The Return of Captain Nemo (1978)

 

So this is an interesting little nugget I discovered whilst reading about other similar themed movies of yore. A long lost adventure sequel of sorts about Captain Nemo set in the future of 1978 (the same year the movie was made). I knew I had to see this.

Upon a little more research, I also discovered that this wasn't actually a movie! No, this was actually a three-part TV series produced by the legendary Irwin Allen (trying to recapture the glory of 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'). This movie is simply the three parts stitched together to sell to the foreign audience. Something that was often done back in the day with TV shows, 'Battlestar Galactica' and 'Buck Rogers' did the same with their initial episodes. The story is, of course, very loosely based around the original story written by Jules Verne (I don't think the Nautilus had lasers, force fields, or kinetic projection capabilities originally).

So on the outlook, this looks and sounds amazing! Just look at that poster! It's just screaming to be watched. Unfortunately things go downhill quite quickly when you actually start watching. A couple of US Navy divers accidentally discover the Nautilus lying dormant in the Pacific. How the sub has never been seen up till that point is anyone's guess. The divers manage to get inside and find Nemo somehow frozen in suspended animation since 1877, apparently. Naturally Nemo is released from his frozen hibernation, is right as rain within minutes, and ready to continue his hunt for Atlantis. 

But wait! There's a snag. The US (and the world I presume) is being terrorised by a super-genius mad professor with his own super hi-tech submarine, and he's threatening to blow up DC unless they give him a gazillion in gold bullion. Hold on! Two US Naval officers just found the Nautilus! They just found Captain Nemo and his wealth of technology from the 1800's! They just discovered the technology of cryogenically freezing a Human Being! They just discovered a man and his machine long thought to be pure science fiction! No time for any of that now!! Just use him and his sub to go after this terrorist guy.

Yeah, so whilst the threat of a mad professor and his robot-maned super sub is a worry, the fact that a fictitious character from a science fiction book just got discovered in suspended animation from 1877, quickly takes a back seat. In fact everyday life just carries on. Nemo isn't at all bothered about the fact he's now living in 1978, and the US Navy is quite happy to use him for their own requirements. 

The whole story feels very rushed and not well thought out. Nemo and his new US Naval crew seem to thwart the mad scientist quite easily on a few occasions throughout the runtime. No sooner had they beaten the professor they managed to discover the lost city of Atlantis! Not so lost after all. But no sooner have they made this miraculous discovery (another one), they have to battle the mad professor again. No time for any in-depth chatter about the civilisation of Atlantis, how they apparently breathe underwater, their tech, or how much of an amazing discovery for mankind this is, batten down the hatches mates! There's action to be had!

This really is a curious hidden gem, well, not that much of a gem. The casting of the two main leads is pretty stella, obviously down to Irwin Allen's involvement. Nemo is played by José Ferrer, and oh boy does he go for it here. He's clearly loving this, and he looks great too, the perfect vision of Nemo (or Captain Birdseye). The mad professor is played by Burgess Meredith, who gives a wide-eyed, short-tempered, manic genius similar to that of his 'Penguin' performance alongside Adam West in 'Batman'. Unfortunately Meredith had to act around his crew of the lamest looking robots you've ever seen. I dunno why they bothered, should have just had a Human crew. They also forgot to give Meredith any sort of costume?

Some of the highlights are obviously the nice submarine model sequences and real-time underwater sequences. Part of the action throughout is, amusingly, seeing Nemo having to go out into the ocean to fix something, or free something. I don't get why Nemo had to go, surely he would stay on board as a Captain would, let the younger Naval guys do it. I'm also pretty sure the modern Naval men would be far more in the know about everything. Nemo would only be able to offer limited info as his knowledge would be centuries out of date. Anyway, the sequences look solid and it was a nice touch to have Nemo using his original Nautilus diving suit (although I'm sure the Navy could have provided him with an up-to-date one when they fixed the Nautilus in San Francisco dry dock).

You can tell this was an Allen production with its familiar-looking sets, the apparent robot obsession, and the obligatory inclusion of the attractive female crew member for no real reason. This version I watched has clearly been chopped up in places because the plot jumps from time to time. I believe they had to cut it down to fit a movie's run time. So that didn't help. You can see why this was never picked up by the studios as it's essentially a poorer version of 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea', only Ferrer makes it worth checking out. I'm still not really sure how the Nautilus would offer any real advantages over modern sub technology. Well I guess the Navy couldn't compete with the mad professors 'Delta Beam'.

