 So, this is an interesting title that floated completely under the radar between 2021's 'Mortal Kombat' and 'Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City'. You've probably heard of both of those, but this? Even the game it's based on is pretty obscure - a virtual game meant for the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR. And when we say the movie is based on the game, it would appear that the basis is extremely loose.
In the game (from research), a medieval town is under attack by a werewolf. Players have to guess which of the townsfolk is the werewolf in disguise, and the format is "Mafia-style" - in other words, those party games where one person is the bad guy, and everyone has to guess who it is. The film seems to be pretty much the same idea (a lot like 'The Thing') for the most part, but plays on the comedy elements of each character as opposed to making things a straight up horror mystery. And honestly - it's good! Finn Wheeler (Sam Richardson) has been assigned to the small, fictional town of Beaversfield, where he meets a friendly mail carrier named Cecily Moore (Milana Vayntrub), and they become friends. Many of the rest of the townsfolk are divided about a pipeline that has been proposed by a businessman named Sam Parker (Wayne Duvall), and we meet some of these characters in the forms of Trisha Anderson (Michaela Watkins) and her husband Pete (Michael Chernus), wealthy gay couple Devon (Cheyenne Jackson) and Joaquim Wolfson (Harvey Guillén), general rednecks Gwen (Sarah Burns) and Marcus (George Basil), and Emerson Flint (Glenn Fleshler), who pretty much keeps to himself. A blizzard takes out the power of Beaversfield, which makes the residents seek shelter in a lodge owned by the kindly Jeanine Sherman (Catherine Curtin). That night, the oddball group of residents that have been huddled together, start to experience a few strange occurrences, that ultimately puts them up against some sort of unknown creature. Eventually, as the title would suggest, evidence points to the attacker being a werewolf (spoiler alert?), based on the findings of local environmentalist, and pipeline protestor, Dr. Jane Ellis (Rebecca Henderson). So, much of the film is a bit of a "bottle" situation that makes me think 'Night of the Living Dead' mixed with 'The Thing', but comedy is the inherent genre as opposed to suspense, horror, or anything else. This is another good example of a film that basically knows what it is. This was done for fun more than anything, and I'm actually very happy that I caught it, as it exists between two much bigger titles. Perhaps most surprising of all was that I didn't have to dig to deep, as it currently resides on Netflix (Canada). So, putting the video game aspect of things aside, I might just suggest this as a solid comedy flick that you don't have to think too much about. I feel like we need more video game movies that don't take themselves too seriously. The idea that this was a comedy/horror of sorts lets the viewer know that it's not there for any big reason (awards, money, etc.), and it just wants to have fun with its would-be fans. This one comes to us from director Josh Ruben - a name synonymous with "College Humour", and first-project writer Mishna Wolff, who I'm definitely keeping an eye on. Wolff's writing here got me laughing pretty genuinely a few times, and I feel like when it comes to direction, the "College Humour" aspect of Ruben is all I really need to point out. I'd like to see these two collaborate on more in the future; especially with titles like these video games that float under the radar. They took the basic concept of the game, put it into the movie, and despite whatever changed, it still works! So, if you have Netflix, I definitely recommend giving it a watch. There's a little giggle in here for just about everyone (even if I am a bit comedy/horror biased). 4/5
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 Truth be told, I would consider myself a "non-fan" of Pokémon. Don't get the wrong idea though. I have no problems or issues with Pokémon or anyone who's into it. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that I feel like their fan-base is one of the nicer, less toxic ones, unlike some of the stuff I'm into like 'Star Wars' or 'Game of Thrones', where fans go off like dynamite if something isn't to their liking. I'm sure fans here can do the same, but from my perspective, it's far less noticeable.
