lots of pretty lights. I expected lots of wondrous creatures of myth and lore. I expected more than what looks like a wig ready to fall off our heroine if she thrashed around too much, and certainly more than an uncomfortable plot line revolving around Mordred wanting to do his half-sister.

I never watched enough of the newer Battlestar Galactica to form an opinion about James Callis. However, from what I saw in Merlin And The Book Of Beasts, I think he was holding back and going against his instincts to play Merlin the way someone else wanted him to. The rest of the cast does admirably well with their roles, to the point I’m frustrated at such a waste of talent. This is yet another movie that should have been really cool, but falls just short.

What’s missing from it? I think it’s passion. This was more of a ‘by the numbers’ medieval/Camelot/Merlin story than anything else, and no one seemed excited to be part of it. Even the CGI-ed snakes on the Gorgons’ heads looked like they were bored. That came across to me as a viewer, and that with the lack of cool beasties guarantees I won’t bother snatching up the DVD when it’s released.

Merlin And The Book Of Beasts is worth one viewing. Sadly, that’s about all it’s worth.

Tags: Avylnn, b-movie, Battlestar Galactica, Camelot, descendants of knights of the round table, Excalibur, fantasy movie, Guinevere, James Callis, King Arthur, Laura Harris, Merlin, Merlin And The Book Of Beasts, Mordred, movie review, Sword In The Stone

In space, no one can hear you act in a bad movie...

Jack Scalia deserves better than this movie. He must have been desperate for work back in 1996 when Dark Breed was made. He got shoved into a tiny pigeonhole of a character who potentially has a lot of depth, except the writers were afraid to venture into the deep end. He’s a decorated war veteran with strong feelings about how other vets are treated, takes the lives he saw lost very seriously, takes his job very seriously, and still loves his astronaut ex-wife. He now works for a shadow agency of the government which sent him up to a secret space station to retrieve astronauts previously sent there. And by retrieve, apparently that meant retrieve the bodies. He faced off against an ugly alien, and still has horrible nightmares about the experience. With all this back story we should have a richly developed character, and an interesting story.

We should, but we don’t. It’s not that interesting of a movie, even with aliens possessing the bodies of astronauts who went up in yet another secret space launch, only to crash back on Earth. We have bad aliens who want to hatch their eggs and destroy the planet. We have a good alien who also possessed an astronaut (the ex-wife of our main character/hero) who is out to fight the “Dark Breed.” Why they’re the “Dark Breed” and she’s not is never explained. Or maybe it was, but I missed it because I was too busy downing another cup of coffee to stay awake.

There’s a little gore, a little violence, and a lot of action, so that at least is pretty cool to watch. There’s a ludicrous scene where the good guys are driving off in a van that has a giant dish satellite on top of it. The dish falls off the van and drags behind it, slowing them down. Jack Scalia’s character tries to cut it loose, but in the process ends up sitting in the dish and basically road surfing behind the van. Kowabunga! Or something…

There are some laugh out loud funny moments. One of the aliens gets loose from his restraints after being captured and put in a hospital for observation. The human host ends up running around and making sounds that I’m sure were supposed to be terrifying, but I swear to god was just a recording from a hog calling contest. A little difficult to take that part as seriously as they meant it to be. There’s also plenty of stereotypical military jargon that I doubt is actually authentic. Plus one of the officers is a lovely young lady with non-military approved hairstyle, and way too much makeup. The banter among the good guy characters is often funny, but not always intentionally so.

Another scene that cracked me up was when the astronaut possessed by the good alien meets our hero in a diner. The waitress is nonplussed by the yellow eyes and stilted vocal patterns. She’s too busy being snarky to her because the alien is wanting to order pizza for breakfast. None of the other patrons are even paying attention to the lady in an astronaut’s jumpsuit with the U.S. flag all over it, although I’ll admit that part is probably true to life.

