Prey (2022)

So what have we here? Well it's a Predator movie so there isn't really that much to explain. One difference with this latest entry is the fact there aren't two different tribes of Predators runnin' around. This time we're going back to the original in terms of plot and tone (although they said that about 'Predators'). This time it's Predator versus primal man...woman...girl. This time it's back to booby traps, mud, and hunting. This time it's a Predator versus a Native American girl, yup, welcome to 2023.

Now don't get me wrong, I have no issues with strong female characters, we've had many of them in many classic movies, but it's actually getting a bit old now. To add to that this female character is supposed to be really young, not sure how old exactly but she looks like a damn teenager to me. Kinda like taking Newt, adding some years, and then pitting her against a Predator. Actually that could work! Anyway the main crux (or carrot) for this entry is the fact it's a Predator vs. Native Americans. To be honest this sounds like the perfect idea for a Dark Horse graphic novel series for sure, but a full-blown movie? I just find it cheesy because you can swap out the Indians and use ANY period warriors and it would be exactly the same. Predator vs. Vikings. Predator vs. Knights. Predator vs. Samurai. Predator vs. Spartans. Predator vs. Mongols etc...The list goes and every idea would literally be the same albeit the locations obviously.

And here lies the problem, this movie isn't actually very original at all and once again pales in comparison to both the 1987 original AND the 1991 sequel (I said what I said). The plot is completely predictable naturally. The young female (with an awkward American accent) wants to be a warrior but the rest of the tribe poo poo this idea (present-day social commentary!), so she has to prove herself. At first she fails but after much perseverance and the arrival of a Predator she manages to do just that. Along the way we get various callbacks to the original including dialog, shots, and scenes. The main difference is this is a prequel so the Predator is using dated tech and for some reason looks completely different...again.

But yeah I wasn't really impressed here. The movie is surprisingly dark so you actually don't see that much gore. I get that they tried to make it look natural with natural light in the wilderness and adding to the suspense factor, but it didn't work for me. The movie wasn't suspenseful and I couldn't see a great deal because a lot happens at night. There is gore but it's almost entirely CGI which is just pathetic I'm sorry. This is why older flicks are so much better, real blood effects, practical effects, squibs etc...This is why Paul Verhoeven movies are so God damn epic. You don't ever really see the Predator's face that well again because much is set at night, and I didn't really like the new design. His mouth is HUGE! Takes up half his face and his eyes are almost on either side of his face! Didn't like the bone-esque looking mask either. Couldn't really see how it stayed on his face to be honest.

I also didn't like seeing all these wild animals getting killed frankly, kinda depressing. I get the gist of the Predator obviously but I really don't see why he would be killing wolves or snakes (I get the bear). The Predator is an intelligent species, it can tell the difference between another creature being a threat and another creature merely hunting for its own survival, right? So why would it kill these animals unless they actually attacked him, especially creatures that are so small. I mean, does the Predator have to kill every flippin' predator species it comes across in order to prove itself or conquer that particular planet??

Around the halfway mark a load of French voyageurs turn up because of course they do. Naturally these guys all turn out to be a really nasty bunch of White guys (of course) and cannon fodder for the Predator. At first it seems like there's only a handful of them but as the Predator starts wiping them out their number seems to grow rapidly (cannon fodder required for action sequences as there aren't many Natives and the Natives are of course goodies). Once again the visuals are disappointing because you don't actually see any of the kills and all the blood is CLEARLY CGI. It's also around this point where our female protagonist turns out to be a martial artist of sorts and is able to take out multiple grown men at the same time...ugh!!

Spoilers but the Predator kills himself in, what seems to me, like a really dumb way. His mask houses his laser targeting system and his wrist gauntlet fires these darts things now. So wherever the triangular red dots point that's where the darts go (homing). Well it seems the Predator forgets this and tries to shoot the female Native point-blank range without his mask on (which has been cunningly placed facing the back of his head by the female Native) so naturally the darts just home in on the back of his head and boom. Then there's the ending where our female protagonist arrives back at her camp and throws the Predator's head on the ground in front of her tribe, all of whom seem totally unfazed by the alien head at their feet. The fact she almost kills herself by trying to kill a bear when she totally didn't need to because it was just minding its own business. I get she's trying to be a hunter but come on! Weigh up the situation girl!