When I first saw this, I wanted to experiment and pay close attention as a non-fan to see if I could get anything out of it. And the truth of the matter is, to my surprise, I actually got quite a lot out of it. In fact, this is kind of the perfect Pokémon movie for someone in my shoes. I know just enough for a beginner's pop quiz on the subject, and this does a very good job of not only unveiling their world, but going a direction with it that works for a mass audience. We're introduced to Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) and his friend, Jack (Karan Soni). Jack is keen on getting Tim back into hunting and training Pokémon, since he gave it up. While trying to catch a Cubone (which we even get a glimpse of a history on with a couple of seconds of dialogue), Tim receives the news that his Father, Harry, was killed in a car accident Cliché. This leads him into Ryme City; a place where Pokémon society and Human society have become integrated , so that he can collect his Father's assets. Ryme City has an equal rights subtext to it where Pokémon aren't hunted, but work with humankind instead,, and it works very well. Pokémon aren't "pets" here (so to speak) so much as partners. It's neat to see how some of them work too. For example, Squirtles work with the fire department, which makes perfect sense. Anyway, it's here, he eventually meets Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds), and is miraculously able to understand him. Pikachu reveals that he has amnesia, and the last thing he remembers was working a case with Harry when the car accident happened. It's further revealed that Harry might very well still be alive, and the film turns into a search for the truth behind that, blended with the investigation of a mysterious gas known only as "R" that makes Pokémon go mad. The first thing that jumps out to me with this film is the animation style. Although anything I know about Pokémon was learned through a little bit of word of mouth, and about two months worth of playing 'Pokémon Go', these characters were instantly recognizable (at least those I knew about) and looked pretty much exactly as they should. Although Pokémon have always been cute, the animation here makes you wanna reach through the screen and pet them, or cuddle them. Whatever the case may be, they're cute as hell, and Psyduck, was able to give me quite a few genuine chuckles. But it also gets a bit dramatic here and there, marking the film with some genuine heart as opposed to it being just a noisy mess of strange creatures (which it totally could have been). Other than the awesome animation, comedic and dramatic moments, the big question is "can a non-fan walk away from this movie, still enjoying it?" I'm gonna go ahead and say yes. Even if you know nothing at all about Pokémon, if you just watch and pay attention, you do end up getting a sort of crash-course about the whole deal in the first act of the movie. As the movie goes on, you develop a little tiny bit of an education on some of them as well. For example, going back to the Cubone, I didn't know the skull was supposed to be the head of their dead relative. Or when it comes to Psyduck, I didn't know that he exploded under extreme stress. These may be painfully obvious things to fans, but bear in mind that I'm still pretty much blind to about 80% of it all. I know the very basics of hunting, catching and training, and I can recognize a handful of their faces. I really don't know for sure how the hardcore fans have taken to this movie since its release. A lot of them seem to overlook this and stick with their hunting. But with that said, and going against the grain of several other reviewers, I might go so far as to say that this film was actually made more for the non-fans, while the regular fans are there more to appreciate a lot of the Easter eggs hidden throughout it. I never actually got lost in this, and everything that was necessary to explain seemed to come through. In the end, I think this is one of the best video game based movies out there. Will fans disagree? Sure. But this a great way for fans to get non-fans to dip their toes into that Pokémon water. 4/5  Back in the late 90s, one thing that surrounded video games and a lot of gamers had to fight against was controversy. It all seemingly started with 'Mortal Kombat' and its blood, let alone its fatalities, but has since evolved into a sort of point of acceptance... I mean, sort of. But the point is, games are a hell of a lot more violent and shocking than they were back then. Either way, for the time (1997), 'Postal' was among the more controversial titles. It sort of came and went, and I didn't think much of it over the years until just now. Of course, with Uwe Boll behind the wheel, yet again, I knew I was in for a "treat".
First, a little history - the first game sees a man evicted from his home, and fights his way to a US Air Force Base, believing they are releasing poison gas in his town, and that he has an immunity to it. The game was pretty damn famous for its violence and "WTF" moments in general, and became something of a cult classic among PC gamers. The film evidently has a bit more to do with the second title, which takes on a bit more of an 'InFamous' style, where The Postal Dude has to accomplish a bunch of daily tasks as peacefully, or as violently as the player chooses. Of course, it didn't fare too well with its controversial ideas either, including using a cat as a silencer, which is paid tribute to here. Like the games the film is based on, 'Postal' is all about controversy. The film opens with what "really" happened during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The terrorists are told there aren't enough virgins to go around after they carry out their task, so decide to ditch the plan and reroute to the Bahamas. That's when a group of passengers busts in and sends the plane crashing into the World Trade Center, offering a gigantic middle finger to any victims involved in the tragedy that occurred about six years earlier than the film's release. So from the get-go, I felt a little uncomfortable about reviewing this. While you can tell it's not to be taken seriously, it's very hard not to cringe at some of the terrible jokes here. The film is representative of that kid in school who tries incredibly hard to be cool by saying and doing nasty things. Taking place in present day (again, 2007) Paradise, Arizona, a man only known as The Postal Dude (Zack Ward) is living a life of crap. His wife (Jodie Stewart) is openly cheating on him, he's having no luck at job interviews, and he just wants to make some cash to leave town forever. He teams up with his Uncle Dave (Dave Foley); a cult leader who owes the government a hefty sum in back taxes, to hijack a shipment of "Krotchy Dolls". What's a Krotchy Doll? Essentially just a plush penis with scrotum, evidently very rare, sought after, and valued highly on the black market, fetching as much as $4,000 per doll. Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden (Larry Thomas) has the same hijacking plan, but intends to infect the dolls with Bird Flu before their distribution. Anyway, paths cross, shit happens, and it becomes just as offensive as it sounds. This is one moment where I am going to cut Boll a teeny, tiny bit of slack... Not enough that he can do anything with, but there is something I can't deny about this movie. It's almost so fascinatingly messed up and bad that I could consider this the ultimate "so bad, it's good" film in the Boll collection. There's no stiff acting, no boredom, no terrible narration, it's just a movie that's trying very hard to be as messed up as it can be. It's big problem is that it thinks its being satire as opposed to what it is - just plain offensive, and even kind of insulting. But I can't deny I had a few random laughs here and there. None of that was towards anything particularly offensive, racist or whatever else. But there were bits of dialogue that caught me off guard, like being in a job interview and being asked "what is he difference between a duck?" I don't know why, but random, silly things like that just get to me. At the end of the day, this becomes one video game based movie I kind of want to show all of my bad movie loving friends. It's not enough to call it a guilty pleasure, because you feel pretty uncomfortable about some of the things they deem funny here. But like I said before, it's just fascinating. It's one of those things you might watch and wonder how they got away with a lot of it. For example, a baby carriage gets hit with a vehicle here. It happens in 'Speed', but ends up being full of cans, and funny in a "holy shit" kind of way. There's no reveal here though. This carriage just gets hit, and we have no clue what might be in it, suggesting a baby is entirely probable. This is one messed up movie, but I almost recommend it just based on the amount of "WTF" I saw... coming from me, that's saying a lot. 2/5  This movie and I have an interesting relationship. This review is largely my putting my cards on the table and fully admitting that for some reason - I like this movie. It's not even in the "so bad it's good" quality for me either. But I certainly wouldn't call it any kind of "good" film either. But it is perhaps the only time I've ever seen a video game movie have so much fun with itself. This is all just plain ridiculous, and so chalk full of characters from the series they just plain didn't seem to care. Ready for roll call? Let's get this all done at once.
Drug lord turned obnoxious dictator, General M. Bison (Raul Julia) has begun a civil war between himself and the Allied Nations, led by Colonel William F. Guile (Jean-Claude Van Damme), who works with both Cammy White (Kylie Minogue) and T. Hawk (Gregg Rainwater). Bison holds several A.N. relief workers hostage and demands a $20 billion ransom in three days, all the while using DeeJay (Miguel A. Núñez Jr.) as someone to show off to, and a sounding board. One of these hostages happens to be Guile's friend, Carlos Blanka (Robert Mammone), who is being experimented on by the reluctant Bison slave, Dhalsim (Roshan Seth) to create the first Bison super soldier. This of course makes it even more personal for Guile. Meanwhile, con artists Ryu Hoshi (Byron Mann) and Ken Masters (Damian Chapa) act as con artists whose latest con involves providing arms dealer Vikto Sagat (Wes Studi) with fake weaponry. As a result, Sagat arranges for Ryu to cage fight his champion Vega (Jay Tavare). However, the party is busted up before anything 'Street Fighter'-like can happen by Guile, due to the breaking of a curfew. Upon seeing Ryu and Ken hold their own against Sagat's men in the prison yard, Guile recruits them, knowing Sagat is Bison's dealer, to assist in locating Bison in exchange for their freedom. This all involves Ryu and Ken gaining Sagat's trust, and causing an elaborate prison break in order to get to Bison's... base? and infiltrate it. Meanwhile again, we have the crack news team of Chun-Li (Ming-Na Wen), Edmond Honda (Peter Navy Tuiasosopo) and Balrog (Grand L. Bush), each out for revenge with their own personal vendettas. Honda and Balrog want to get even with Sagat for ruining their respective Sumo and boxing careers, and Chun-Li is out to get revenge on Bison for murdering her father in cold blood. All of the characters paths manage to eventually cross, and we have a pretty big climactic free for all fight involving pretty much everyone except Dhalsim and Blanka, who get totally robbed of anything remotely interesting to pay attention to. They're really just here to provide names. Speaking of which, Zangief (Andrew Bryniarski) is here too, and probably the funniest part of the movie. It's odd, but there's something to be admired about this movie. One can't possibly take it seriously, but when it comes down to it, I don't think we're supposed to. This is widely regarded as a bad movie, and even though I agree, there's still some strange charm this has to it for me. Considering Bison controls a lot from what seems to be an arcade top straight from the original arcade game (I think), it's hard to imagine that this is a film