5/10

2012 (2009)

You know, I was feeling kinda down recently, a bit low, unsure why really, getting old doesn't help. So what way to make myself feel a bit better? Watch a movie about the destruction of the Earth! Realising that actually, things aren't that bad and could be worse. Just need to win that damn lotto!

So, there was a time when Roland Emmerich was a top Hollywood director churning out sure-fire sci-fi hits. After numerous solid adventures into the unknown realms of science fiction, Emmerich took a turn into the disaster genre. The difference with this disaster flick is that it would feature the literal end of the world, incorporating all natural disasters such as quakes, tidal waves, fires, volcanoes etc...

The plot is pretty straightforward. Without delving deep into actual science, unprecedented massive solar flares are slowly heating up the Earth's core which in turn is causing massive unprecedented shifts in the Earth's crust. All this of course leads to massive unprecedented natural disasters which culminate in a massive unprecedented tidal wave, or tsunami as the cool kids like to say these days. Cue lots and lots of different ways to watch boatloads of people get killed. I guess its not really 'enjoyment', but more of morbid curiosity.

Obviously, like ALL the other disaster flicks you've seen, there are numerous characters which we, the audience, follow as the world collapses around them. Every cliche and trope is here, present and correct, as you might expect. Yet despite the unoriginality of it all, I can't deny, like any other disaster movie, there are times when the emotion does get you. You know its coming, you can see it a mile away, but damn it, the movie still manages to choke you up at times. Damn my Human fragility.

The disaster porn on show here is right up there with the best I can't deny. The special effects still hold up pretty well in parts, the CGI does what it needs to do well. Almost every incident is quite an eye-opener and grabs you in the feels. The start of the action is a bit dodgy but things definitely get better. Obviously there are problems, lots of problems, some dumb, some defying reality and science. Initially as LA starts to rip apart and our main characters are trying to escape, they do so by literally outdriving the destruction. It's almost like watching an in-game videogame sequence, like 'Crazy Taxi' or something, dodging all the devastation. Things rapidly get more and more unbelievable in this sequence and you are forced to suspend your disbelief.

There are many many moments in this movie where the core characters escape the seemingly inescapable, deus ex machina moments for sure. On the flip side there are the usual dumb people who simply seem to give up or not care about living, and just remain in place allowing themselves to get obliterated. The President of the United States (a stoic Danny Glover) choosing to stay with his people at the White House is one such example. Woody Harrelson's crazy conspiracy theory character choosing to stay and watch Yellowstone erupt is another. Luckily there are no dog (or other animal) scenarios to worry about. Because God damn, we all lose the plot if an animal is in peril.

The funny thing is, in this movie Oliver Platt portrays the stern, no nonsense, White House Chief of Staff. Now this guy is essentially following the science and simply wants to get everyone to the ark (yes that kind of ark) and secure it ready for the final mega-tsunami. Of course this line of thinking is about hard choices, survival of the Human race. But naturally, for cinematic purposes, various other characters are against this and have a more sensitive moral outlook, because they are the 'good guys' which we, the audience, should support. But in reality, it's Platt's Chief of Staff whom I found myself supporting, because he made more sense. He wasn't prepared to risk the vital few for the many which could have resulted in no one surviving (obviously it all works out in the end, because movie!). 

This is a typical Hollywood liberal view on things like this. A view that always works out in the movies but in reality would be extremely dangerous. Is it me or did Oliver Platt also look a lot like Democrat Chicago Govenor JB Pritzker? 

Is it also just me but did those arks look really really solid, and it seemed like them hitting the rocks/mountains wouldn't have caused THAT much damage? They were literally thick armour-plated floating skyscrapers. I just don't think bumping into the mountains would have done too much. Anyway, this is an enjoyable movie for sure, it does exactly what it says on the tin, and exactly what you'd come to expect. It delivers on everything, bottom line. Yes it's stupid in places, but it's an action thriller movie for Pete's sake, it's not supposed to be exact science.

