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Having watched well over 1,000 movies and television shows (including episodes), as well as hundreds of video games, in my lifetime, I've still got a long way to go; and I love embarking on new journeys in the form of countless visual stories.
I'm not bias to any one genre, though I do believe that maximum emotional engagement can make great films. You can have a great film that resonates with the hardest-to-please audiences out there, as long as the story strikes a chord where anyone and everyone understands the depth of what they're watching. A story can have universal appeal and still be a genre-piece through and through.
I just like a well-done movie with a great story that leaves a lasting impression on me. In the end, that's all that matters in my mind.
Lists
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Reviews
AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)
Alien vs Predator: a literal event film.
Alien vs Predator came about circa the Dark Horse Comics storyline in 1989, and of course it proved so damn popular a movie was optioned almost immediately after it turned into a runaway success. I'm 2004, it finally debuted to strong box office numbers but critical drubbings; and it's now become an 'on-the-radar-so-so' film that simply exists in Hollywood's ever-growing stream of multimillion-dollar projects.
This film is... okay. A film like this was never gonna be evaluated as some 'misunderstood masterpiece of cinema' and the novelty of the Alien & Predator crossover charm has well and truly worn-off. Maybe a third one COULD have the same kind of success, but it'd have to be a critical darling and have strong audience responses in a post-2024 landscape of entertainment. Event films can't have so-so responses these days if they want excellent numbers or longevity.
Alien vs Predator definitely helped franchises like the MCU and other shared-universe properties take shape at the movies, and maybe there'll be an attempt at 'revitalising' the Alien vs Predator franchise in the future, but who knows?
Alien vs Predator gets 6/10 IMDbs. 3/5 stars. It's comfort food made for the big screen, and nothing more than that. The franchises are still better when they're self-contained stories anyway.
AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem (2007)
Besides some okay-ish action, this one still sucks.
Over fifteen years since its release at the movies, and AVPR: Requiem is still a wannabe high-concept crossover that's neither high-concept and nor a meaningful event film like it probably thought itself to be.
This is an insult to the two franchises it meshes and turns it into a Final Destination-like slasher film where the humans have the depth of paper cutouts instead of the memorable characters of Ripley or Dutch (shouldn't need explanation for fans of either franchise), and this sequel crossover film cheapens the interconnected of the movies that the retcons for both Alien and Predator's respective continuities make it seem utterly pointless in terms of the story's cause-and-effect.
Alien vs Predator takes the shared-universe playbook for granted in the worst ways possible, and the action doesn't have the screenplay to help sharpen the story's impact, and the lighting and editing is surprisingly all over the place. Sometimes it's competently done, but other times it's nigh unwatchable and the pacing doesn't feel nearly as seamless as Alien or Predator. Sometimes good editing can save a so-so film, but there's no such luck here.
I saw it at the movies and thought besides the title characters fighting being admittedly cool to see, there was nothing outside that face-value novelty giving extra life to a near lifeless film.
2/10 IMDbs is the rating I give this Turkey. 1/5 stars. It takes two sci-fi titans and makes it boring and sloppy; something that monster movies should NEVER have to suffer, especially the boredom part.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter (2002)
Still one of Star Wars' defining tie-in games.
Why Star Wars: Bounty Hunter got so many rereleases compared to other cult-favourites compared to Shadows of the Empire or The Phantom Menace video game is anyone's guess, but there is one reason this is the case: it's still fun to play, weird control scheme and all.
The story is relatively simple enough: you're Jango Fett and doing your thing, and that is bounty hunting. That changes when Count Dooku contacts Fett and wants him to acquire a force-sensitive target for Five-Million-Republic-Credits, and these events lead to the story of Star Wars: Episode II.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter does what tie-in games should be: complementary releases that aren't beat-by-beat retreads of the movie it's based on, and instead expands the universe it's depicting.
In the seemingly endless tapestry of Star Wars video games, Bounty Hunter dared to take the franchise into a quasi-action-platformer emphasising gunplay, apprehending targets and gaining secrets in-level that unlocked goodies like a comic book and trading cards.
Bounty Hunter gets an 8/10 on the IMDb front. 4/5 stars. In a pre-Mandalorian world, this game was the best window into the world of Star Wars bounty hunting outside the movies or television shows. Still, the game is an important piece of Star Wars history.
Cool Cat Saves the Kids (2015)
Of course this sucks.
The editing, the writing, the 'acting'... and Derek Savage's overall lack of cinematic awareness or sense of actual storytelling is the most telling failing of his Cool Cat movies. Yet they're kind of amusing with how awful they really are.