that ever took itself seriously. That said, let's get to the best part of the film altogether - Raul Julia. This was his final role, and despite it being so very corny, he definitely went out with a bang. He seemed to relish in this role, taking it on like he was really supposed to act as hard as he did. The contrast between his acting and most of the rest of the cast is actually kind of hilarious to watch. This was a title I used to have on a VHS recording that I would watch constantly. Yes, there was that part of me I keep mentioning that was a sucker for the title. But I guess I always just found that cheesy charm to this compared to 'Super Mario Bros' and 'Double Dragon'. It's a hard thing to put my finger on, but for some reason this has lasted as one of my personal favourite video game movies of all time. Having said such a thing, do keep in mind that I still think about 98% of video game movies (that I've seen) are awful adaptations, or just plain awful movies. But once in a while you get something that's just here to have fun with, and it seems somewhat self-aware. I really think 'Street Fighter' is the ultimate case of that. If you haven't seen it in a while, check it out again, if only for a good laugh. 2/5  Back upon 'Super Mario Bros' release, despite how anyone may have felt about it, the window was now opening up for a whole new sub-genre of film - the video game movie. The second in line for this treatment was 1994's 'Double Dragon' - a movie I remember liking at the time of its release, once again quite ignorant to the film's actual quality. I was a sucker, and sure enough, that title pulled me in because I LOVED the 'Double Dragon' games (except '3', that was awful).
For kids today who may be a little more unfamiliar with the title (although it's probably popular enough that you've at least heard of it), 'Double Dragon' was a classic arcade beat-'em-up side-scroller game, eventually adapted into an NES game, with several titles to follow. The premise was focused on two brothers, Billy and Jimmy Lee. They fight their way through some tough city streets, in pursuit of a girl named Marion, who is kidnapped by a gang known as the "Black Warriors" (a name that may be a little dated by today's standards). It was simple enough; four levels, four bosses, and the idea of rescuing the girl who gets punched in the gut and taken away in the beginning (yeah, things are dated). Potential controversy aside though, these were very satisfying to play with a second player - in the same room, if you can believe that. Eventually, a crossover with 'Battletoads' was done in '93, and that's most likely what the film is riding the coattails of. It was a name still fresh in our little minds at the time, so when a movie was released, most of us were pretty excited about it. But then we all saw it, and most simply asked "what the hell did I just watch?" (except me, because once again, the title was all I ignorantly cared about). The biggest problem with making 'Double Dragon' into a movie is that there's really nothing to that game. Girl gets kidnapped, two brothers go through the grungy city streets to rescue her and that's about it. For this to become a movie, things were pretty much to be made up, and the result is pretty damn ridiculous. The film opens with some background, telling us of the king of Shang-sa, located somewhere in ancient China. Before being taken by an army of shadow warriors, he sacrifices himself in order to create a medallion that holds two ultimate powers over body and soul. The medallion is split in half, and divided between the king's sons. Then we hop into the future where a crime lord named Koga Shuko (Robert Patrick, now a far cry from a T-1000) holds the half that has power over the soul. He orders his henchmen to retrieve the other half, which leads them to Satori (Julia Nickson), the legal guardian of the Lee brothers, Billy (Scott Wolf) and Jimmy (Mark Dacascos). Soon, the brothers find themselves protecting the other half of the medallion, with a little assistance from the Power Core; a group of graffiti punks lead by Alyssa Milano. So it's safe to say they took some liberties with this title. It may have worked for a few like me at the time, but 'Double Dragon' is definitely one of those video game movie titles people don't remember all too well. Video game movies have a tendency to be somewhat memorable, even if they're terrible. This is something that has just simply aged horribly, it's entirely forgettable (even with a few big names for the time) and I'm not altogether sure it understand its target audience. This was a movie based on the world's most famous side-scrolling beat-em-up of the era, and it was rated PG-13, lending itself to a bit more violence. But the final result pretty much targets the youth of the time. I mean, for crying out loud, there's a torture scene here involving feeding a big thug spinach that he just doesn't like the taste of. 'Temple of Doom' helped usher in the PG-13 rating, and it has someone ripping out someone's beating heart and dumping him alive into a pit of fire. Maybe that's an extreme example, but the point is, something like 'Double Dragon' should have been a hell of a lot cooler than this Saturday morning cartoon of a movie. I was more forgiving at the time, but at this point, things are just plain painful to watch. It was swept under the rug by audiences everywhere, and that's where it should probably stay. 1/5  It's safe to say that the 'Mario' game series was quite the addiction when I was a kid. We're talking between the original three, and 'Super Mario World' - after that, I had managed to pretty much drop it. However, I wasn't alone on my opinions at the time, so it was a good opportunity for Hollywood Pictures to cash in on the 'Super Mario Bros' name. The marketing seemed to work for me for some reason. In fact, to this day, I still remember being upset about not being able to see it one night. But even the misguided trailer caught my attention. Of course nowadays, it's hard to know what I was thinking other than "it's a Super Mario movie!"
