Predator (1987) - #Movie #Review

A fantastic classic!

Ok, so before Arnold Schwarzenegger (The Terminator) became the, 'Governator' he was this huge actions/sci-fi star that had a ton of great movies that he released between the early 1980s, and roughly the mid 2000, (He has been in some good movies lately, but nothing like the movies that came out before his tenure as the, 'Governator'!)

With that said, there are a couple of movie series that he sort of technically helped to begin that are still running to this day, one of them being, 'The Terminator' (A series that he recently returned to,) 'Conan: The Barbarian' (A series that is about to be brought back to life,) and, 'Predator' (A series that may not have seen him back in since the beginning, but still a great series!)

And we will get in to, 'Terminator', but the one that I wanted to discuss today that I think actually is a pretty awesome movie is, Predator (1987)!

A great poster!

Written by:: Jim Thomas (Mission To Mars), John Thomas (Batman: Dead End) and Directed by: John McTiernan (Die Hard). Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers (Rocky), Elpidia Carrillo (Solaris), Bill Duke (Battledogs), Jesse Ventura (The Running Man), Sonny Landham (Mental Scarls) & Richard Chaves (War Of The Worlds).

"You're one... 'ugly' motherfucker!" - Dutch (A quote by Arnold Schwarzenegger from, Predator (1987)!)

Now one of the great things about this movie is it's timeless story, you see this movies tells the story of Dutch (Schwarzenegger) and a group of soldiers who are sent in to the central American jungle on a rescue mission, when they end up encountering more the they bargain for!

Dutch and his team...

You see, they had been sent out on what they believed was going to be a rescue mission, but in this case what they literally, 'don't know' is definitely going to kill them, when these highly trained hunter/killers, become the prey for an unseen warrior!

In the end, this is one trip in to the jungle that these fearless warriors are never going to forget!

Now as far as this movie goes, I have to say that it is timeless... I mean seriously, if you want a fantastic man vs. alien film, you really can't get much better then this... I mean even the few plot holes that are in this movie don't detract from how awesome it is!

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Age Of Tomorrow (2014) - Movie Review

Official Score = 2 Devils

You know, 'B' Movies got there names as the short form of calling these movies, 'bad' movies, and as a matter of fact, at one time or another, if there was a movie that had been directed by: Alan Smithee (Catchfire), you would know that, that movie was going to be pretty, 'awful' just because he only directed the worst movies... (Well Alan Smithee is not actually a real person, but the moniker given to filmmakers who want to distance themselves from their crap movies...)

As time has gone on though, 'B' movies, and all of their subset genre films have grown to have a pretty decent sized following, to the point where you can't really say anymore that, 'B' movies are necessarily, 'Bad' movies anymore!

The reason that I mention this is that I recently saw a 'B' movie that may not be at the caliber that a lot of the great B movies are at, but is still pretty good, that movie being, Age Of Tomorrow (2014).

This may not be the best B-Movie out there, but it does have it's moments...

Written by: Jacob Cooney (The Majestic) & Bill Hanstock (Small Town Life), Directed by: James Kondelik (Airplane Vs. Volcano). Starring: Kelly Hu (X-Men 2), Anthony Marks (Blood Night: The Legend Of Mary Hatchet), Robert Picardo (Star Trek: Voyager), Lane Townsend (Adaline), Mitchell Carpenter (Dexter) & Nick Stellate (Killer 2: The Beast).

This movie tells the story of how when it looks like an asteroid that is big enough to destroy the planet is on a trajectory to hit the Earth, the United States Marines send up a team to drill in to the rock and to try and destroy the asteroid before the asteroid wipes out everything on Earth...

While they are up there though, they find something interesting, this asteroid is not actually set up to destroy the planet, but to be used as a launching platform for a dying alien race to invade the planet, but to also kidnap  humans and take them to their planet!

A Fire Fighter and an Alien... You guess who would win...

