The Colony (2013) - Movie Review

Official Score = 1 1/2 Devils

When it comes to movies with a big budget, some powerful talent, some great special effects, and a great premise, you would expect the movie to be great right? Or at least good?

I have to admit that I have not seen to much of this over the last 5 or 6 years, but back in the early part of the new millennium... And I will be honest and say that the fact that Hollywood wants to remake every horror movie ever made has not really helped any...

The reason I mention this is because I was recently disappointed with the movie, The Colony (2013)...

The Colony... A movie that had a lot of promise, but in the end just really didn't make it!

Written by: Jeff Renfroe (Civic Duty), Svet Rouskov (Silent Cargo), Patrick Tarr (American Psycho), Patrick Trottier (Hellions) & Directed by: Jeff Renfroe. Starring: Kevin Zegers (Dawn Of The Dead), Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix), Bill Paxton (Aliens), Charlotte Sullivan (Defendor) & Dru Viergever (Survival Of The Dead).

The world froze over a long time ago. So long ago that I can't remember the warmth of the sun. I heard stories growing up... How the planet grew hotter as our fuel was burned. How we made towers to work the weather. But the truth is... one day... it started to snow. And it never stopped.

- Sam (Kevin Zegers), a quote from: The Colony (2013).

This movie tells the story of how in the modern times, the way the world's governments decide to handle the problems of Global Warming is to create a machine that would control the weather... The problem is, is that the machines have malfunctioned and have made it so that the Earth has started to permanently snow...

About 40 years later, mankind has gone underground in to shelters (called Colonies,) to survive the extreme cold. During this time, one of the Colonies goes silent, and Briggs (Laurence Fishburne) decides to take a team over to investigate why they went dark,

Briggs (Laurence Fishburne), as he is leading a party to check out what happened to the colony that went dark.

What they will find there will shock them down to there very core... But as they are trying to escape the massacre created at the dead colony by a group of ravenous cannibals... They will have to contend with the potential that they might lead these cannibals back to their, 'Colony'!

Listen I will be honest and say that this movie was pretty much an overpriced bad knock off of, 30 Days Of Night (2007), I mean at least in that movie they were, 'Vampires' that went after a group in a small town in Alaska during it's darkest period... The bad guys in this, barely acted like comprehensible Zombies... And they never explained why these Cannibals were jumping from colony to colony and killing everyone...

Ultimately, I just didn't see why this ended up happening... And it was not explained at all... All in all, It just seemed to happen... And frankly it just seemed like senseless violence jumping from one colony to the next (And trust me when I say that I do like violence in horror/sci-fi movies,) ... but since there was not enough character development with the cast in the colony, I kind of really did not care all that much rather the colony lived or died, which made this more of a pointless gorefest...

Man Of Steel (2013) - Movie Review

Official Score = 3 1/2 Devils 

Superman... What can I say? I mean for literally generations, this, 'Man Of Steel' has been entertaining audiences all over the world... You know what with him fighting for Truth, Justice & The American way and all that...

Well for me I have always been a fan of Superman, rather he was played by: Christopher Reeve (Village Of The Damned), or Dean Cain (Out Of Time), but when Brand Routh took over... Well like most people I wasn't entirely pleased with the results... And well after many years I was beginning to wonder if there was ever going to be another live action Superman to come out... (The character is doing pretty good in the animated world, even back then, but in the live action world, he seemed to be just about not there!

Well, when I heard that there was going to be another Superman movie coming out... To say the least I was excited, and after I saw this new Superman movie called, Man Of Steel (2013) I found out that it was as good as I had hoped it would be!

A fantastic breath of fresh air for the man of steel!

Why is that? Well this movie, which was written by: David S. Goyer (Batman Begins), Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight) & Directed by: Zack Snyder (300). Starring: Henry Cavill (The Tudors), Kevin Costner (The Postman), Amy Adams (The Office), Michael Shannon (The Iceman), Russell Crowe (Gladiator), Diane Lane (Unfaithful) & Laurence Fishburne (Hannibal) and whichbesides the usual great talent & amazing special effects, as well as fun story that seems to follow the productions that Christopher Nolan seems to be attached to, the thing that I really liked about this movie is that it didn't make the mistake that it's immediate predecessor made...