6/10

The Naked Gun (2025)

Sacrilege! Were my first thoughts upon hearing about this reboot. We all know Hollywood has a bad record when it comes to reboots, especially when it comes to reboots of classics, especially comedies. Their recent track record for reboots, remakes, and late-in-the-day sequels or prequels isn't the best either. But did we REALLY need a reboot/sequel to this classic spoof franchise? How on Titan could you even go about replacing Leslie Nielsen??

Well, in short, no, we did not need this new entry in the 'Naked Gun' franchise. Yes, it's a reboot and a sequel at the same time. This movie follows on from the last entry as we now follow the son of Frank Drebin, now played by Liam Neeson. Was this a good choice? Well, who on earth else could you cast? I'm struggling to think of ANYONE that could fill Nielsen's shoes. I guess flipping Neeson's recent spate of action man roles into all-out comedy does kinda work. Nielsen went from serious roles into spoof comedy so...Thing is, will I be able to look at another serious action flick with Neeson seriously again?

Straight off the bat this movie makes some huge errors. Where is the classic theme tune? How could you not include that?? Where is the classic police car siren POV gag intro sequence?? Seriously! How could you leave THAT out?? But then they go and tack it on the end credits? And all they do is simply replay all the segments from the original movies? Why not make your own? Plenty of things they could have done, come on now! Ugh!!!

But again I find myself asking questions. Just who is this movie for exactly? People who grew up with Nielsen and this franchise (middle-aged folk like myself), will probably be intrigued, morbid curiosity, but I'm unsure if they will like it (I'm not sure myself). Many younger folk probably haven't even heard of this franchise, or Nielsen! Yes the original trilogy was big back in the day, but they have been somewhat criminally forgotten over time, especially with most of the main cast long gone.

Anyways, the plot is right in line with previous entries. Drebin has to solve a mysterious crime concocted by local wealthy businessman Richard Cane. He wants to revert all Humanity back to its primal state so everyone kills each other off leaving him and his wealthy elite to start the Human Race over; meh. What follows is a somewhat satisfactory attempt at trying to recreate the golden age of spoof that Zucker and Nielsen rattled off so easily. All in all, it feels more scattershot in nature as lots of gags are thrown at us and only a few manage to stick (for me at least).

As Drebin and Beth (Pamela Anderson, yes that one) are enjoying an evening in, with the dog, one of Cane's henchmen watches from afar with a heat vision scope. What he sees is admittedly one of the best moments in this movie. Typically vulgar, crass, juvenile, and surprisingly X-rated in my humble little opinion...hilarious! Another little moment of genius comes and goes quickly but had me giggling for some time, as Drebin mispronounces the word 'manslaughter'. The mini thriller plot involving a snowman was pretty neat. And the sequence with Drebin illegally getting a confession out of Cane's henchman, only to be caught in an internal sting operation, which in turn is then caught in another sting operation and so forth...was quite brilliant.

So aside from the odd moment of comedic originality, everything else we see is a parade of mostly sight gags that fall flat, or are simply the same gags they used in the original movies. Continuity appreciated, I guess, but it also felt lazy. This is the impression I got throughout really. This isn't a bad comedy, not at all. For this modern era of garbage, this is actually pretty solid, and a far better late-in-the-day reboot sequel than most (Dumb and Dumber 2, Coming to America 2, Bill & Ted 3 etc...). The main cast is actually pretty good and fit the bill perfectly. The criminally underused Danny Huston (who still hasn't been cast as The Joker yet) was a better villain than Robert Goulet, in my opinion. And Pammy Anderson? What can I say? The perfect mature, sexy seductress type for Drebin to monologue over in his mind. Wasn't so sure about the guy playing Captain Ed Hocken's son. He came across like a poor man's Danny McBride.

So apart from making me feel really quite old (oh Pammy! What happened?!), did this do it for me? Well yes and no. Like I said, this is definitely one of the better modern reboots I've seen in a long time. It's also one of the better modern movies (and comedies) I've seen amongst the dross. But overall, it still feels like a whimpering attempt to try and hit the lofty heights of the original classics. On its own as a stand-alone flick, yeah it works better, but let's be frank (pun intended I guess), this didn't need to be made. This movie only made me miss Leslie's genius even more.

5/10

Predator: Badlands (2025)

I'm old enough to remember a time when there were only two 'Predator' flicks and fanboys like myself were yearning for sequels, big time! Literally anything, although back in those days prequels and animated spin-off flicks weren't really a thing. But now, now we have a whole host of Yautja flicks hitting the screens, but is that good?