Dark Breed had a lot of potential, but fell very short of it. There’s a lot of angst going on with the astronauts possessed by the “Dark Breed”. They are cognizant of what is happening to them, and what the aliens are making them do, but are powerless to stop it. There’s a tense scene where the humans are temporarily in control of themselves while the aliens are presumably resting, and they debate whether they should kill themselves while they have the chance. As soon as a gun is raised the aliens yank control back, and two of the three actors play it off wonderfully while the third seems to be too distracted by the uncomfortable yellow contact lenses he was forced to wear.

I watched this one strictly for Jack Scalia. I was hoping for a cheesy performance like I got in Kraken: Tentacles Of The Deep. I was disappointed. There is a lot of cheese here, but there’s good cheese, and then there’s cheese that’s just so stinky you can’t even be in the same room with it. Dark Breed falls somewhere in between.

Trailer contains some blood and gore. But, if you watch it, it’ll save you 90 or so minutes, because they put most of the film’s major points in it!

Tags: "Not So Original" Movies, action flick, alien movie, astronauts possessed by aliens, b-movie, Dark Breed, Jack Scalia, movie review, We Have To Save The World

Ah, Stan Lee. You have a sense of humor, I’ll give you that much. I’m pretty sure that’s the reason you put your name to this almost painfully bad, oddly endearing movie called The Harpy, a.k.a. “Stan Lee’s Harpies”.

It stars Stephen Baldwin desperately wishing he were as cool as Bruce Campbell in Army Of Darkness. After all, he plays pretty much the same character, where he’s sucked back in time, wields a shotgun to impress the medieval natives, romances a medieval wench who’s full of fire and initial hatred for him, and is proclaimed “The Chosen One” who will save the land from the evil that infests it.

This isn’t an Army Of Darkness ripoff, but there are enough similarities that I couldn’t help but hold it up in comparison. That’s just not fair, because Army Of Darkness is easily one of my favorite movies of all time, in fact one of the best worst movies ever made, and all else is going to come up frightfully short standing next to it. That being said, The Harpy has a certain charm that comes from a B movie that is really more of a B minus movie. It tries really hard to be funny in the right places, melodramatic in the right places, and action packed in the right places. It is very funny, often intentionally, so it wins points with me there. The action is mild, the violence very toned down, and the harpies are just too-skinny wanna-be models with too much eye makeup who run around in long white slips and horribly fake wings and laugh out loud hilarious fangs. The special effects are “special”, alright, but more in that short bus kind of way. This just adds to the giggle factor, especially when we’re expected to believe the harpies are taking flight, but they’re clearly just standing up straight really fast and having the camera flash to something else quickly while people scramble to get a blue screen in place.

I like to make fun of Stephen Baldwin, but he at least seems to enjoy himself in this movie more than he does in other ventures. He’s not as tedious as a result, and uses at least three expressions to convey his character’s emotional state instead of the one he showed for everything in Earth Storm. Keep up the good work, Stephen, and you may get up to an even half dozen facial expressions in your acting repertoire!

The actor I really watched this movie (twice) for is Scott Valentine. This is a man who knows how to run with a cheesy script and play it to the hilt. He’s a bad guy, and gets to be a wizard bad guy, to boot. He walks around in cloaks, consorts with the Queen Harpy, and generally makes sure every word out of his mouth gets some kind of overtone of smarmy bad-guy-ness. He even gets to play two versions of his evil character, one in present times who seeks to open the portal to the past, and then of course the medieval wizard seeking to open the portal to the future. So we get double the fun and double the Scott Valentine, who is the real star of the film in my opinion.

There’s a formulaic romance in the story which is at least entertaining. There’s also the stereotypical band of men who follow The Chosen One around so they can help defeat the bad guys, and provide additional comic relief, and the occasional emotional barometer for the audience. The storyline in general is nothing original, but the script has so much cheese and giggle factor that it doesn’t matter. Really I just watched it to see how bad it could get before it ended. And it got really, really bad, but in a good way! (Just not as good as Army Of Darkness…)

Tags: army of darkness, b-movie, Bruce Campbell, Earth Storm, movie review, Scott Valentine, Stan Lee, Stan Lee's Harpies, Stephen Baldwin, The Harpy