This form of anti-entertainment has some kind of amateurish sheen to it that just begs the viewer to ask 'HUH?!' at almost every discernible moment. This anti-bullying film is another example of a creator not practicing his preaching at all, and instead BECOMING his own heartless Hollywood executive hellbent on destroying YouTube channels daring to criticise his film.
Defensiveness or not, Cool Cat Saves the Kids doesn't save the brain cells from its A-game of F-Grade filmmaking and just... I give up. This film is a case of 'so bad it's good' that it's just flat out bad again when you try thinking about it in a deeper way.
This film gets 1/10 IMDbs. 0.5/5 stars. Sue me, Derek. I dare you. Lord knows those YouTubers didn't deserve your harassment at all. Besides they encouraged people to watch the damn thing anyway.
The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (2010)
It's a shame that the Disney-Marvel merger ended the show early.
This was basically Marvel's belated answer to Bruce Timm's Justice League shows, and it was honestly a good companion piece to the competition at the time. Which begs the question: WHY didn't they make Season Three of this beloved cult classic that even got widely circulated tweets from Edgar Wright revering Ant-Man in this show when he was gonna direct the Ant-Man movie (before BTS crap happened)? It sucked that it finished before it ACTUALLY finished the stories it needed to tell.
Maybe this show was scrapped because it was 'competition' for Disney's in-house programming that came years later, but couldn't really compare to this show. The MCU has dabbled with animation somewhat, but this show was its own entity and didn't have to set up for countless spinoff shows exactly. Maybe budgetary reasons killed it off early. Maybe Marvel thought they couldn't too Justice League Unlimited. But WHY stop when it was a hit? It's a frustrating question that has forced fans of it to get their Avengers fix on the big-screen because the television shows since this one haven't been stellar hits exactly.
Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes knew how to make these stories feel fully realised and 'lived-in' with the seamless world building that's come to define shared universes as a whole. Captain America, Iron Man and company having inseparable chemistry and significance to the world's stories and character dynamics? It all worked damn well. Even when it didn't, you still felt that this universe wasn't taking its interconnectedness for granted (like other shared universe franchises).
Anywho, this show is now an underrated gem that's been unjustly trampled upon because of the MCU's blockbuster success overshadowing the 'small fry' productions: now Disney has redirected Marvel's focus on the 'Cinematic Universe'. Why can't the Marvel brand just be its own 'off-shoot' square-one for shows like Earth's Mightiest Heroes? Their art style distinguished it from other Marvel shows set in different universes; it worked then, and it can still work now.
Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes gets 4.5/5 stars. 9/10 IMDbs. It's an underrated darling that may yet have room for an X-Men '97 styled sequel yet.
Batman: Caped Crusader (2024)
POW! BAM! Batman's back!
Batman: Caped Crusader is the ideal period piece celebrating the character's 85th-Anniversary and shows that The Dark Knight still songs in the world of animated television when in the hands of Bruce Timm.
If X-Men '97 was a 'swan song homage' to the X-Men series, Caped Crusader does the same thing for Batman: The Animated Series and Bruce Timm's extended DC-Animated-Universe too. Batman looks like he's a cross between his debut comic appearance, how he looked in The New Batman Adventures and the Justice League shows.
This Batman keeps the character in relatively grounded stories except for trace fantasy elements as per superhero stories, but it doubles down in the neo-noir aspects of Bats, and the 1930s/1940s-aesthetic is actually a hard 'story frame' for when it takes place: as opposed to The Animated Series' more open-ended continuity.
Caped Crusader is eminently watchable stuff and plays into Batman's strengths on television, which is gonna be even more pressure for the cinematic outings for The Batman: Part II and the DCU-shared-universe thing (however that plays out). Anywho, Batman and Bruce Timm back together again and it's still lightning in a bottle (or on a screen).
Batman: Caped Crusader is just a genuinely good time, and it'll make die-hard Bat-fans VERY happy for sure. I know it made me happy. This show is like an exercise in 'evolving nostalgia-shows' that take what worked before and uses the freedom of streaming and runs with the lack of micro-managing-network-executives and lets the stories complement the pre-existing stories rather than 'overwrite' them completely.
In the seemingly endless plethora of Batman shows and movies, Caped Crusader is like a jolt of energy for such a tried-and-true property that thankfully has competent writers revering the character instead of feeling the need to 'over-deconstruct' stuff that didn't need to be broken down that much.
Caped Crusader gets 10/10 IMDbs. 5/5 stars. Batman has still got it indeed.
Sausage Party: Foodtopia (2024)
Why bother?