So here comes the latest entry in the franchise. Where does it sit within said franchise? How does it fit? It's complicated, but I believe this takes place after 'Alien3', and before 'Alien Resurrection'. Whether or not this is confirmed I don't know. Frankly, this franchise should be straightforward, but with the introduction of the Xenomorph in two failed 'AvP' flicks. Ridley Scott's 'Alien' prequels that disregard the 'AvP' flicks. A third Predator flick that went nowhere ('Predators'). Another Predator sequel that also failed ('The Predator'). And now an 'Alien' TV series (that also appears to have failed), these two franchises have become an entangled mess of epic proportions.

The plot is pretty simple enough, but told from the perspective of a Yautja, in their own language, with subs. So that's kinda cool, but being on the side of a Yautja is awkward in that it does wreck the mystery surrounding them. Double-edged sword situation really, neat idea, but it does wreck the Predator image going forward. Remember, the original movie was supposed to be an adult horror sci-fi, remember that? Yeah.

A weak Yautja (Dek) is to be executed (by his brother) for being useless on the orders of his extreme warrior father. The brother disobeys his father and helps Dek escape, but not before being executed himself by the father. Dek lands on another planet where he is to hunt the ultimate trophy in order to try and prove to his father he's a worthy Yautja. It just so happens that on this planet, there are also Weyland-Yutani synthetics that are also after the same trophy. Start the hunt!

Let's take this in steps. The Yautja home planet in this offering looks pretty good. It is well rendered, looks authentic, and it also looks similar to what we saw in 'AvP 2'. This could be another part of the planet for sure. Unfortunately the introduction we get to both Dek and his brother is entirely Marvel-esque in tone and very much like a videogame sequence. This did not fill me with much hope because right away you could tell this was not going to be a typical 'Predator' movie. I also didn't really like the alien species on offer. They couldn't come up with anything better than space elephants, space rhinos, and space monkeys? Really?

As for the main big bad trophy (a 'Kalisk'), well, that's a big space lion dragon hybrid, I guess. Oh, and it is virtually indestructible because it can regenerate its limbs, including its head! Yeah, take that as you will. I mentioned space monkeys, by that I refer to a specific cutesy little Snarf-like alien that gets called 'Bud'. This thing looks like it stepped off the set of a Lucas Star Wars prequel flick. Awful, truly awful. The plot twist with this thing is also obvious and doesn't make up for the turd design.

The Yautja, how do they look? Well, as you might expect, everything in this flick is CGI, so everything has that nasty plastic, glossy fake look to it. No matter how good CGI gets, the vast majority of it always has this same problem and is obvious to the Human eye, well mine at least. Dek is a mixed bag, much like the other Predators we see. His skin and features look okay, but obviously CGI. They got the deep, dark, gaunt yellow eyes correct, but the mouth/mandibles still don't look right. His dreads also look wrong, far too smooth and straight, almost snake-like. Dek's father suffers the same issues. Obvious CGI skin textures and facial growth, the mouth is off, and his dreads are too silky looking. Bottom line, the 1987 original movie (and 'Predator 2') STILL look better than this 2025 offering. That's kinda ridiculous frankly, kudos Stan Winston.

I should also point out that another problem with Dek were his body movements. One reason why Kevin Peter Hall was so damn fecking good as the Yautja in the original (superior) movies, was because he altered his body movements. He tried to move uniquely, trying to give the Yautja its own personality, so it didn't just look like a man in a rubber suit. The guy they motion captured for Dek just moves like a regular guy, like a Human. He clearly swaggers like a regular guy trying to look tough, it's obvious, and it looks lame.

As for the Weyland-Yutani side of things, meh, twas all very boring looking, no spark at all. The actors playing the synthetics offered nothing in terms of interest or engagement. I couldn't have cared less about these characters. The main synth Thia spent most of the movie only being a torso; which later gave us some cringe action sequences involving her apparent sentient legs. Everything involving this side of the plot was bland, boring, and sterile (although I get that is somewhat the point). When Dek fought the male synths it looked like he was fighting naff looking Terminators. And where was all the white synth blood and guts? Look what happened to Bishop in 'Aliens', none of that. I'm also not too sure why Thia, could speak Yautja and none of the others could. I did notice the newer Power Loaders, nope, didn't like them either. They went overboard as usual.