The mistake these Aliens made though, is they kidnapped the Marines, and it will be up to this team to figure out how to destroy them, and to get the information to a team of surviving military officers, (and an LAFD officer,) so that they can begin to destroy them, before the Aliens have the chance to destroy the Earth!

Now the truth is, is unless you are a B movie fan, you probably won't like this movie all that much... But as a B movie fan, I think that you will might like this movie, as it has the signatures that make B movies great! The only other thing that I will say is that this movie does start off kind of slow as well!

In the end though, if you have a chance, you should check this one out, this movie may not be the best, but it is definitely one that B movie fans should check out at least once!

Alien: Resurrection (1997) - Movie Review

Official Score = 1 Devil 

Alright, I hate to say it, but some times movies need a new fresh look (or in some case the final nail in the coffin,) before that franchise destroy's itself with shitty campy movies that just destroy itself!

A couple of examples of this are:

1. Halloween 2 (2009). Now the truth is, is I liked this movie, but this movie showed that the remake series of John Carpenter's classic movie series was already beginning to head down the wrong path...

2. The, 'Sleepaway Camp' movie series... Now here is a great example of a classic slasher movie franchise that just did not listen to itself... What I mean by this, is that the first 2 movies were true B-Movie exploitation genius... But the sad truth is that the third in the series, where as it was good, was starting to head in that direction of over done campyness, and the 4th one... Well to say the least was there...

And that is just a couple of examples, another one being, Alien: Resurrection (1998):

You see, this movie, which brought back Sigourney Weaver (Ghostbusters) for her final performance as, 'Ellen Ripley', was over exaggerated... The guns were ridiculously oversized, the story concept, (a story of how Ellen Ripley is brought back to life through cloning centuries in to the future in an effort to bring the, 'Alien' species back to life, (to use as weapons...) A great story concept right?) Well the truth is, is the story was poorly written and unbelievable...

Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) with her, 'Xenomorph' off spring... The birth of a mistake...

The truth is, is that the only 3 things that I liked about this movie was the fact that Sigourney Weaver came back to series, and some classic 90s talent like, Winonna Ryder (Edward Scissarhands) and, Brad Dourif (Child's Play) came in to the film...

And the last thing that I liked was that this piece of garbage got the studio's to take the series in a different direction and brought Ridley Scott (Alien) back to direct, Prometheus (2012)... A prequel to the first one... (For those of you who don't know, Ridley Scott was the maestro that helped bring this prolific series to life!)

In the end, if you haven't seen this movie yet, but are a fan of the series, but haven't seen this movie yet... I would say, 'do so'... It is one of the series (but if you are going to expecting the same type of epic that made the first 3 so good... The you maybe disappointed... If you go in to it expecting nothing... Well you never know!)

American Battleship (2012) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_325" align="alignright" width="263"] Official Score = 3 Devils[/caption]

Recently there was a movie that came out on the big screen that was loosely based on the board game called, Battleship (2012)… The truth is, is I have never actually seen this movie, but I can see how people can confuse this movie with, American Battleship (2012), and can even call this the B Movie attempt capitalizing on the success of that movie!

Now the reason that I feel confident about saying that is between knowing the story line (to some extent), and having seen the trailer for the movie, I can see that both movies appear to have very similar story line concepts, it looks like American Naval Vessels both end up going up against some sort of Alien threat, (although, since I haven’t seen Battleship, I can’t say rather it is a space born Alien menace that is attacking the Earth, or if it is something from Earth (like in, The Abyss (1989)).

But other than that, I can see that there are certain differences in the two movies, first of them being is that, for as good as American Battleship was (and this maybe one of the best Science Fiction movies that I have seen in a while that utilizes the modern Military). It definitely does have that Sci-fi Channel movie feel to it, (which is not a bad thing).

Unlike Battleship, which has A list first string actors and actresses, American Battleship has some great second string talent to it.