Sausage Party wasn't exactly the kind of film begging for a follow-up exactly, but this show chucks out ALL of the teases the movie 'promised' to pay-off, and instead of being a metafictional follow-up where they kill their human creators, they just kill the humans in their world instead. And stuff happens after that.
This series, Foodtopia, feels like a somewhat competently rendered waste of space on Amazon Prime, and an insult to animation's struggling place in the streaming landscape. We got saved gems like Nimona thanks to Netflix, but Amazon has... the sequel series to the Seth Rogen sausage movie from eight years ago? Huh?
I don't get why this show was made other than being 'content fodder' from a pre-existing 'IP' that really didn't need the franchise treatment because there's no real depth to 'potty mouthed sentient food' exactly.
Foodtopia is an elaborate sh!tpost masquerading as a miniseries. Sure it's watchable and maybe there's a joke or two (kind of) that seem kind of funny, but it's as disposable as grocery goods that have been in the fridge for a week too long. 4/10 IMDbs. 2/5 stars.
As an animation fan, treat yourself to literally anything else that's meaningful. Amazon ain't exactly short on animated shows either.
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
Nostalgic popcorn-shovelling goodness.
Deadpool & Wolverine is a good product born of the cyclical and cynical nature of modern Hollywood: it mocks the crap out of 20th Century Fox in a satisfying manner and also riffs on the overdrive of craziness that is the multiverse trope in superhero movies since Spider-Verse. And Ryan Reynolds knows fully well he can do whatever the heck he feels like doing because Deadpool is THAT self-aware and refreshing a character who doesn't spare anyone the mercy of mockery.
The MCU is certainly in need of some creative revitalising and the film runs with that too; it does this and reveres the Fox-era X-Men films against a narrative backdrop that ACTUALLY does justice to the whole 'vs' concept of a crossover film where two icons fight to the 'death'. Deadpool & Wolverine works because it does what films like Batman v Superman and the Alien vs Predator films failed to realise: being uncomplicated upfront FUN, playing to the strengths of their characters.
Deadpool & Wolverine is simply good fun at the movies, and it's what the MCU needs instead of being a constant barrage of sequel-bait material. Yes we like sequels, but they still have to be earned all the same.
Deadpool & Wolverine gets 4/5 stars. 8/10 IMDbs. It's the kind of self-contained fun movies strive to be. Hopefully it'll show others how these crossovers are done.
The New Norm (2024)
Is this non-content (non-tent)?
The New Norm feels like it was made to deliberately fail in its attempts at conservative humour and trying to prove that its anti-humour barely has any semblance of genuine funny to it whatsoever.
Just think about this: someone made this and thought it was a good idea to knowingly put this 'show' on Twitter/X as a 'first-ever' type deal. Too bad that 'first-ever' deal shows that Twitter doesn't have a hope in hell of hosting decent content it can proudly call its own.
The New Norm is an animation insult given life to appease a weirdly specific demographic as intellectual junk food and to serve a a superficial 'gotcha' to liberals (supposedly).
Who was this crap made for? Surely not anyone with half a brain cell and creative integrity... but someone made it, so clearly someone believed in this idea.
The New Norm ain't a respectable norm by ANY means of television production. It's like a fake tv-show-in-Grand-Theft-Auto written by AI and acted out by jaded McDonalds servers who hate lifting their fingers.
This show is a genuine miracle of awful. Officially it gets 1/10 IMDbs, but it certainly deserves an official 0/10. It may as well get 0/5 stars here.
Andor (2022)
Probably the best 'Disney Star Wars' outing by far.
The Mandalorian delivered on its first two seasons as being some of the finest Star Wars stories since The Original Trilogy, which Andor also delivers on: but it's because it adds more depth to a world that's been expanded on so many times, that this interpretation is genuinely a fresh take that dares to distance itself from the conventional Star-Wars-y stuff like lightsabers, legacy characters and The Force.
Andor is what happens when Star Wars dares to go outside the 'known scope' of the franchise and lets a grounded story unfold that doesn't feel unnatural or forced: it's just letting the action and character development complement each other instead of being at odds the whole damn time. Andor is like the 'everyman' rendition of Star Wars; it's these kinds of stories that are unburdened by the film's overall canon which should definitely be LucasFilm's creative direction going forward.
For all the good, the bad and the ugly of Disney Star Wars, it's shows like this one which prove it hasn't all been a colossal waste of time and money: there's some genuinely good stuff here, but it shouldn't be at the mercy of 'content overload'. Thankfully Andor feels like a project born of passion instead of a Disney content quota (many of their Disney+ shows suffer that fate), and the Star Wars Universe easily deserves more non-canon-breaking side-stories that still feel important to the world it takes place in.