Naturally the finale gives us Yautja vs. Power Loader, because of course it does. A big orrible, weightless, CGI power loader stomping around like a manic Robocop 2 knock-off in yellow, sigh! Of course Dek gets smashed around all over the gaff, but suffers no injuries or broken bones or anything, because he's a flippin' superhero! Spoiler alert! The movie ends with Dek going back home to face his father, with the wrong trophy? Thinking everything will be cool? Huh? I dunno why he would bother, seeing as his dad killed his brother and wanted to kill him. But wait, Dek is a super Yautja now, he's beefed up and a top fighter hunter...apparently.

Okay so let's be brutally honest with the truth here. This isn't a bad movie. This is actually a reasonable sci-fi action adventure. BUT! This is not a 'Predator' movie. This felt like a rejected script from 'The Mandalorian'. This felt like a Star Wars project, potentially movie or TV series. This felt like a 'Guardians of the Galaxy' sequel, complete with goofy animal/alien sidekicks. This felt like it could easily be anything else if you removed the Yautja. Another heavily watered-down version of a 'Predator' movie with average CGI. Looking ahead, there is now a Yautja and a female synth Avengers team, complete with a huge tamed pet alien sidekick, running around in this franchise. Yep, this franchise has officially been Marvel-ified.

6/10

Red Sonja (2025)

 

So this came outta nowhere, literally. I have heard rumours here and there about this movie for years. Talk about directors and actresses for the main role, but nothing ever seemed to happen. It felt like the whole barbarian genre had gone down the toilet, especially after the failed Jason Momoa feature. Then up pops this! Unfortunately, there's a reason why you probably haven't heard much about this.

So the plot, yeah, the plot, oh geez! Sonja's homeland of Hyrkania is invaded by bad guys, and they kill everyone, like bad guys do. This forces a young Sonja to flee into the woods where she grows up alone worshiping the forest Goddess Ashera. Decades later, Sonja is captured by said bad guys and ends up fighting for her life in the bad guy capital cities arena...of death!!! Oh yeah, see there's this ancient mystical book that enables the main villain to energise the city with 'arcane power'. Problem is he only has half of it, luckily Sonja knows where the other half is. I think you can guess the rest.

Right so I'm not really sure what this arcane power was supposed to be. I'm not really up on my Red Sonja lore so I have no idea if this is something from the original comics or whatever. It seems to be some kind of magically electricity of sorts that...powers stuff? I think it allowed Emperor Dragan (the main villain) to control monsters and beasts with these mind control-type devices/implants. Anyway, Sonja destroys this power source midway through, so that put an end to that subplot. But not before we got a semi-action sequence involving a large CGI cyclops. Luckily, like all current invincible female action stars, Sonja merely leapt up onto its back and tore the implant off, hence saving the day.

I did for a minute think that this huge cyclops would maybe rampage through the city and maybe Sonja and co would have to stop it, save the innocent city folk, nope. Or perhaps the cyclops would join forces with Sonja after she saved it from being a brainwashed zombie slave to the Emperor, nope. Said cyclops literally vanishes from the movie in a heartbeat, one minute its there, the next its gone. I mean, really?

Speaking of action sequences, there are a reasonable amount here, but they are all mostly poor. It's quite clear fight choreography was limited, time-constrained, or just not that good. Most battles look really lame, really flat and uninspiring. The actors clearly don't know how to fight properly. The editing is up close and snappy leaving much to the imagination, and the blood we do see was more of an afterthought splashed on after the actual fighting. There are hints at brutal fatalities and more adult content, but clearly they chose the tamer route.

The world we see feels really quite small to be honest. There are some reasonable CGI city and landscapes dotted throughout but that's it, you never feel like you actually see anything. The vast city we see is not explored at all, interior wise. All we get is the battle arena, which in itself was unimpressive. There is no deeper exploration into this fantasy city, its population, culture etc...nothing. All we get are some interior castle sets, camps in the forest, a wooden fortress in the forest, a nice but obvious water shrine set...again in the forest. They clearly wanted to avoid anything involving mass amounts of extras or really big expensive sets.