[caption id="attachment_2829" align="aligncenter" width="225"] A truly awesome b movie![/caption]

In the end, American Battleship, a movie that was Written & Directed By: Thunder Levin (Soulmates) and which stars, Mario Van Peebles (New Jack City), Carl Weathers (Predator), Johanna Watts (The Falls), Nikki McCauley (Busting Out), Elijah Chester (The Box), Sean Patrick Smith (Tainted Love).

This movie tells the story of the U.S.S. Iowa, a ship that had been designed and built for the U.S. Navy during World War 2.

Now during that time that ship had seen a lot combat, but after just about 80 years of service, this ship is being moth balled and is on its final mission to arrive from the South Pacific back to the United States west coast, so that it can be mothballed and become a museum ship… This all until the Captain of the ship decides to go off and check on the U.S.S. Enterprise and her carrier group, so that they can find out what happened to those ships…

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="650"] The bridge crew of the Iowa as they head in to the history books![/caption]

Well when they get to the area, the crew is attacked by an as yet unseen force that is secretly trying to push the world in to a nuclear war, and as the world gets closer, it looks like the U.S.S. Iowa is going to have to go to war with this unseen entity and stop them before the scales are tipped!

In the end, I thought that this movie had great special effects, a fun story, and a great cast, all rolled in to one, with some cheesy one liners that just simply rock! Definitely one that I enjoyed and you might to!

http://youtu.be/Yr-Y8IeWymo

Alien 3 (1992) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_325" align="alignright" width="263"] Official Score = 3 Devils[/caption]

When I was a kid one of the movie series (at this time there was only 2), that I used to watch with my Dad and sister alot was the Alien movie series... Why you might ask... Well simply, besides the fact that both the first and the sequel were both action packed scare fests, they also both had some truly awesome casts that did an amazing job!

Unfortunately though, as time moved on, we have gotten together less and less to see these movies, and the truth is, is that most of these movies (especially since Sigourney Weaver has left the series), have kind of grown to be pretty bad... I have kind of strayed away from the series... But when all is said and done, this movie that I am about to review, I find to be the first of the movie series to really begin the slow descent in to cheesydom that most franchises seem to go... That movie being, Alien 3 (1992).

Written by: Walter Hill (The Warriors) & David Giler (Fun With Dick And Jane) & Directed by: David Fincher (Fight Club). Starring: Sigourney Weaver (Avatar), Charles S. Dutton (Gothika), Charles Dance (Last Action Hero), Paul McGann (Doctor Who), Brian Glover (An American Werewolf In London), Ralph Brown (Wayne's World 2), Danny Webb (Henry V), Christopher John Fields (Jurassic Park) & Lance Henriksen (The Terminator).

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400"] Hopefully Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and this batch of convicts are up to the task of destroying this new Alien threat![/caption]

This movie tells the story of how after the events that happened in, Aliens (1986), The Queen Alien had managed to produce one more offspring that had managed to attach itself to the pods that housed, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Hicks (Michael Biehn), Bishop (Lance Henriksen), & Newt (Carrie Henn).

Well the ship ends up evacuating the crew in an escape vehicle, that ends up crash landing on a Prison planet... Well, Hicks ends up dying from the impact, Newt ends up dying because of becoming an incubator for a new Alien, Bishop becomes un-serviceable, and the only survivor really is, Ripley!

Well in the end, with a new Alien brought to this new planet, it looks like it will be up to Ripley and the Prisoners on this planet, to stop the Alien before the Alien can use them to start a new Alien race!

In the end, this may not be the best of the series, but it certainly is not the worse... And really is the last of the better movies in the series before the slow decent... Well up till Prometheus anyway...

http://youtu.be/9vnjQPcrcZI

AE: Apocalypse Earth (2013) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_385" align="alignright" width="353"] Official Score = 2 Devils[/caption]

When I was a kid one of the Science Fiction movies that I found to not just be an interesting concept, but was actually a lot of fun, was the movie, Highlander (1986) with Christopher Lambert (Mortal Kombat).

