rander3127 Reviews

Time After Time (2017)

Well, it's moving a little too fast

[7/10 · 6 March 2017]

I had hoped it would start out with a preamble, a build-up set in 1893 London, but they spend next to no time on it. Also, there are no special effects to impress like in the movie this is based-on. Perhaps they didn't have much money? The premise is that his friend John is Jack the Ripper. He takes the time machine to our time and begins killing in 2017. There is a creepy undertone that a guy who has killed a dozen women might possibly be "redeemed." But what the real problem is that these people pick-up on the technology all too quickly. We are (because of the pace of the show) deprived of seeing them experience things for the first time, which was part of the charm of the movie and the movies about the Time Machine that preceded this series. For example, the girl Wells meets in the museum is convinced the whole thing is real too quickly, in real-life, she'd look for more evidence than a museum exhibit opening "3 days early." I'm hoping it gets a bit more interesting and doesn't end up as just another cop chase story.

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

Well, maybe the 3rd one will be better?

[5/10 · 18 July 2016]

Remember the movie, "Outbreak?" Donald Sutherland plays a crazy, power-mad general bent on preventing anyone from compromising his viral weapon. In one scene he says:

Sutherland: "You kiss a-- with the best of them, Briggs." In reference to a colonel kissing his general's ass.

This is how this movie treats the Chinese. Cloying a---kissing. Disgusting a---kissing. Abject a---kissing. Hollywood playing serf to their new Asian masters. But there's more to it. The Chinese get high-ranking jobs (and low screen time) so Hollywood big-pictures has begun to APE Hollywood TV with minorities!! Don't want to alienate a dwindling but still substantial white audience. But in reality, the DAY the Americans allow the Chinese to colonize and dominate the moon instead of them, well, the empire is doomed. Pandering to the Africans as well, the "wise" Africans have a "connection" with the aliens that the poor, dumb white man doesn't have. Goldblum flatters and a---kisses the Africans. I guess that's now Hollywood perceived diplomacy works? The acting from most of the cast is terrible, like script-reading. There is none of the sense of discovery, of slow-burn like the original (at least in the beginning) had. It comes off as tiring as one of those Tom Hank's religious "thrillers." But with worse acting. Meanwhile, the Chinese "leader" of the Moon seems to be able to be in the right place, at the right time, all the time. He's walking quantum physics! Always chastising the white man. I was happy to see his imperious self roasted early on. But his kid survives. She's a fighter pilot. Will Smith's (may his character rest in peace) character's kid gets "leadership" of the squadron instead of whitey Hemsworth, who is reckless and doing his most lack-luster Tom Cruise in "Top Gun" impersonation. Meanwhile, within 20 minutes, you instantly FEAR for Hemsworth's young buddy's life, he's the perfect walking dead man cliché. Cannon fodder for the coming battle. They cast Goldblum's dad (played by Judd Hirsh) as a self-aggrandizing blow-hard idiot, but he wasn't that in the first movie. And poor ex-president Whitmore has become like Russell Casse (drunken crop duster who warned people in the first movie about what aliens would do), perceived as senile. Once the big battle begins, part of it looked like it was lifted from "London has Fallen." The spacecraft fighter planes built by the Earthlings from alien technology are akin to a cross between "Star Wars" and "Fireball XL5." That's not a compliment. Otherwise, the special effects are fine, thought as impressive or beautiful as the effects in the first movie. Watching the special effects, I felt they would suit a Micheal Greene special on PBS better.

More progressive Hollywood pandering, as President Whitmore acts as a voice-box for an alien, the same type of armed men who killed the alien in the first movie that had captured Dr. Oaken can't do the job with guns, so it's up to an African warrior to kill the thing with swords!!! For God's sake, give the poor African some GUNS so they don't look like silly Hollywood constructs. Charlotte Gainsborough is horribly miscast as some kind of anthropologist, or something. Why, just to blot her career? Still, I'm sure she appreciated the money. The weapons to kill the alien's "Queen?" Cold-fusion warheads. Dear God...So now were basing weapons on discredited energy theories from the 1980's? Cue the debate on sloppy, bad science in science fiction. You can debate the lack of introspection on the part of well, everyone, considering the aliens probably killed a billion people in the initial attack. I'm sure progressive Hollywood could muster some if Earthlings had done the same to each other with nuclear weapons. But that would cut into the dull, smart-alecky remarks by the soldiers that we all expect. One of the main problems with the movie is that there are too many characters. Dozens of them. It's difficult to fully-form them given that so short a time is allotted to each one. When the second alien (the good alien!) reveals itself, it sounds like fey alien from "Plan 9 From Outer Space." "You are stupid, puny beings!!" BTW, did you catch the mistake from Jeff Goldblum when he addressed a general as "Mr. President?" Whitmore was no where near the group. I'll stop here. There are 1000 more things you can take issue with. Best advice is to compare. Watch this movie, then go home and watch a copy of the first movie. You decide which is better, or at least good.