Essentially, after Sonja escapes being a slave in the arena ('Gladiator' this most certainly is not) and destroys Dragans power source in his castle, the entire rest of the movie is spent in the wilderness with Sonja and her bunch of ragtag merry men fighting Dragan's evil forces of utterly useless knights. Yes all the knights in this movie are merely sword fodder for Sonja to cut down like butter, whilst looking menacing yet amusingly skinny and weak. Of course Dragan has some stronger allies. His second in command is, of course, a deadly ice-blonde bitch femme fatale...of sorts. I mean, that was the gist of it I'm guessing but she does practically nothing throughout. Then there are these Mandril-faced Humanoids? Is this species from the original source material or just made up for the movie? Not very original, and why Mandril faces? They seemed to be the only half-beast Humanoids, although we didn't see much of the population of this world so...

The big finale isn't much to write home about, much like all the other combat sequences, it's crap basically. All the good guys seem to be pretty invincible whilst all the bad guys just get cut down instantly. The armour is not much good in this realm. Emperor Dragan's ending is also weak and somewhat pathetic, much like the route they chose to take with this guy. The character was clearly based around a sort of spoilt wealthy Roman elite type, more of a politician than a fighter. An interesting take but ultimately it comes across as more annoying. They should have had a more imposing character.

End of the day, it's highly evident that this production lacked any sort of proper budget that an IP like this deserves. Everything looks and feels cheap and painfully small in scale. Again it feels like I've gone back to a time when low-budget guff like this was much more common with high-end franchises. Yes the character of Sonja does look better, and more accurate than the 1985 version, but this version looks much worse, very tacky in comparison (the difference a proper cinematographer makes). Bottom line, this looks and feels like a TV series production, maybe they should have gone that route instead.

4/10

Thunderbolts* (2025)

 

So this was the new Avengers team huh, this is how Marvel has progressed since their blockbuster days? Wow! Talk about a downgrade. Honesty, I haven't been so bored in a movie since the last Marvel movie I saw, which was the equally boring Captain America 4, aka Red Hulk movie. 

The generic plot is as generic as generic can be. The neo team have all been lured to a facility somewhere to execute each other on the orders of CIA director Valetina de Fontaine. It is here that they also discover Bob. They all work out what's happening and escape, only for Bob to get captured by de Fontaine, and Bucky Barnes to round the rest up later on. Bob turns out to be some God-like super being that de Fontaine is wanting to become the new face of Earth's defence. Problem is, Bob has inner issues that manifest into a dark version of himself called 'Void'. Bucky realises the threat and teams up with the ragtag bunch of bickering misfit antiheroes to stop Bob. Void pulls a Thanos move on NYC but the new Avengers manage to defeat him and restore Bob back to normal. All in a day's work for this scrappy A team.

So yeah, the plot is cookie-cutter guff. It's literally the plot of any action superhero movie you could think of, but insert a different set of superheroes. In this case the main roster is quite frankly awful. Personally I have no interest whatsoever in any of the Black Widow assassin characters or the somewhat chubby Yelena Belova. Bucky Barnes looks like a poor man's Ethan Hunt (MI:2). John Walker/Captain America? No idea who this was, didn't like the portrayal. Taskmaster is simply a previous main villain character (gender swapped) from an older movie. I like the continuity but using a character that was a main villain in a previous movie, to merely make them part of an alternate team in a later movie, weakens the character (and the previous movie) in my opinion. And finally Red Guardian is a wholly annoying character that isn't funny at all. 

The start of the movie, with the team stuck in this facility, seems to go forever! Jesus it dragged so bad. Once we got away from that, it continues to drag with a whole load of exposition set within dull looking locations with a drab colour palette (this movie looks DRAB!). I dunno, this thing just seems to move from one gunmetal grey facility location to another. There is nothing to look at here, and it's all greenscreen and CGI of course. Totally synthetic and sterile.

Another issue is, despite what the director said, and what Disney said, I can't help but feel I need to have seen the various Marvel TV shows to fully know what's going on here. This movie doesn't feel like it stands on its own; you have the Marvel homework problem. But even if you have seen those shows I doubt that would have made this any better. The final product here just feels totally flat, like behind the scenes they have totally run out of ideas moving forward. There is nothing special here at all, no visual excitement, no exciting characters, a villain that is literally just a moving silhouette, no colour! The movie tries to be its usual funny Marvel self and fails with David Harbour coming across as infuriatingly annoying (for me). The fake crappy Russian accents REALLY grate in time. And was Valentina de Fontaine supposed to look like Republican Tulsi Gabbard? 