Andor gets 10/10 IMDbs. 5/5 stars. One of the stronger Disney+ Star Wars shows of late.
My Adventures with Superman (2023)
Well realised Super-stuff.
My Adventures with Superman doesn't reinvent the wheel or anything Herculean in particular, but its main job is to simply be a good Superman story and in that department it succeeds with flying colours (pun kind of intended there).
Superman has taken a backseat to Batman in terms of prominence in film and television lately, but this series could be a sign of things to come regarding the Man of Steel's future and sharing the stage with Bats in terms of multimedia prominence.
DC has always had a real knack for quality animated productions, and My Adventures with Superman continues this trend with the most breathing room for evolving stories like this: television.
8/10 IMDbs are given here. 4/5 stars. It's a refreshing take on a tried-and-true character.
Inside Out 2 (2024)
A safer bet than the first movie. But not as daring.
Inside Out 2 is a 'comfort food' sequel where the stuff of the first one is expanded upon and given more breathing room and making for nice world-building, but of course it goes without saying the film isn't as 'surprising' as its predecessor. However it's still very good.
Inside Out 2 was probably an unusually safe bet for PIXAR: it was a sequel to their literally most 'cerebral' film and it looks like this one is gonna outperform the original film at the box office. So it's safe to say this series has become a 'lo-fi high-concept' franchise all about human thinking and emotions.
I suppose the one big blemish of this film is that PIXAR has to potentially focus mostly on sequels now (as per Disney's relentless franchising): so what comes next? Bugs Life 2? Toy Story: The Infinity Saga Edition? Cars: Revved Up? Rata2ouille? Up Again? No thanks. Hopefully their next original outing, Elio, will be a success. But who knows?
Inside Out 2 has just the right amount of depth to please kiddies and adults, and there's enough jokes to please both crowds also, and the story is still as honest as the first movie's. This meal has enough healthy and 'junk food' stuff to keep most of the audience happy and immersed.
Inside Out 2 gets 8/10 IMDbs. 4/5 stars. It's a deserving sequel for a deserving movie. Here's hoping PIXAR's next outing has similar success.
Predator (1987)
One of the most testosterone-fuelled 1980s classics!
Predator became an accidentally iconic movie because of the titular monster giving the movie a life of its own and soon becoming a franchise inseparable from Fox's own Alien. Both monsters came to be sci-fi-horror's defining icons on the big screen; and since 1979 for Alien, they BOTH still have the moniker of cinema's greatest 'space monsters'. And Predator showed that he could take on humanity's finest American soldiers in a tropical jungle, showing just how formidable this space hunter truly was!
A lot of movies have great ideas but struggle to have an equally strong story complementing the concept; Predator was a case where the cliched 1980s action-adventure trappings played perfectly into the set up for the monster, and how he was eons ahead of the competition set before him.
This film is just pure 1980s action cinema at its finest, and one of the most cleverly stealthy science-fiction films of all time. Predator lay the groundwork for a multimedia empire that's still wowing new fans today, and will continue to do so in the years to come.
Predator gets 9/10 IMDbs. 4.5/5 stars. Great stuff indeed.
The Acolyte: Day (2024)
Marginally better than the last one. But not by much.
*Spoilers (You've been warned)*
The Acolyte has officially become a pariah amongst the online Star Wars fandom. For better or for worse this is gonna have a potential ripple effect on future projects (unless Leslye Headland stays far away from any and all future projects in the franchise): because we don't know what to expect with Skeleton Crew at all (a show set at the same time as fan-favourite The Mandalorian), and we're half way through this controversial show.
This episode had clearer storytelling and less retcons to grate nails on a chalkboard over (besides the Ki Adi-Mundi thing 'the Sith have been extinct for a millennia'), but it still misses the mark for what makes up other Star Wars projects: and that is being simply fun. Clear cut, uncomplicated fun. This show wants to be a star-chasing murder mystery, but it slips on its own lapses in logic and almost feels like it's getting close to being a parallel universe in Star Wars compared to the baseline canon (that Disney supposedly standardised in 2014).
Hopefully the future Disney(+)Star Wars projects aren't as... disruptive to what many Star Wars fans have known about and internalised for eons, because it simply doesn't work trying to deliver AGAINST their own expectations on the occasional 'shock project'; we can still be surprised and play into expectations in a 'nonchalant' kind of way. Why do writers forget about that middle ground these days for mega franchises lasting several decades with generations of fans young and old?