So yeah...overall this was a mixed bag for me. In general the visuals are nice with some lovely atmospheric location shots. The Natives all look and sound authentic as do the French men whilst the Predator certainly sounds good and comes with those nice infrared optics. Alas the movie is packed with terrible CGI, bad acting, dim visuals at key moments, and the Predator doesn't look as good as it should. They keep changing the look but the original simply cannot be beaten so why try? The real issue here is the movie is simply another retread of the same old formula but merely with Native Americans. They have to move this franchise forward, maybe into space? Maybe onto the Predator home world? They cannot keep doing the same thing over and over geez!

5.5/10

Black Adam (2022)

So if this movie confirmed anything it was one thing, Dwayne Johnson isn't a real movie star, he simply cannot carry a top-tier movie. Johnson merely seems to be the ultimate ensemble actor who can boost a franchise, but on his own, he simply ain't got the chops. The new Arnie he certainly is not, confirmed.

This character was supposed to be in the original 'Shazam!' movie but due to Johnson's ego he managed to get his own project focusing purely on his muscles...I mean the character. Further to that, this version of the movie was originally gonna have the character Shazam (from the original movie) as the protagonist/antagonist for Black Adam to fight, but again Johnson's ego got the better of him as he wanted the story to focus on him and Black Adam. And thus a problem was born. Add to the fact that DC movies generally don't do well anyway and voila!

Plot wise the whole thing is so basic and generic with little imagination in my opinion. Black Adam is accidentally resurrected from his tomb by a strong female character trying to uncover an ancient mcguffin. Black Adam is seen as a bad guy thusly the Justice Leag...sorry Justice Society (a precursor to the League) is called into action to bring him down. After much terrible CGI fighting Black Adam is found to not actually be evil but somewhat misunderstood (shocking) and they now need his help to take down the generic big evil end-of-level boss (at the end of the movie). So essentially it's just the same old guff with different characters (imagine that).

The main issue I found with this movie was the simple fact that most of the runtime is made up of the Justice Society fighting Black Adam, and that's it! The entire movie is set within this fictional ancient city which merely looks like somewhere in Egypt or the Middle East and nothing much else really happens. We just get lots of the usual superhero battle sequences involving lots of super punching and super throwing either into things or through things. No one ever seems to realise that these attacks aren't working but they just keep doing it because there's nothing else they can do, ugh! (wash rinse and repeat). The CGI effects are overall pretty terrible to boot which doesn't help matters. Everything is SO obviously CGI with that nasty plastic rubbery-looking gloss stuck alongside obvious-looking bluescreen shots and obvious sets. It sounds cliche but everything just looks like a videogame sequence. It just doesn't look convincing at all and in this day and age I simply expect more because I know it can be so much better.

Black Adam himself suffers the same problem any Dwayne Johnson movie suffers, Dwayne Johnson. In that I mean Johnson simply cannot act beyond his persona and he ALWAYS comes across as Dwayne Johnson in a costume, whatever that might be. You want a fun comedy romp in a jungle, or a ridiculous action flick with glimmering muscles then he's perfect, but that's it. Johnson trying to play it dark and murdering people just doesn't work because it just doesn't suit him. For the time being, he simply doesn't have the range.

As for other characters, let's quickly talk about the Justice Society. Boy oh boy do these guys suck ass. I mean seriously, talk about the poor man's Avengers. The bottom-of-the-barrel superheroes. We couldn't afford any decent characters or there weren't any good ones left so we had to use these guys, geez!! Hawkman looks ridiculous with his bird-shaped helmet adorned with feathers, he's also been race-swapped. I guess his super power is mainly flight? I guess that's useful for...flying. As her name suggests Cyclone controls the wind (Ugh!). Seems kinda useless and funnily enough she doesn't really do much in the movie because how's that effective against a Superman-type character like Black Adam? She's also race-swapped. Atom Smasher has the ability to grow to an enormous size like a giant, again pretty useless in the movie. And last but not least the poor man's Dr. Strange...Doctor Fate who funnily enough has virtually the same set of powers, I think, I'm not a comic expert. And yes I realise some of these characters appeared before their Marvel counterparts but I always found it funny and stupid how both Marvel and DC have essentially characters that mirror each other. They even have their X-Men-type ship to fly around in that is stored in their own X-Men-type mansion.

I guess the biggest disappointment here is after all the cookie-cutter crap I had to sit through to get to the cookie-cutter finale, the big bad guy turned out to be this laughable looking Devil/Satan-esque character that looked like he was getting ready to fight Sub-Zero. Talk about videogame looking nonsense Jesus! Literally everything in this movie was the most generic of generic superhero poop I've seen so far. You could have literally had ANY superhero character in here and it wouldn't have made any difference whatsoever. The human characters were completely inconsequential, much like the plot really. And naturally you had Marvel-esque quips (which totally underscored the tone) because DC is always playing catchup despite that Marvel aspect now losing favour.