Marvel has hit a wall, a creative wall. It seems the ride is over, nothing lasts forever, no matter how many times you dive back into the multiverse well. Captain America 4 felt like the franchise was running low on gas, a generic, somewhat political fluff piece that felt more like an obligation due to the Cap now being represented by a Black character. This continues the trend with a feature that feels like a desperate attempt to reenergise the franchise with a new Avengers team. Unfortunately, I don't think the majority really care anymore with many believing this entire saga ran its course long ago and this merely felt like a halfhearted reboot. The team are uninspiring, the action is lacklustre, the thrills are gone, the spectacle has become pedestrian.

3/10

Kraven the Hunter (2024)

 

So once again Sony attempted to continue their own expanded superhero universe with yet another Spider-Man spin-off entry. The keyword here being 'attempted', as we all know up to this point the results have been pretty bad. Would this rugged-looking safari-type villain change that? (ugh!)

I mean, let's be frank here, this character is just lame, he's a crap character. I don't know a great deal about the history of comicbooks but I've always thought many characters were just blatant attempts to crowbar themselves into other popular genres of the time. For example, 'Blade' was simply Marvel trying to squeeze into the classic horror genre. Kraven seems to be Marvel trying to squeeze themselves into the classic Tarzan adventure type genre. I mean, look at this guy's attire, typical generic leopard print with lion's mane collar and big tash! I'm amazed he didn't have one of those big game safari hats (maybe he did, I dunno).

Look at the basics of the character here, in this movie at least. Kraven's (his original name is Sergei but whatever) father is a big-time drug dealer, because of course he is. They go on safari (ugh!!), and Kraven gets attacked by a lion (of course!). Some of the lion's blood gets into Kraven's blood, I think, but the lion brings Kraven to this witch doctor type woman named Calypso? (oh boy). She heals him with a magic serum? What? And now, low and behold, Kraven has super animalistic superpowers! Because, you know, that's what happens (facepalm). I thought these powers would make him more like a lion or something, which they kinda do, but overall he's just basically semi-invincible (I'm laughing out loud here).

Yeah, so what we have here is Spider-Man, but instead of a spider, it's a lion. That's literally it. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is swaggering around acting all tough and cool as this ridiculous muscular Doctor Doolittle type bloke who can leap off skyscrapers, dodge bullets, and has a serious knife fetish. He clearly beefed up for the role, what a waste of time. Seriously it's embarrassing how much this guy swaggers in this, I thought he was gonna tilt over completely his swagger was so hard. As for the villains (I thought Kraven was the villain?), well there's some guy called the 'Foreigner'? Is he...a foreigner? Who is this guy? What are his superpowers? Ocular hypnosis? The power of making people stare? And there's 'Rhino', a guy who was experimented on, and now he turns into a humanoid rhino. It was supposed to simply make his skin really tough, much like rhino hide, but apparently it went as far as to give him rhino horns too, because why now?? When in regular human form he looks like a dorky school kid with a backpack on a field trip.

The CGI effects are top-to-bottom pure garbage. I know this is an old saying but this movie looks like it came out in the early 00's, and had it done so it might have fared better. But yeah, the movie looks like ass, the action is cookie-cutter nonsense that looks like ass, and there are loads of bad looking CGI animals to boot. Wanna see a low-tier superhero (supervillain?) fight a crap looking CGI big cat? You're in luck my friend.

The only single highlight in this entire movie was Russell Crowe as Kraven's kingpin dad. Russell looks beefy and badass as the crime lord. He kinda gave me a South African, Afrikaner, vibe to be honest, a bit like the Ulysses Klaue character. Other than that, this entire venture was a complete generic mess. The plot is simply Kraven having to rescue a family member from the bad guys, but the bad guys have underestimated Kraven on his own turf. The first half is an overly long origins story which is boring. The second half is just bad CGI action and underwhelming action sequences we have all seen before. Rhino looks stupid, really stupid. Foreigner didn't even need to be there, with his ability to make people stare. Calypso does nothing, and Kraven has daddy issues. This movie was offensively bad, harsh? Maybe, but I really can't believe they're making stuff like this still.

2/10