This episode gets 5/10 IMDbs. A high-production mess trying to be a high-concept piece, and it stumbles right before it starts getting good (the ending lightsaber fight stops before we get invested in the drama). 2.5/5 stars. Or 2/4 stars, circa Roger Ebert's scoring system.
P. S. It may not be The Star Wars Holiday Special exactly, but the creative struggles on display here are very real.
The Good Dinosaur (2015)
Welcome to Jurassic Farm!
The Good Dinosaur was Disney-PIXAR's first ever megaflop, and seeing the movie it's all because the film didn't have the 'wow factor' marketing of their other hits like Wall-E, Up or Toy Story 3; this film didn't have anything pushing it out from the crowd of PIXAR's already crowded 2010s line-up, which included 2015's mega-hit Inside Out.
The Good Dinosaur has the typical trappings of these kinds of talking animal movies: there's a buddy-dynamic at play, there's all sorts of characters that range from cynical scavengers to experienced families knowing the world inside and out, and help the protagonist in the end. The world-building is interesting here, but the story and voice-acting of the main character just stops this film from being great and makes you wish the film was silent (like even more so than Wall-E). It could have worked in a style similar to the 2016 film The Red Turtle; dinosaurs deserve a good silent movie to their name revolving ENTIRELY around them.
It's harmless stuff, and a good story of families and how all creatures adapt to the natural world: alternate history or not. Agricultural dinosaurs: it could easily lend itself to a larger franchise of spin-offs, but The Good Dinosaur isn't exactly lightning in a bottle. It's a jolt of animated colour that's an okay time-burner.
The film gets 6/10 IMDbs. 3/5 stars. Not one of PIXAR's finest, but it's okay.
Jupiter Ascending (2015)
It's high-concept junk food.
Jupiter Ascending greeted the blockbuster season of 2015 with a resounding wet-fart of acclaim and financial devastation for Warner Brothers and Village Roadshow alike. This film had the hopeless (dis)honour of being another 'this is like Star Wars but different' space opera, and that comparison has itself become a tired cliche on its own. Why not compare Jupiter more to The Matrix or Jodorowsky's never made Dune, or something that's not just an uninspired comparison which was gonna be a Herculean task to actually achieve successfully in the first place?
The film as is, all its history aside, is dumb time-burning fun that has surely become an impressionable ten-year-old's favourite film of all time (who can tell when or whom these films strike a chord with?); and oh boy the screenplay is an inspired hot mess of flashy action and sci-fi reincarnation tropes mixed in with traces of ancient astronauts and pretty faces conveniently protected by fresh servings of deus ex machina and sci-fi pew-pew-pew all throughout its runtime.
Jupiter Ascending is a flashy guilty pleasure of a space opera; it prioritises vibe over story, and action over character development, and the cliches almost make the film out to be an ironic comedy for the ages rather than the deep drama it thought it was gonna be.
There is still an ever-evolving playbook for space-operas at the movies: and Jupiter Ascending is just one costly drop in that ever-growing stream of high-concept sci-fi flicks waiting to be consumed by hungry viewers.
This so-bad-it's-good blockbuster gets 5/10 IMDbs. 2.5/5 stars. Surely this was done INTENTIONALLY as a write-off for the companies at play? Who knows?
The Acolyte: Destiny (2024)
Kathleen Kennedy or not, this episode... WHA!?
*Spoilers Ahead, Obviously*
The Acolyte's first two episodes weren't THAT bad: but this one seems like it's trying to test the limits of veteran Star Wars fans by having ANOTHER virgin birth that ain't Anakin Skywalker in the form of space-twins and downplaying The Force and rephrasing the concept as something broad and tribal instead of the universal nature of The Force. Wonder how they'll elaborate on the 'Threads' thing?
So are virgin births a widespread unreported phenomenon in A Galaxy Far, Far Away? Even before The Skywalker Family even existed (who knows; there's probably extended family that's gonna be touched upon in the future) this plot strand doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
This episode was well shot and acted (besides the child stars), but the writing and logic-breaking stupidity of the fire scene was a blemish on Star Wars Canon. Hopefully the rest of the show will shed light on that seemingly glaring plot hole, but who can tell these days?
Suddenly South Park's Joining the Panderverse feels less like a parody and more of a documentary about Hollywood's timeless stupidity of chasing modern trends that will die in a few years only to chase something else afterwards.
I still believe that we should wait til the whole thing's out, but this episode doesn't bode well for the rest.
Guess we'll have to wait for Skeleton Crew, guys. That, or Taika Waititi's Star Wars film (if they actually make than damn thing at all).