I didn't really expect much here, at this point it merely feels like they are churning out superhero movies of any and all characters simply to keep the wagon rolling. This movie is literally the epitome of cookie-cutter, paint by numbers, off the factory line etc...There is nothing here that is original and nothing here that needed to be shown. This movie simply didn't need to be made. A Dwayne Johnson vanity project that admittedly could have been something as we've all been wondering how The Rock would fair in a cape, but somehow he screwed it up and all we have left is a plain boring superhero clone of a movie. That Superman credit scene will also go down in cinematic history as one of the biggest 'what if' dead ends ever (bit like Skeletor in 'Master of the Universe'). An open ending to something that will probably now never happen.

4/10

The Purge (2013)

 

For the longest time I mistakenly thought this franchise was some kind of horror or torture porn series like the 'Saw' or 'Hostel' franchises. For me this franchise just kinda blurred into all the other horror flicks that were being churned out around the same time. They all seemed the same with bland movie posters etc...Because of this I didn't bother with it because those things aren't really my cup of tea. Boy was I wrong!

So the plot is pretty simple. After economic collapse in the US a new political party comes into power and introduces 'purge night' or 'the purge'. An annual event where all crime is allowed for one night only with all emergency services suspended during the night. Somehow this has allowed the US to become almost crime free with almost no unemployment, dunno why. On this night a wealthy family, against all well-known recommendations and advice, allow a stranger (who is being hunted) into their home. Thusly the entire family come under siege and must survive the night from a group of 'purgers' who want the stranger (so they can 'purge'/execute him).

So overall I do actually like this movie, which surprised me. I fully went into this expecting some silly violent nonsense but I actually found myself getting sucked in and enjoying the thrills. The story is actually quite intriguing with its (admittedly) obvious social allegories but does get you thinking. Could this actually happen in reality? Yeah it could, you could actually see something like this coming about in the distant future. It's not out of the realms of possibility for sure, and that's what's so intriguing about it. It's very much like the game shows and tech we see in the Arnie action vehicle 'The Running Man' which, apart from the violence of course, have actually come to fruition. Granted it's not a big stretch or anything but the violent aspect of it could easily (and worryingly) turn up in decades to come.

The purge is seen as a way for the masses to vent their pent-up anger and for the rich to purge the undesirable (poor people). I don't really understand how that would reduce crime across the nation though. And I don't really get how erasing poor people would help because you need all levels of people for a society to function, it can't be solely rich folk. And as for the notion that everyone just stops killing each other at the sound of a loud siren is kinda daft because we all know it wouldn't stop, people would keep on going. You know you'd have to forcefully stop people. Plus I would imagine the overall damage and destruction to infrastructure would be immense. To the point that by the time you'd fixed it all back up it would be time for the next purge and it would get all wrecked again.

It is all a bit on the nose to be honest though. The affluent family are all White and pretty generic, nothing to speak of really. The only surprise to me was the young boy who suffers from a guilt trip and allows the homeless man on the run into the house. I would have expected the young girl or mother to do that seeing as women tend to be a bit more forgiving and liberally minded. As for the poor homeless man being hunted, he's Black, so yeah...on the nose with the social commentary and allegories. The purgers are also all White and from wealthy backgrounds themselves. A bunch of young adults, probably in their early twenties, their leader a blonde guy (cos blonde haired blue-eyed males are always evil apparently). So overall you have all White folk. The innocent family is White. The demented purgers are White and could easily be seen as Klan-esque in nature. And the lone character being hunted is Black (in this area at least), you getting the message?

Violence wise it's actually not as bad as I thought it would be. Standard stuff really, as you would expect, but effective. The movie doesn't need to be ultra-violent but it does need to show hints of the raw brutality that would occur under such circumstances. The finale is also quite good. I enjoyed the twist with the neighbours, the small somewhat obvious twist with the boyfriend was okay too. The fact that the homeless man turns out to be the hero in the end isn't much of a surprise though (come on people twas obvious!).

So yes like I said I did actually get on with this movie okay. Whilst it's not the most original story ever it does lure you in and keep you interested, despite being mostly predictable. The key is obviously the hot-button social allegories which back in 2013 were pretty spicy, but now in 2023 even more so! So essentially our present day is the perfect time to first-time watch or revisit this movie/franchise as (unfortunately) the plot is highly relevant.