But understand a few things about me at the time of this film's release. I was obsessed with the games, I saw the best in the worst movies (possibly due to childhood ignorance), and I was 10 going on 11. This wasn't really just a movie from my perspective - it was a life-changing event, as they were finally making video games into movies - a concept that still has yet to be perfected to this day. In fact, video game movies are a subgenre known to be so bad, that it's probably going to look like I've become a bitter asshole over the next couple of months as I dive into these (some, like this, being re-reviews). With that said, however, rest assured that as usual, I will be reviewing these movies totally objectively. There's a lot of rough titles out there, but some of them, like this, have a sort of nostalgic value to them regardless of their quality. The value isn't necessarily in the film itself, but the memory of being that excited for a movie to be released. I even decidedly enjoyed it when I saw it in theaters. There was just that hint of "something's off" though. Upon watching it nowadays, I've come to terms with the fact that this film has very little to nothing to do with those favourite games of mine from my childhood. This was a project that went completely off the rails (look it up, it's crazy), and it shows just as much as my childhood ignorance did back in '93. The film features Mario (Bob Hoskins) and Luigi (John Leguizamo); two (not) Italian plumbers, hailing from Brooklyn, New York. While on a job, they run into an archaeologist named Daisy (Samantha Mathis) who is currently uncovering a whole new species of dinosaur. Luigi falls for her, and things go pretty well, but she suddenly gets kidnapped by bumbling henchmen, Iggy (Fisher Stevens) and Spike (Richard Edson) and brought into a whole other dimension. Mario and Luigi follow, and the brothers soon find themselves in a very strange and violent alternate dimension where a guy named Koopa (Dennis Hopper) rules with an iron fist; he's the character who sent Iggy and Spike to kidnap Daisy. Koopa's motive is a meteor piece that Daisy wears around her neck, which has the capability of merging his dimension with Earth's dimension. For a little more detailed quick background, Koopa is descended from the T-Rex, and this dimension's whole society is reptilian, left over from the dinosaur age and since evolved. So, Koopa's intention is to merge things and take it all over, as he has the technology to "de-evolve" the human race into the chimps we evolved from. How he's gonna do this to everyone without being stopped is anyone's guess, but yeah, he's your typical "take over the world" villain. But can the Mario Brothers stop him, rescue Daisy, and prevent this horrible world from spilling over into ours? All in all, can we at least admit that the story itself isn't that big of a stretch? Koopa kidnaps a princess, we never really know why in the games, and Mario and Luigi set out to rescue her - face it, that IS the typical 'Mario' game. The pieces were actually there, but the execution of it all was so incredibly brutal for Mario fans that things really fell apart for it. The questions we had afterwards were abundant, and I could be here for ages dragging it all out, but some of the more popular questions had to do with the appearance of... basically everything. Koopa was pretty much human, the Goombas were big hulks instead of little minions, and the environment was an almost post-apocalyptic cityscape, which was never, ever a thing in the games leading up to the film. On top of all of that, why were they saving the Princess from 'Mario Land' instead of Princess Toadstool (known nowadays as Peach)? Why are the kidnappers two of Koopa's cousins when their names are Iggy (a Koopa Kid or "Koopaling" in the games) and Spike (a pain in the ass common enemy of the Water and Ice Worlds of 'Mario 3')? Why did they make the whole realm a desert with a tiny city when these games had become known for a wide array of different environments? It goes on, and on, and on, and at the end of the day this was never really a 'Super Mario Bros' movie so much as something fun with the wrong name slapped on it, consisting of minor similarities and a few Easter eggs. What was that I said? It was fun? How dare I give such a horrendous insult to what has become perhaps the most widely recognized video game franchise of all time! While it's by no means a great, or even good movie, and a lousy adaptation, it does, surprisingly squeeze itself into my list of guilty pleasures. It has become a film so fascinatingly unfaithful that I can't help but laugh all the way through it, and if I'm honest, enjoy myself. It's not a matter of it being a solid film so much as it being, despite everything wrong about it, a fun, albeit silly ride. Just try to avoid looking at this as an adaptation so much as its own thing... and even then, don't expect much more than ironic laughter... Pretty great soundtrack too. 2/5 |
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