The Acolyte (2024)
It's still too early to review it in its entirety!
The Acolyte is the latest victim of Disney's Star Wars review-bobbing and Disney+'s latest entry in expanding the Saga in the world of streaming. Now though I said it's still too early to critique the whole thing, it's proving a bit of an iffy entry into Star Wars' lofty canon in film and television.
The Acolyte does do some stuff right like nailing the vibe of Star Wars, but the writing seems a tad shallow and the actors are making the best of the material they're stuck with. Maybe with all the whining people are making about this show now the other stuff on Disney+ isn't so... bad?
Honestly: the premature backlash just doesn't seem right UNTIL the entire thing's been released. I said this about Obi-Wan Kenobi and I'll stick with this argument for every other time this becomes an issue. Review-bombing just seems like an immature way to adversely affect products people deem as 'woke' or 'bad' so early on. The Acolyte is competent television, but it ain't the golden age 'event television' The Mandalorian proved itself to be. Heck, Acolyte ain't on the same level as The Bad Batch. Hopefully Skeleton Crew will be an improvement.
P. S. It's certainly pissed off some people for the right reasons, but some of the 'feedback' seems to be coming from Prequel apologists thinking the word owes George Lucas an 'overdue apology'. To each their own. But this show needs to have a breakout episode sooner rather than later.
Alien Resurrection (1997)
Mildly better than Alien 3. Emphasis on mildly.
The reason I compare this infamously hated sequel to Alien 3 is because the vision is... clearer than Alien 3's confused and frustrating payoffs that weren't payoffs at all. Don't get me wrong, Resurrection is still fatally flawed just like any of the post-Aliens sequels, but at least this one didn't seem to cave in from impromptu rewrites from Fox executives trying to make another marquee franchise entry like Alien 3 did; Resurrection at least had some semblance of a coherent story even if it's still confused and totally unnecessary in terms of canon (at this point it's basically Halloween in space and Michael Myers is the Xenomorph).
The Alien franchise has become something of a household name for a franchise that ballooned into something far bigger than a standalone film: and everything that comes after the original doesn't always necessarily work all of the time when you factor in ALL of the tie-in media since 1979 or 1986. So many movies can claim the same exact thing, like Planet of the Apes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Die Hard, The Exorcist: the list goes on and on, American and British cinema alike. Alien didn't NEED to be a sequel-bait franchise after Aliens, but the powers that be Hollywood bigwigs don't let these giants sleep peacefully.
Would I recommend this film? No. Do Alien fans look fondly upon it? Nope. Has it helped? In terms of what-not-to-dos in filmmaking, then yes. It's definitely not something to flaunt about the movie itself, but hey. It is what it is.
Alien Resurrection gets 4/10 IMDbs. 2/5 stars. Better than Alien 3 in certain regards, but certainly not a classic or good.
Alien³ (1992)
Review of both cuts (Updated take).
Alien 3 got reshot and rewritten to death where David Fincher disowned the film outright because it got so bloated and unrecognisable from a well-produced movie. And honestly he did the right thing disowning this film; Fincher's thankfully had a MUCH better career since starting off on the wrong foot with this movie. And the Assembly Cut amended the Theatrical Release's many problems.
After the first two Alien movies, along comes Alien 3 and shows that long-standing franchises are NOT always home runs of critical and commercial success. I feel like I need to run this meme by Star Wars, Planet of the Apes and Terminator fans: James Franco from 2016's Buster Scruggs: "First time?". 'Franchise suicide has long predated FaceBook and Twitter many times before, and still very much a recurring problem for clueless studio executives just throwing money at the proverbial wall and hoping something sticks in the right way eventually. However things STILL change after the facts (ie, alternate cuts of movies that weren't ideal productions at first).
Alien 3 takes what the first two Aliens established and throws it all into a wood-chipper and THEN an incinerator. Why make a film this hyped into an unmitigated disaster of clueless direction and a nonsensical story full of coincidences and retcons that feel like drinking fresh piss from a coffee mug? Jesus.
Even the good stuff feels like it's been trampled by all the preconceived mandates forced upon the film and the executive worms; Sigourney Weaver is wasted here and Charles Dance is easily the most missed opportunity with the casting on display: he basically plays a strong supporting character who's there to be 'slasher-flicked' in the most implausible and embarrassing way.
Alien 3's Theatrical Cut is a sequel done poorly, and though it's NOT the worst thing ever made, it's easily amongst the worst of the Aliens Saga by a long shot. And yes: Prometheus was FAR better than this too, what with that film's issues. That film had clearer vision and purpose regarding Alien, and didn't feel hamstrung by every kind of studio mandate under the sun.