7/10

Monster Hunter (2020)

Holy pop tarts what have we here?? Another videogame adaptation AND directed by Paul W. S. Anderson??!! You're yanking my chain? Wait, and Anderson's wife Milla Jovovich is the star?! Again??!! How did I never hear about this until now? Until two years after the fact? If this was the mid-90's to early 00's this would have been EVERYWHERE! And probably would have done quite well too.

So this movie is based on a Capcom videogame series that I have never heard of where you run around battling monsters I guess, I dunno. So obviously I cannot talk about game accuracy or anything as I have no idea. As for the plot it's your standard videogame spiel really. A group of modern-day soldiers are accidentally thrown into another dimension where monsters exist and they have to try and find their way home via various subplot macguffins. You know the type of thing here, reach an ominous tower by crossing a deadly desert. Defeating big dragon-type beasts. Learning how to fight a specific way in order to defeat said big dragon beasties. Gaining the trust of various oddball locals in order to get to places so they can get home etc...

The first thing that struck me here was the visuals and special effects. There has clearly been quite a lot of effort put in here as everything looks really good. The location shooting pays off as you can actually believe the characters are in another dimension and not just a Californian desert. The combination of real-world locations and CGI works nicely here. Add to that the creature effects are also top-notch in my opinion. It's easy to think this could be a cheesy-looking videogame adaptation but no, the various otherworldly creatures all look really decent. Alas the main creature the goodies battle tends to look like any old regular dragon that could easily have leaped out of any swords 'n' sorcery-themed flick, but it looks good.

One thing that did bug me was how easy it was for bad-ass Jovovich's character Artemis to beat said monsters. We are led to believe these creatures are almost legendary and impossible to kill, hell they look it. The desert dragon thing is meant to be almost impossible to kill, yet Artemis manages it after a few hours of training from Tony Jaa's Hunter character. I mean, if he knew how to kill these things so easily, why hadn't he done it himself already?? He is the 'monster hunter' after all. It's also kinda tiresome and yawn-inducing that Artemis is such a Mary-sue character but let's be honest here, what was I expecting?

The best monsters are easily the goosebumps-inducing spider creatures that swarm all over the desert when it gets dark (naturally). These things essentially act like spiders by cocooning their prey and inserting larvae into their hosts. You then get the inevitable sequence of a cocooned soldier getting overcome and eaten alive with these spider hatchlings.

Character wise the US troops are as you would expect. A typically diverse little team of guys n gals that all act exactly as you expect them to. Jovovich is doing her best Ellen Ripley here but in all honesty she does a solid job and works well within the movie. Other characters that pop up within this outworld are obviously taken from the videogame judging by their appearances and ridiculously oversized absurd weapons of choice. Ron Perlman's character looks like the epitome of a Japanese anime character, as does Tony Jaa's character and his sword. Overall it's a typical casting roster for this type of flick. A mishmash of various cult classic/pop culture names in order to gin up more attention.

For a videogame adaptation with lots of popular CGI action that you'd think would be aimed at a younger audience, the movie is actually quite dark at times. Well the first part is at least. They certainly haven't held back too much with the violence and gore and the movie is better for it. But overall the general theme here is pretty mixed. What starts off as a semi-decent 'Aliens' type clone, quickly descends into a slightly hokey Mortal Kombat-esque clone and ends up with a decidedly iffy Lord of the Rings-esque finish. Heck they even leave it completely open for a sequel, a little too open really. Why can't we have actual complete movies with a start and finish anymore?

Don't get me wrong this isn't exactly a bad movie, far from it, it's actually not too bad all things considered. There is a lot of issues here and the entire thing is unbelievably generic taking tonnes of elements from other (better) movies. But for a mindless action monster fest, it's definitely a good outing in my opinion. Definitely a surprise, especially in the visuals department.

7/10

In Search of Darkness III (2022)

The search for Darkness continues and presumably ends with this third part of this quite epic documentary into the 80's horror film genre. Whereas part one covered the more famous and infamous horror flicks, and part two covered the more obscure; part three seems to cover everything in between from the familiar to not so familiar (for me at least).

By now anyone watching this documentary will be well aware of how it plays out and prepared for the onslaught of information, any newbies out there buckle up! Once again the background information to every aspect of all these movies comes thick and fast like a rollercoaster. As before the doc is presented in a year-by-year format and each movie is given its own little segment which in some cases doesn't really delve deep enough, unfortunately, leaving you wanting. But in other cases you get a nice dollop of info that is just enough to satisfy. Whether or not you already know about this information is obviously the key factor in how pleasing it will be. 