I mean the concept of an immortal man that goes from age to age, and living through out history, fighting against his own kind... (Because there can be only one), was just a great movie, and a fun time in general...

Well when the show came to TV, Adrial Paul (The Void) took over the lead role for the TV series, and well, the truth is, is I think he did an absolutely awesome job in the lead on that show...

I hate to say it, but I have not seen to much of his work since, which is a shame, because in a role when he kicks ass he does an absolutely awesome job... And you know what? AE: Apocalypse Earth (2013) may not be a great movie, but it is a great example of Adrian Paul and his work as an actor!

Written & Directed by: Thunder Levin (American Warships). Starring: Adrial Paul, Richard Greico (Coachella Massacre), Bali Rodriguez, Gray Hawkes (The Hermit) & Jayson McCardell (From Faith To Freedom).

The concept behind this movie I found to be rather fascinating... What I mean by this, is that when humanity looses the war against an alien invasion force, Earth manages to get a couple of escape ship off the surface and away from the alien invasion forces...

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480"] Mankind as they are trying to crowd in to their escape crafts![/caption]

On their way, through the cosmos and while the survivors of Earth are under cryogenic suspension, their ships end up crash landing on to a hostile world, where they are being hunted by a group of hostile aliens that would be ok with wiping out humanity!

And for them to survive, they are going to have to band together with the humanoids on this new planet till they can get a ship they find up to working order and off this planet, so that they can go home...

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="624"] Richard Greico with Adrian Paul in, 'AE: Apocalypse Earth'... In which they play the last survivors of humanity![/caption]

In the end, the truth is, is the concept behind this movie is an awful lot of fun, and the locations were great, the acting, and the vision of, 'Thunder Levin' was absolutely amazing... The problems though are as follows:

1. If the aliens are supposed to be completely camouflaged, then how come it seems to be easy to kill them?
2. Also, the alien ships are just a little to easy to destroy...
3. Also, the alien weaponry looks just a little to cheap, and I have to wonder, why with so much going for them did the makers of the movie end up using weapons that were dressed up to looks like more then they really were, but in the end was probably some sort of plastic toys that they got from the dollar store?

This movie may not be the best in the world, but it is a fun one, and I am glad that I have seen it at least once...

http://youtu.be/BDCnKOPYvd8

Aliens (1986) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_415" align="alignright" width="350"] Official Score = 4 Devils[/caption]

Written by: James Cameron (The Terminator), David Giler (The Money Pit), Walter Hill (The Warriors) & Directed by: James Cameron. Starring: Sigourney Weaver (Avatar), Carrie Henn (Alien Evolution), Paul Reiser (Mad About You), Lance Henriksen (Millennium), Bill Paxton (Twister), Michael Biehn (The Abyss), Jeanette Goldstein (Terminator 2: Judgement Day), William Hope (Captain America: The First Avenger), and Al Matthews (Tomorrow Never Dies).

This movie is an interesting one to me, you see usually sequels tend to not to be as good as the original movie… They usually have overblown special effects, a bigger cast, and an over the top story that seldom is ever as good as the original… This movie to me is not one of those!

You see this movie had a great cast which brought back Sigourney Weaver (who played Ellen Ripley in the first movie) and told the story of how after the hell that she went through on board the Nostromo fighting the first Xenomorph attack, she ends up drifting through space for centuries in the Nostromo’s escape craft’s Hypersleep chamber!

