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WarGames
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Wargames 2: The Dead Code (Review)

July 25, 2008By

Wargames 2: The Dead Code


2008
Directed by Stuart Gillard

It’s War Games 2: The Dead Code, the latest DTV sequel of a movie that last hit theaters when most video renters were still in diapers. Thanks to the magic of constant reruns on TNT, USA, and HBO, everyone who is anyone has seen the original War Games over a billion times. Everyone learns that the only winning move is not to play, than Matthew Broderick changes his grades via computer, and that all programmers leave back doors. Now, War Games has been updated for the new millennium, with a girl computer, modern kids, and the War on Terror so in your face you won’t be able to sneeze. Join us as we encounter War Games 2: The Dead Code, and find out if your childhood has been raped, or merely felt up by your crazy uncle!

As we all know, the Dead Code is up up down down left right left right…no, wait, that’s the 40 lives code. The Dead Code is something new, and we’ll have to watch the film to get. Dammit! Our characters for this radio drama include:

Will Farmer (Matt Lanter) – Our main character whose name sounds super generic. Has a sick, chemical genius mom and a dead father. A compute whiz and hacker/phreaker. Able to seduce chess babes with but a single glance. Evades government security like he’s bin Laden.
Annie (Amanda Walsh) – A girl in chess club who becomes Will Farmer’s lover interest because she is a computer hacking pro. Excuse me while I don’t believe a word of that. Anyway, by the end of the film they are on their way to hacking each other’s naughty bits, and maybe Will will be lucky and find her backdoor password.
Dennis Nichols (Nicolas Wright) – Friend of Will Farmer, master of Stargate MMORPG, trash talker, hanger out in basements, and standard sidekick character.
Bill Carter (Chuck Shamata) – Head tech guy for the RIPLEY project, worried RIPLEY may have gone too far. Another old school hacker.
Kenneth Hassert (Colm Feore) – Horn-Rimmed Glasses. Arrogant guy in charge of the RIPLEY project. Spends most of the film being a jerk and talking down to generals and admirals he is supposed to be impressing for funding. Then suddenly becomes competent in the final section. Colm Feore was President Richard Adar on Battlestar Galactica, which means he should have experience with crazy machines armed with nuclear bombs. All this has happened before and will happen again.
Old Guy (Gary Reineke) – He is just an old guy, nothing to see here…
RIPLEY (Claudia Black)- The new computer is a girl. It is also crazier, more dangerous, and more intelligent. So, yeah, a girl. What does R.I.P.L.E.Y. stand for? Who cares, the film sure doesn’t care enough to tell us! The film used the Aliens and Talented Mr. Ripley jokes, so we will run the “Believe it or not!” joke down your throat until you beg for mercy.

So let’s get rockin’! In Afghanistan (home of Afghan blankets), the director is getting all stylish as jeeps jumping over dunes in slow-motion. The jeeps are driven by a bunch of Eurotrash gangsters and hookers meeting other Eurotrash gangsters who desire hookers, all of which are supposed to be the Taliban or something. They get bombed dead by an unmanned Predator drone. Shock and awe, indeed. If you take a close look at the missiles carried by the unmanned Predator drone, you will see it says “Inert”. I’ve never seen inert explosives explode so large before! We find out the bombing was ordered by RIPLEY, a girl computer! Believe it or not! Computers can’t be girls, so I choose not to believe.

D-War
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

D-War (Review)

January 15, 2008By

D-War

aka Dragon Wars: D-War

2007
Directed and written by Shim Hyung-rae

D-Wars aka Dragons Wars is the film that was announced years ago and everyone though it was crazy. Writer/director Shim Hyung-rae sounded pretty insane with his talk of an epic Korean movie set in LA with dragons blasting everything, and rumor was this was a giant money pit. But investors were hooked, film was created, and soon a trailer emerged that showed dragons and lizard armies marching around LA while a giant snake thing slithers around. This created instant buzz, but it would be another year before D-War hit theaters. Internet weirdos like myself were salivating at the thought of a big-budgeted extravaganza that would either be incredibly awesome or incredibly terrible. Little did we know that we would be getting both in the same movie! For fifteen glorious minutes D-Wars becomes the best movie ever made. However, those fifteen minutes are stuck in the dead center of some of the crappiest writing, acting, logic, and cinematic efforts of the decade. But that’s a good thing, as it makes this review more interesting.

We got Korean dragons. We got subtitles. We got American second rate actors. Shim Hyung-rae is the man responsible for the remake of the Korean daikaiju film Yonggary which became known as Reptillian. The love for this man of giant lizards trashing cities would seem weird were it not for Japan. Still, the concept for D-Wars sounded pretty far out. It depends heavily on Korean myth as well as some random new things. Yuh Yi Joo, Imoogi, Bochun, Atrox, Buraki, Dawdler, the vocabulary you need to learn for this movie reads like some second rate Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh crap! The amount of plot-related alphabet soup words is above and beyond the norm for a giant monster movie. It is distracting, and leaves the audience confused and angry. I don’t want to be angry when watching a monster movie, I want to see giant lizards f-ing things up!