What I mean by this is that Superman Returns (2006) seemed to want to reboot Christopher Reeve's post first movie films, and basically render all of his Superman movies after the first one useless and start over from there... Instead of doing that... Man Of Steel did something so much better!

"Zod can't be trusted. The problem is, I'm not sure the people of Earth can be either."

- Clark Kent/Superman (Henry Cavill) - Quote: Man Of Steel

You see this movie basically started from scratch, and put a nice little twist on it! What I mean by this is the fact that this movie gives a bigger role in to the fall of, 'Krypton', all the way through when Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) discovers who he really is... And going out and becoming some sort of drifter, all the way through having to clean up the last threat from Krypton!

Superman going to war with the last of his species in an effort to save his adoptive home planet!

In the end, this movie is a total blast, and well worth it!

Event Horizon (1997) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_330" align="alignright" width="220"] Official Score = 2 1/2 Devils[/caption]

I was a teenager and was just getting in to horror and Science Fiction movies and TV series one of my favorite TV series that I really enjoyed was the TV series, Space Above And Beyond (A TV show that I am pretty certain was at least partly the inspiration for, Starship Troopers (1997))!

One of the reasons that I really liked this series is that this series takes place roughly about 100 years in the future, when the United States and other countries have finally made it in outer space and have begun to colonize the rest of the universe!

The reason that I mention this is that there is another movie that although it takes place in outer space and humanity is beginning to colonize outer space, it is still close enough to the present to give at least one interpretation of what it would be like when mankind starts making its first serious inroads in to outer space would be like! That movie of course being, Event Horizon (1997)!

Written by: Philip Eisner (Firestarter 2: Rekindled) & Directed By: Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil: Retribution). Starring: Sam Neill (Omen 3: Final Conflict), Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix), Kathleen Quinlan (The Hills Have Eyes), Joely Richardson (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), Richard T. Jones (Phone Booth), Jack Noseworthy (Surrogates), Jason Isaacs (Dawn), and Shawn Pertwee (Soldier).

This movie tells the story of the, ‘Event Horizon’, an experimental spaceship that is meant to test the bounds of human exploration with an experimental engine that would allow for mankind to seriously begin to explore outer space! The problem though is that after engaging the new drive, the Event Horizon ends up disappearing without a trace!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600"] The Event Horizon before she becomes, 'The Ship Of The Damned'![/caption]

That is until years later when the Event Horizon pops back up on Earth’s radar, and they decide to send a rescue craft to rescue anyone who may still be alive on the ship, and also to investigate what happened to the ship itself!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="522"] The crew of the rescue ship as they begin to piece together what happened to the, 'Event Horizon'![/caption]

The only problem though is that when the crew arrive along with a specialist who helped design the ship by the name of Doctor William Weir (Neill), weird things begin to happen, including seeing horrific images of loved ones, or past mistakes, etc…

Now with this hellish ship playing tricks on the crew, and slowly driving the already slightly unbalanced Dr. Weir insane, it will be up to Captain Miller (Fishburne) and the rest of his crew to work to get off the ship before the ship along with the help of good ole Doctor Weir end up destroying the ship and crew that had been sent out to rescue them!

Now on the plus side:

1. This movie has literally something for the fans of both Science Fiction and Horror Movies!

2. Event Horizon also has a great cast to it, that would go on to do to do other great Science Fiction and or Horror movies!

3. The next thing that I thought that I would mention is that the special effects were so well done, that there is a point on the ship where between the experimental drive and the rest of the ship that, looks like a grinder of sorts and was so well made that the first time I saw this scene I got a little dizzy!

4. I also wanted to say that I do believe that this movie is I believe an homage to the classic Science Fiction movies of the 50s, 60s and 70s that had to do with people heading out in to space to rescue other crews or to find out something that went wrong!

The only problem that I had with the movie is that, even though the concepts that hell is essentially another dimension, is an interesting

, is an interesting take on that old concept, the scenes having to do with people being tortured can be a little hard on the eyes, what I mean this is that they can hurt the eyes.

All in all it is a fun one, and it is definitely worth the time and trouble of watching it, and if you are like me, it will definitely become a treasured classic!

http://youtu.be/OVlnER8SxfQ