Now when she gets back, she ends up losing her status within, ‘The Company’ when they learn that she is the only one that has survived the attack on the, ‘Nostromo’ and all of her crew is killed by the Xenomorph…

After she loses her status in the company and is relegated to loading freight on to ships that are coming in and out of the company’s space station near Earth, she also ends up finding out what happened to her daughter centuries ago, and ends up falling in to a deep depression… That is of course until Carter Burke (Reiser) pays her a visit…

[caption id="attachment_896" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Carter Bruke (Paul Reiser) and Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) not longer after Ripley is rescued from the, 'Nostromo' escape vehicle![/caption]

You see Burke got it arranged to have a colony installed on to LV426 (the planet where Ripley and the Nostromo had originally picked up their Alien passenger that ultimately ended up destroying the Nostromo, it’s crew, and ruining Ripley’s life!)

Now the Colony has stopped communicating with the company back at home and Burke is putting together a team of Colonial Marines (an elite military unit that works with the company) to head to the planet to check on the colony, and since Ripley had been their centuries ago, Burke decided to bring Ripley along as an advisor on the mission… (and despite her better judgment decides to head off with Burke and the Marines…)

In the end, Burke, Ripley and the rest of the Marines will get more then they bargained for when they make it to the planet and Ripley comes face to face again with the Aliens that ruined her life!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Ripley is about to go head to head one more time in, 'Aliens (1986)![/caption]

Now you wouldn't think it, but this movie in my opinion maybe one of the few sequels that are as good (if not better than the original), and I think that is in large part due to the fact that the first two Alien movies were directed by Directors who would later become Science Fiction Masters! (Ridley Scott for Alien (1979), and James Cameron for Aliens (1986)!)

Another thing that I really liked about this movie is the special effects… I mean like most sequels, the special effects are bigger and more splashier… (these are, but they are done really tastefully.)

The cast of course was utterly phenomenal in this (as they are in most of the other movies that I have seen them in…)

And in all truth, the story was awesome! I mean I always love Sci-Fi, but I also love how they put an element of drama and deceit that was all believable and very well done!

In the end, this movie is an amazing good time and if you haven’t seen it yet, then you might give it a try… I think you might really like it!

http://youtu.be/XKSQmYUaIyE

The Cape Canaveral Monsters (1960) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_325" align="alignright" width="263"] Official Score = 3 Devils[/caption]

As a movie buff and more directly a Science Fiction and Horror movie fan, there are times that I wish I could go back to the 50s or the 60s or even the 70s and go to the theater!

I mean how cool would it be to see, Halloween, as it was originally made, when it was released in 1978? Or to see Alfred Hitchcock’s, ‘Psycho’ when it was released in to the Theater in 1960? Or any of the myriad of amazing Science Fiction films that people back then got to see for less than a dollar (in some cases!)

The reason I mention this, is because these types of movies were extremely awesome! Rather they be Horror movies or Science Fiction movies, these movies had awesome campy as hell (but very fun) story lines (in the case of Horror, horror is more fictional than real anyway, in Science Fiction… Well from the 60s on back it was still mostly imagination of a world that was just starting to hint at going in to space!)

They had great actors and actresses, who unfortunately for most people in the modern day would not remember, which is a shame, because most of these old time actors had so much talent coming from them, that in my opinion, they match up to the talent (or in some cases beat out the talent) of some of our modern day celebrities (They kind of had to, considering what they had to work with in what could be considered the pioneering days of special effects and the like…

And speaking of special effects… I know that it might seem like I have knocked them around in this review more than a few times… But the truth is… ‘Yes’, the special effects in these types of movies were of times extremely campy (especially Science Fiction movies,) but they are that good type of camp that make these movies a ton of fun… I mean I’ll be honest here and say that if some of these amazing classics were given the modern Hollywood makeover when it comes to special effects, then these movies would have sucked!

And you know what? The Cape Canaveral Monsters (1960) exemplifies all of these traits!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400"] A great example of a cult classic, that had very little but ended giving such an amazing performance![/caption]

Written and Directed by: Phil Tucker (Robot Monster). Starring: Jason Johnson (Invasion Of The Saucer Men), Katherine Victor (The Wild World Of Batwoman), Chuck Howard (The Last Hurrah), Scott Peters (Panic In Year Zero!), Linda Connell, Billy Greene (The Shrike), and Lyle Felice (Psycho a Go-Go).