As I said in my review of the first two parts, the issue these days is background information for movies is (and has been) easily available either on DVD, Blu-ray, or YouTube etc...for years. Unlike the old days when behind-the-scenes footage/docs/interviews etc...were like gold dust, these days it's beyond common practice. Heck you could even argue that people aren't that bothered anymore with the advent of streaming. Actual physical copies of movies that would have extras aren't the mainstream anymore, strange as that may sound. So essentially, there is a possibility that with many of the movies you may well have seen or heard the information before, although that is less likely with some I'm sure.

Despite this the overall celebration and sheer scope of this series (and this third part) are undeniably impressive. The amount of horror actors, both famous and obscure, that are interviewed is impressive alone. The writers, effects people, horror experts/historians, directors etc...The snippets from all the movies covered or merely referenced. The larger context chapters that dig that bit deeper into specific aspects of the genre, specific actors, specific controversies etc...International horror movies and their effect on the genre. All here crammed into one documentary. I say crammed but they aren't really, this doc is over 5 hours long! But that isn't an issue either as it's perfectly fine to stop and come back another time. The segmentation of the series allows for viewings to be split.

There isn't a great deal to say here that I didn't say already for the first two parts. That's not a negative, it's merely because this is a continuation of the documentary and if you've been watching then you're obviously a fan and know what to expect. But yeah, this is a documentary on all aspects of the horror genre during the 80's and it's flippin' epic. If you like horror then this is for you. If you like some horror movies/franchises but aren't too bothered about horror overall, then you might find this a bit too much and could find yourself tuning out.

The question is, will this documentary carry on and dive into the 90's decade of horror? I hope it does as the 90's is now probably just as iconic for the genre with many true gems.

9/10

Red Notice (2021)

Well this was the most Hollywoodist of Hollywood movies I've been subjected to for quite some time. Not that I'm surprised really, I mean look at the cast, literally the most generic Hollywood A-list casting you could sloppily throw together without trying. Yeah these big names should easily bring us in some dough, story? Plot? Who cares, anything will do.

So what we have here is yet another James Bond-esque, Mission: Impossible-esque action comedy (even with some blatant Indy clonage)  with all the usual trimmings. Just take a look at this thing. We skip from one exotic location to another like a videogame. An artic fortress, a dense jungle, sunny Spain, tropical islands, a temple, an underground mine etc...All the while our three main characters, Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot, and Ryan Reynolds look super glossy and sexy. The entire movie is literally one super slick highly choreographed action sequence after another with terrible CGI effects and blatantly obvious greenscreen shots.

What's more, the action sequences are so mind-numbingly stupid and again so generic it's boring. Gal Gadot's character is obviously the best at everything because of course. Johnson is Johnson like he is in absolutely everything. Whilst Reynolds merely does his mind-mannered soft Deadpool comedy routine which is admittedly amusing at times but not original. Nothing here is original, we've seen all this before time and time again. The whole thing plays out and looks like a videogame for of pretty people with nice bods. And the entire double-cross surprise angle which occurs numerous times is not clever despite how much the writers and director think it is.

So yeah, cookie-cutter, run-of-the-mill, factory production line, wash rinse repeat etc...All these terms cover this overly unexciting mundane star-studded makeup-heavy bonanza. It's virtually 'True Lies' for 2021 except it rips off a multitude of other movies and franchises and has absolutely no edge to it, no kills, no blood, nothing. Painfully soft safe glossy fluff.

5/10

Muppets Haunted Mansion (2021)

 

Muppets Haunted Mansion you say? A nifty idea of Muppets in a haunted mansion scenario? I've always wanted to see a Muppet Dracula movie (following in the same literacy vein as previous Muppet flicks like Treasure Island, the Wizard of Oz and Christmas Carol), but alas what we have here is literally Muppets Haunted Mansion: The Ride (ala those special mini-movies made for theme parks).

This had potential, but alas they missed the mark again. Visually the movie is decent and it does capture all the famous elements of the classic Disney ride, but that's about it. Once again they have gone for a very silly spoof-type of approach with no proper story (much like the two recent modern Muppet movies).

Yes all your favourite Muppets are there and yes it is entertaining to a degree (if you can also look past the horrendously bad new voice acting of certain characters), but I YEARN for a proper Muppet movie with an actual plot...you know, like a movie should be. They have also incorporated far too many songs in the more recent Muppet flicks, this is no different. We just move from one famous ride scenario to the next with a new song, ugh!!

At the end of the day this simply feels like an extended advert for the actual Disney ride and not an actual movie (was it??). Still, at least it's better than the 'Muppets Wizard of Oz', yeesh! A far cry from the heights of 'A Muppet Christmas Carol' and 'Muppet Treasure Island'. What's the problem here?

3/10