And boy do things get f-ed up! The level of utter chaos here during the money sequence is beautiful. Shim Hyung-rae manages to take to school a squad of previous genre failures. Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla only wishes it had this kind of great monster sequences. For those of you upset over the lack of helicopters vs. dragons the posters for Reign of Fire promised us, despair not, for your cup runneth over in D-Wars! Did you wish that the Gungan army in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was really an army of metal-clad badasses who blow the crap out of innocent villagers? You better start believing in the Blue Fairy because we got there here as well!

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Attack of the Sabretooth (Review)

January 4, 2008By

Attack of the Sabretooth


2005
Directed by George Miller

SciFi Channel has an addiction. That addiction doesn’t flood its veins with poison, or spend the rent money betting that the Steelers will cover the spread. This addiction is with garbage. The SciFi Channel loves garbage. It probably wants to BE garbage. A few more movies like this and its wish will come true. There is only one thing redeeming about Attack of the Sabretooth: It didn’t kill me. But even then, the movie is a failure, as anything this terrible should be fatal!

This crapfest is another of the long parade of SciFi Channel originals, and a sequel in name only to the film Sabretooth. It’s also a sequel in CGI, as some of the same sabretooth renders are reused. In case you are wondering, we are using the British spelling of sabretooth because the film did, as that helps convey to the reader in text form just how painful the movie was. You so want to complain about the spelling of “sabertooth”, don’t you? Well, TOO BAD!!!! MuHAHAHAHAHA!!! I had no escape from the film thanks to a malfunctioning DVD eject button. In fact, that DVD keeps malfunctioning whenever bad films are playing. The TV refuses to be shut off, I unplug, and things continue to play. There is no escape from the bad films, and now you have no escape from reading the horror that is Attack of the Sabretooth. Hey, you can’t go to another website now! I forbid it! Get in here and read on, find out how the evil businessman is killed by CGI so bad you can create better with MSPaint. Find out how they have a retarded walrus sabretooth screaming around like he just got ripped off by the carpenter and couldn’t eat any clams (yes, an Alice in Wonderland joke.) Behold Robert Carradine’s here-before unknown skill of turning his head into a failed CGI student’s rendering! It’s all here, and more!

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Return of the Ghostbusters (Review)

December 14, 2007By

Return of the Ghostbusters

Return of the Ghostbusters
2007
Directed by Hank Braxtan
Return of the Ghostbusters
The Ghostbusters are back, and they’re now in fan film form! Wait a minute…. A Ghostbusters fan film? Feature length? That’s crazy! What’s even crazier is it is a sequel! The original production was a half-hour fan film entitled Freddy Vs Ghostbusters, and that spawned this stand-alone sequel that attempts to remain true to the themes of the original Ghostbusters films while still trying to be not a carbon copy. Now, as this is a fan film, we can expect some of the acting to be a bit off. I won’t focus on wooden performances, but if someone is so bad they actually make it painful to watch their scenes I am going to point them out, because that’s what I do: be a jerk on the internet. But back off, man, I’m a scientist. Really, I am, which is great because I can use that line ironically and nonironically at the same time.

The film was produced by Braxtanfilm, a small company out of Denver. Directed by Hank Braxtan, who also co-wrote it along with star Tim Johnson. Being that they are small time, I don’t have any cool trivia to pad out part of the review with. The visual effects were done by Ryan P. Wilson and Justin Rader, who donated their services for nothing if I am correct. This helped the film save a lot of money. In fact, the film only cost around $2000 while it looks like it cost considerably more. Lots of props were donated by Ghostbusters fans, which helped make the Ghostbusters equipment look like they had actual props and not leftover toys from The Real Ghostbusters line.

I am a fan of the Ghostbusters franchise. I grew up with the films, I watched the cartoon, I drank the Hi-C, I own some Ghostbusters kids books. When the movie was released on DVD I rented it to watch the commentary, and my roommate at the time had never seen the film, so we watched it regularly. He was from China, and didn’t understand the term “ghostbuster” which wasn’t in his dictionary, but I explained what was going on and he enjoyed it.

We’ve had a fan film here before (Star Wars: Revelations) and will have some more later, but for now this Ghostbusters fan film is our focus. So whip out your Ecto Cooler, leash up your class-5 full roaming vapors, and prepare for a ride into fanfilm land with the Ghostbusters! Just remember not to cross the streams.

