A group of heavily armed hijackers board a luxury ocean liner in the South Pacific Ocean to loot it, only to do battle with a series of large-sized, tentacled, man-eating sea creatures who have taken over the ship first.
Objectively terrible yet there are some great lines, major grue and some good chuckles. The stunt work with the “Sea Doo” is pretty cool too.
★★
Scott Calvin is an ordinary man, who accidentally causes Santa Claus to fall from his roof on Christmas Eve and is knocked unconscious. When he and his young son finish Santa's trip and deliveries, they go to the North Pole, where Scott learns he must become the new Santa and convince those he loves that he is indeed, Father Christmas.
I enjoyed watching this hugging my son. He’s ten. I’m making the most of it while it lasts.
★★★
In a remote corner of England's Peak District, a mysterious skull is unearthed. But even weirder is that Lady Sylvia steals the skull for use in worshiping – very erotically – her pagan god, The White Worm, who hungers for the taste of virginal flesh.
This review may contain spoilers.
I’ve seen some whacky films in my time but this might take the cake. Of all the many, many questions I have, I fell the most pertinent is: did Peter Capaldi have a sedated mongoose in his sporran
★★★ (contains spoilers)
The Dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf have successfully escaped the Misty Mountains, and Bilbo has gained the One Ring. They all continue their journey to get their gold back from the Dragon, Smaug.
162 minutes. Why does it have to be this long when they made stuff up to pad out the story?! And to add insult to injury the stuff they added is so dull!
★★½
Each Christmas, Santa and his vast army of highly trained elves produce gifts and distribute them around the world in one night. However, when one of 600 million children to receive a gift from Santa on Christmas Eve is missed, it is deemed ‘acceptable’ to all but one—Arthur. Arthur Claus is Santa’s misfit son who executes an unauthorised rookie mission to get the last present half way around the globe before dawn on Christmas morning.
An undercover MI6 agent is sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents.
I think this is a bit under-rated. On first viewing, the plot seems a bit too complicated. You spend a little too much time trying to figure it out and miss what is right in front of your eyes. There’s quality visuals, amazing stunt work and a great soundtrack that’s well used, not just chucked on.
By and large the players are very solid. My biggest criticism would only be that McAvoy and Toby Jones are not exactly stretching themselves. Sofia Boutella plays her tiny part fantastically.
Fortunately, though, the plot is over-explained at the end, so you don’t really need to pay that much attention. However, with a bit more guile in the application and quite a lot less John Wick gunplay, this would actually be a very passable espionage tale.
Still, there is something that holds it back from being excellent. Just not really sure what it is.
★★★★
Instead of flying to Florida with his folks, Kevin ends up alone in New York, where he gets a hotel room with his dad's credit card—despite problems from a clerk and meddling bellboy. But when Kevin runs into his old nemeses, the Wet Bandits, he's determined to foil their plans to rob a toy store on Christmas eve.
Ford Brody, a Navy bomb expert, has just reunited with his family in San Francisco when he is forced to go to Japan to help his estranged father, Joe. Soon, both men are swept up in an escalating crisis when an ancient alpha predator arises from the sea to combat malevolent adversaries that threaten the survival of humanity. The creatures leave colossal destruction in their wake, as they make their way toward their final battleground: San Francisco.
This needed to follow the old disaster movie format of having a bunch of key characters we follow through out. It ties itself in unbelievable knots to put Brody where the action is. He’s not even a very sympathetic character and makes a succession of dumb decisions.
In fact, the entire movie is a cavalcade of plot holes and nonsensical decision making.
★★
In a boorish future, the government sponsors a popular, but bloody, cross-country race in which points are scored by mowing down pedestrians. Five teams, each comprised of a male and female, compete using cars equipped with deadly weapons. Frankenstein, the mysterious returning champion, has become America's hero, but this time he has a passenger from the underground resistance.
This offered a lot more than I expected! To quote another reviewer: “a neat satire dealing with government, entertainment, and media.”
This predates a bunch of mainstream, dystopian features that share similar themes, like The Running Man and, much later, The Hunger Games. But the tone is much more Robocop, than either of those. Though this sits apart from all of those as much more of a B-movie “exploitation” flick.
It is quite cheesy and has a significant sprinkling of late 70s nudity. However, I reckon it’s worth a watch if you like this sort of thing.
★★★½