State of Affairs (2014–2015)

Histrionics and over-acting win the day for America!!

[4/10 · 17 November 2014]

First, TV shows and movies that have actual Muslim terrorists are rare, being Hollywood prefers white terrorists, like Russians or separatist rednecks, their favourite. From an acting standpoint, Heigl's histrionic eye closing, hand clasping and sighing is not how someone would act in her position. Her fellow intelligence analysts are slackers. Sitting discussing someone's shirt?! Very hard to take. Oh, and they gave the show an Adult 14 TV rating because it showed (though clothed) Heigl having illicit sex (from behind!) with a guy she met in a bar. Heigl is being portrayed as a guy, basically. Also, did you know that you can, by putting a phone in your hat thwart metal detectors at CIA headquarters? Honest!! Lastly, an analyst blurts out the standing orders of a special ops team with a Syrian security head in the same room!!!! maybe it'll gets better, but I hold out faint hope.

The Motorola Television Hour: Atomic Attack (1954) Season 1, Episode 15

Somewhat surreal attempt at illustrating the effect of a nearby atomic attack

[6/10 · 24 March 2011]

It wasn't a complete waste, some of the acting was good. I bought the wife's reactions, but the elder daughter sounded like she was rehearsing for a Shakespeare play. However, the reality of having a hydrogen bomb (at the time, the Soviets only had big ones, no smaller MIRV's)drop on New York was somewhat...lost. The local hospital looked like it would on a normal day, not what it would look like with about 100,000 bomb victims outside it. For reality, watch the British atomic horror movie, "Threads." Even though the town was 50 miles from New York, every hospital within 200 miles or more would be pressed into service, assuming the EMP from the bomb didn't wipe out all transportation. I particularly like the part where Walter Mathau (as a doctor) talks about Strontium 90 radioactive particles in the younger daughter's bones "burning themselves out." Strontium 90, which is byproduct of the blast and is absorbed into bones where it destroys the bone marrow and the body's ability to make red blood cells, has a half-life of 28 years which means the kid would die of leukemia long before the stuff had lost half of its radioactivity. The gist of the movie was that American civil defence preparations would soon have things back to normal (in a couple weeks!) and that even though losses would have happened, America would have prevailed. The second part is at least correct, the Soviets were vastly out-gunned in-terms of nuclear weapons compared to the U.S. in the mid-1950's. However, the Soviets where also far more "rural" than Americans and thus more of their population losses per bomb dropped would have been less. What I did find interesting was that the movie illustrated a greater awareness of the dangers of radiation than other shows produced on this subject in the mid-1950's. While not concerned as much as it should have been, it at least acknowledged that radiation was a problem.

Sweet Insanity (2006)

A second-rate, film student's attempt at horror (SPOILER!)

[2/10 · 24 June 2006]

Cobbled together from the ideas of too many equally bad teen horrors. This thing turned up on various torrent sites, obviously seeded by the hack who directed it to drum up some kind of publicity (better to be a known hack a la Uwe Bole than an unknown?). Given the quality we've seen from up and coming horror film directors, it amazes me someone would be willing to put this out. But DVDs generate income, even when they stink because there is generally no word of mouth to kill their potential. All you need is an interesting looking jacket for it to gain a rental at Blockbuster. There is no real talent in this thing. The only actor in it to display even modestly interesting personality dies early. The killings are mediocre, the director tried to go for some gore, but didn't have two dimes to rub together to afford it. The dialog is unreal. To the director/writer; Don't quit your day job at McDonald's.