This movie tells the story of an American Space Program in it’s infancy… During this time a special project that is being run by a Doctor Von Hoften, a German Scientist that has assembled a team at Cape Canaveral to help get mankind in to outer space…

On this team is Von Hoften’s daughter, ‘Sally’ (Connell) and a student by the name of, ‘Tom Wright’ (Peters)…

Now during this time, there is a group of Aliens by the name of Nadja (Victor) and Hauron (Johnson) who have been sent to Earth with the express purpose of helping make sure that mankind never reaches the cosmos…

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320"] Hauron (Jason Johnson) as he is stopping another attempt by NASA to launch a rocket in to orbit.[/caption]

One night, while Tom, Sally and a couple of friends are out on a date, they stumble upon the Aliens, and it will be up to these two love birds, and a couple of other people to stop Hauron and Nadja from carrying through with their nefarious plot, so that, in the end they can stop a bigger plot that involves the rest of the world!

In the end, this movie was a ton of fun, and worth my time, and if you’re in to these classics, then you might like it as well!

Alien (1979) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_415" align="alignright" width="300"] Official Score = 4 Devils[/caption]

The Alien series... What can I say about this series? I mean one for one just about every major player in this series' careers have been helped by this series, including Sigourney Weaver (Ghostbusters), Ridley Scott (Prometheus), Dan O'Bannon (Total Recall), and even Walter Hill (The Warriors) to name a few!

Now as for Alien.... I personally think this movie is fantastic because I found the special effects to be so realistic that the various Aliens that were created for this movie could be what at least some of the Alien life that is out there could be like in real life!

I also found that the writing was fantastic, and the story was great!

I also found that the acting was so realistic that one could almost say... (A look at the future of space travel maybe?)

And that is just a small fraction of what makes, Alien great!

Written by: Dan O'Bannon and Directed by: Ridley Scott. Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt (The Rookie), Veronica Cartwright (Invasion Of the Body Snatchers), Harry Dean Stanton (Repo Man), John Hurt (1984), Ian Holm (The Fifth Element), Yaphet Kotto (Freddy's Dead), Bolaji Badejo, Helen Horton (Phase IV), and Eddie Powell (The Oblong Box).

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="485"] Some of the crew of the, 'Nostromo' as they are prepping to investigate the, 'Moon' that, 'Mother' sent them to![/caption]

Alien tells the story of how during their ride home, 'Mother' (the name for the computer on the freighter, 'Nostromo'), wakes up the crew from being in hypersleep to investigate a distress signal that she has detected!

So they take their Drop Ship down to investigate this call.

When they arrive on the planet, Captain Dallas (Skerritt) takes a team that includes, Lambert (Cartwright), and Kane (Hurt) to investigate the location of the signal... Now while they are there, Kane is attacked by an Alien that latches itself on to Kane's face!

Now in a hurry, Dallas and Lambert take Kane back to the ship, but Ripley (Weaver), won't let them in until they have gone through quarantine, (at this point both Lambert and Dallas are in a panic to get their shipmate in to the sickbay.)

So their carryon android, 'Ash' (Holm) decides to break quarantine and let Dallas and their team on to the ship!

Now after Dallas and the crew get Kane to the sickbay onboard the mother ship and discover that they can't get the alien off of his face without killing Kane, the Alien comes off by itself!

So Kane and the crew of the ship decide to sit down to a meal before heading back to hypersleep. While they're eating their meal, a new Alien bursts out of Kane's body (killing him). Now the crew of the ship are going to have to capture this Alien, before the Alien begins to feed off the rest of the crew!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="460"] Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) as he is about to meet his end![/caption]

If you guys haven't had a chance to see this movie yet, or if you haven't seen this movie in a while, then this one is more than worth it!

http://youtu.be/LjLamj-b0I8