Alien 3 Theatrical gets a 3/10 here. 1.5/5 stars.
Update section:
The Assembly Cut gets 7/10 IMDbs. 3.5/5 stars.
While not a perfect sequel to the first two by ANY means, it's still fascinating how two different versions of the same troubled movie inspired alternative cuts that give very different impressions to one another.
I don't know if The Assembly is better than Prometheus, but it's a notable improvement over the Theatrical Release by an unusually wide margin.
Maybe with time re-evaluations of Alien 3 will stress the Assembly Cut as THE definitive version of an infamously difficult movie to make.
Aliens (1986)
It's cliche to say this, but Aliens really IS fantastic!
Aliens became the first of MANY sequels to 1979's surprise sci-fi-horror blockbuster: and in many space-opera fashions like Star Wars and Star Trek the sequels got bigger and crazier in terms of scope (at least with their initial sequels) and lore. The Alien franchise also became a MASSIVE multimedia titan that just continued to grow after this star-bound action-flick came to define 1986's place in action-cinema history, and still being a robust horror-thriller in the process too.
The original Alien was definitely an eerie film that relied on its atmosphere instead of being a constant jump-scare fest (like many horror flicks nowadays), whereas Aliens makes you feel the presence of the Xenomorph as an all-encompassing threat that will not back down AT ALL, until its prey are either dead or impregnated by a dreaded face-hugger; and it's like a constant roller-coaster of 'OH SH! T' moments even with the gun-toting and flamethrowers keeping the terrifying monsters at bay on a 'Colony Planet' of smoke and cyberpunk-steel.
Aliens showed that James Cameron's success with Terminator wasn't an accident; it showed that he knew the genre trappings of fast sci-fi-action and ran with it thanks to Alien being an unexpected success in 1979; so why not make an 'antithesis' to that film's deliberately restrained pacing and eeriness with one that's still scary but non-stop momentum of explosive action? Alien and Aliens are two of the strongest 'back-to-back' franchise films ever in terms of quality and legacy. Aliens is so damn good it leaves similar sequels of iconic films to shame; it's a standout sequel that dared to be different enough yet flaunt the same horror tropes in a fast-paced action flick for the ages.
As far as the Alien films go, the first two movies really are as good as it gets! Sure the extended franchise has had its ups-and-downs, but all of those things owe their existence to two of the finest space adventures films ever made.
Aliens is a 10/10 for IMDb. 5/5 stars. It's a blast that still appeals to today's blockbuster sensibilities easily.
Once Upon a Studio (2023)
Metafictional love letter to Disney.
Once Upon a Studio should have been Walt Disney Animation's feature film epic instead of Wish capitalising on the company's 100th-Anniversary celebration; it could have been a meditative story on creative differences of traditional and computer animation reconciling their differences by the story's end or something. But the film itself right here is still wonderful, short or not. It's a celebration that's genuine instead of being involuntarily preachy like some celebratory films tend to be; it relishes the films that defined Disney's place in animated cinema up to 2023.
It's nice that Once Upon a Studio received critical acclaim and all that jazz short films deserve to receive in an industry that seems to be generally shafting them in favour of feature films, but why wasn't it nominated for the Best Animated Short Film Oscar (unless I missed something) or anything like that? Maybe it was 'too on the nose' for some awards pundits to honour... it STILL deserved it more than the likes of some of the company's recent feature length outings. This film was sincere and still used modern techniques to incorporate old-school cel-animation stuff alongside CGI and the actual Disney animation studio. It's what 'remix films' ought to be: plain and simple reimagining of tropes and characters that make up for the medium's history and place in cinema.
This short film had production values that other animated films would be sickly green with envy over how it turned out. And Disney did achieve something special here. Now can we PLEASE get another traditionally animated feature film from them again? It's long overdue and I think everyone would watch it given the right story and confidence in its marketing. If it's just half as genuine as this it'll work for sure.
10/10 IMDbs for sure. 5/5 stars. It's gorgeous.
Tropic Thunder (2008)
Still sharply potent criticism of Tinseltown.
Tropic Thunder was met with acclaim and commercial success in 2008, and met with INTENSE controversy over Robert Downy Jr.'s now infamous blackface performance in the film (not to mention Simple Jack). Yet it was PART OF THE POINT the film was making regarding the lengths some creatives will go when making feature films that will impact the world further down the track.