Erotic Misadventures of the Invisible man
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

The Erotic Misadventures of the Invisible Man (Review)

December 5, 2007By

The Erotic Misadventures of the Invisible Man


2003
Directed by Rolfe Kanefsky

An out of work actor becomes invisible, and erotic hijinks ensue in the butterscotch-scented Erotic misadventures of the Invisible Man. Based on comic books by Milo Manara entitled Butterscotch, they were made into six films with three directors (two films each, possibly to be divided up into half-hour segments.) The only one released at the time of this writing is Erotic Misadventures of the Invisible Man, so that’s the one we are doing. Two versions of the film exist, the unrated version we are going through, and an R-rated version with added footage from the other, unreleased companion film Rolfe directed. Director Rolfe Kanefsky was previously encountered here with Emmanuelle 2000: Emmanuelle in Paradise, another skinimax movie which was made from what was intended to be half-hour shows. The concept of an invisible man has been used in dozens of films, and originated in popular science fiction form with HG Wells’s 1897 novel.

Norman Parent (Scott Coppola) – He’s invisible, he’s a man, he’s the invisible man! Sure he’s not the crazy HG Wells/Claude Rains type, or even the Ralph Ellison type, but just an out of work actor who is down on his luck. One freak accident later and he’s invisible, but has a new girl and goes on ghost-hunting adventures, when he’s not having invisible sex with non-invisible girls.
Kelli Parkinson (Gabriella Hall) – Actress Kelli Parkinson is your typical actress trying to make it big, despite having to deal with a sleazy agent. She lives with a psychic who specializes in sex spells, and is currently dating an invisible man by the name of Norman. Just your average Hollywood biography. Gabriella Hall was previously seen here in Emmanuelle 2000: Emmanuelle in Paradise.
Paul (Craig Peck) – Norman’s friend and amateur special effects guru. Another struggling actor who also takes catering jobs on the side. He doesn’t have any erotic misadventures.
Robert Bull (Doug Merril) – Robert Bull is a sleazy agent who thinks he has the perfect part for his female clients. Kelli Parkinson would disagree, but fellow client Becky Lovey has no qualms with auditioning on the couch, or even in the basement as the case was here. Also becomes invisible, but is foiled on his revenge plot against Kelli by Norman.
Becky Lovey (Stacey Leigh Mobley) – Another aspiring actress, who has no qualms on being naked or having sex with her agent. Also has sex with her European model friend. Doesn’t seem to do any acting, though. Hmmm…. Stacey Leigh Mobley is better known as porn star Holly Hollywood where she has over a hundred movies, pictures of which are easily found on Google.
Madam Nirvana (Kim Dawson) – All in all is all we all are, except Madam Nirvana, as she is also a sex psychic. Don’t ask, just agree, especially since sex psychic involves potion making and ghost hunting. She smells like teen spirit in her heart shaped box, so come as you are and accept all apologies. Yes, I deserve to die for all those song title jokes I crammed in there.
The Duck (Joey Chang) – A running gag through the last part of the film involves a duck coming into a bar repeatedly asking if they have grapes. This is an actual joke and we added a copy of it to the end of the review. The duck is played by a real person, and this is his only role on IMDB. His parents are proud.

Transformers
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Transformers (Review)

November 23, 2007By

Transformers


2007
Directed by Michael Bay

Transformers were the pinnacle of 1980’s toys. They had classic characters and endure to this day. Transformers are among the first toys I remember getting for Christmas (of 1984, where I got toys including Megatron) and are toys I still have stored away in the attic. Even my favorite toy line (Battle Beasts) are just a spin-off of Transformers. I saw the original movie in the theaters and cried when Optimus Prime died. So to say I was interested when it was announced there would be a live action film is an understatement to say the least.

However, the interest soon waned when I found out Michael Bay was to be the director. Problems also arose when preview art of the Transformers showed them to be very ugly-looking. I realize this is not the Generation 1 line but a new universe. I don’t expect tape-recorder robots. I do expect writing that matched Beast Wars at the least, not writing that pales in comparison to the original cartoon. A cartoon where and entire episode revolved around a girl falling in love with Powerglide (who subsequently beat her around a bit). How hard can it be to write something that doesn’t suck? All you had to do was just be average and let the robots do the rest. Instead, we have 2 ½ hours (way too long) where robots don’t do much of anything until the last 25 minutes. And also the robots pee. Seriously. It’s a disgrace. Not to Transformers, but to audiences everywhere. The movie thinks the audience is stupid. The army regularly endangers civilians for no reason. There is a plot about hackers. Every piece of modern technology came from a frozen robot. The sun seems to be stuck at the edge of the horizon (or setting every five minutes) giving every shot an orange glow. More Transformers are killed by humans than Transformers. The robot fight sequences are cool, but were needed earlier. The movie is more than meets the eye, more terrible than the eye could ever meet.

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