Man: the world today feels like a totally alien place compared to 2008's landscape of global-warming preaching and 9/11 still being a very recent tragedy, and the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 being the then-cutting-edge game consoles, and gay jokes that would possibly be considered homophobic or some such rubbish (comedy's meant to be funny, not taken as literal demeaning mockery of real people). SO much has changed since the 2000s; fast forward to 2024 and so many of the film's jokes ARE triggering all the wrong people further proving the film's point and jokes.
It's kind of sad and funny that Tropic Thunder's mockeries of Hollywood have basically come true; today's industry is playing EXACTLY like how those fake trailers framed the industry (except for the lack of animation representation) what with the tired action franchises and comedy films, and of course mid-budget indies being awards-bait films. Ben Stiller knew what he was doing when he committed to directing this metafictional mockumentary of modern American Cinema.
It's funny stuff, and sadly something cinema of the 2020s seems terrified to tackle with 'crude nuance', ie South Park. Meta-comedies can be refreshing and necessary critiques for what they're mocking, and Tropic Thunder was a real treat for 2008's crowded blockbuster landscape (seriously 2008 was an ENORMOUS year for the movies).
Tropic Thunder gets 8/10 IMDb points. 4/5 stars. It's still a riot. Just don't show this one to easily triggered fellas (or you can still, what the hell).
Squid Game: The Challenge (2023)
Reality TV is often more poison than entertainment.
Of course Squid Game, an inspired television series that makes commentary on competition itself, would get the most uninspired reality knock-off bearing its own name and cheapening the brand in kind.
This show feels like an AI-generated sewage pipe of been-there-done-that tropes that other shows of its ilk have infested the tv landscape with. It's an insult to modern television itself.
This could be labeled ANY other title under the sun and it'd still suck by any known metric of quality. This category of tv CAN be good when you've got the occasional Kitchen Nightmares episode having Gordon Ramsay have a real-life story of persistence reflect itself with a fulfilling outcome, but where is that fulfilment here? Even with shows like Kitchen Nightmares being diamonds in the rough (somewhat), there's still awful episodes in shows like it.
I'm probably being relentless here with my take in this show here, and I'm sorry, but it's honestly how I feel about it and reality tv itself as a 'medium'. When it's good it's watchable, but when it's not, it's like a documentary made of diarrhoea and no solid story.
0/10 IMDb points. 0/5 stars. I know it's officially 1/10 here because of the review score, but my god is this placeholder sludge at its worst.
Titan A.E. (2000)
Don Bluth's Star Wars.
Titan A. E. was a tragic victim of 'studio sidelining' where a film is shafted in favour of a bigger and 'more viable' product; in this case, it seemed Fox was focusing its efforts on X-Men in getting adequate promos and licensing deals to make that movie soar at the box office. Titan A. E. was sporadically promoted besides the occasional tv spot, but the tie-in campaign proved very moot compared to tentpole Disney films at the time.
Titan A. E. also has the distinction of being Don Bluth's latest feature film, as his in-development Dragon's Lair film still hasn't been released. It sucks, because Don always had a knack for blending pathos in with slapstick comedy that few animators dared to balance as well as he did (with the likes of Secret of Nimh, American Tail, Land Before Time and All Dogs Go To Heaven); and it would have been nice seeing that trend continue into the 2000s and beyond. Sadly, it hasn't seen another film of his yet, and fans of Don Bluth are still waiting for Dragon's Lair to become a movie. Hopefully the day will come soon when Bluth graces the world with another of his feature films.
This movie was also a nice refreshing change of pace from all the musical animated films that were nigh-omniscient thanks to the Disney Renaissance still rubbing off on the competition. Science fiction has only gotten stronger representation in animation recently thanks to the Spider-Verse films, and films like them and Wall-E owe themselves to films like Titan A. E. and The Iron Giant daring to give audiences something different and high-concept escapism in a field dominated by Disney Princesses and talking animals.
2000s animation was something of a crazy and difficult time for theatrical toons; the technology evolved rapidly thanks to PIXAR's films and Dreamworks' Shrek, and traditional cel-animation still had a foothold on television when it was dying out at the movies. And Titan A. E. is a fascinating window into that time for the animation industry, where the demands of audiences were changing and becoming very complicated, and it seemed like a case of it being too ahead of its time (who knows how a film like this would have performed in the 2010s or 2020s in a post-Spider-Verse world?). Hindsight makes it impossible to know if a failure could have had a 'second chance' at success given the proper promotional material, or if it was always gonna play out the same way regardless.
7/10 IMDb points. 3.5/5 stars. Titan A. E. gives us a glance at a simpler time for animated cinema; and how sci-fi animation has continued to refine itself thanks to the likes of it and others daring to defy Disney.