You'll Wish The Mayans Were Right...

2012-2009-This big budgeted Hollywood science fiction disaster film fails in almost every category. It's plot is similar to several low budget cheapies that occasionally run on SYFY channel.

A writer Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) tries to help his ex-wife (Amanda Peet), his two children and her new husband (Thomas McCarthy) when global destruction of apocalyptic proportions starts destroying the Earth. Danny Glover is the stupid president of our evil government and  Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 YEARS A SLAVE) is a geologist called in to help but winds up butting heads with asshole chief of staff Oliver Platt. Thandie Newton (THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS) is the president's daughter who steals the Mona Lisa. All the major heads of various countries get together to embark on space arks. After many narrow escapes,  Jackson and company hook up with a Russian billionaire who has a huge plane ("It's Russian") that can take them to China where according to a map provided by conspiracy theorist/DJ Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson) they can find safety.

Scenes show the destruction of Hawaii, the Effiel Tower, the Washington monument and Christ of The Andes which figures since director Roland Emmerich known for such swollen budget catastrophes like THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW and the US version of GODZILLA also made this. The movie he made before 2012 also had a year as its title (10,000 BC). The SFX run from very good to very poor (especially considering the budget).

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Why????

PIRANHA-2010-This useless remake (I think parts of it were suppose to be comical) takes the scary but fun original premise and turns it into a CGI driven bore-fest. Elizabeth Shue and Ving Rhames are law officers investigating some deaths during Spring Break. It seems the fish are of a  prehistoric variety that somehow survived and are very hungry. They look like something from the old "Diver Dan" kid's TV show! Like most horror movies today it's just a mean spirited excuse to spotlight grotesque SFX and unlikable overacting characters. Christopher Lloyd as a fish expert provides the only highlight. Jerry O'Connell is shredded from the waist down but keeps on emoting. One character manages to hold off the deadly fishies with a frying pan! The quick comic final scene is good though. 

Over arty direction is by Alexandre Aja (THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake) who seems to have confused Spielberg with Corman and features Richard Dreyfuss as pre-credit scene as a victim. 

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It's A Battle To Stay Interested!

BATTLE LOS ANGELES-2011-Moronic STARSHIP TROOPERS/WAR OF THE WORLDS knockoff from Jonathan Liebesman, director of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING and WRATH OF THE TITANS.

In the violent, predicable story, aliens invade Los Angeles and The Marines are called in to evacuate the place.  Aaron Eckhardt (he was in OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN soon after this) is a Staff Sgt. who's resignation is postponed because  he's needed to fight the invaders. This causes much friction and "butting of heads". So of course there's a lot of talking, yelling and arguing and it seems to go on forever. Characters say: "God dammit" a lot. It's a little different to see Marines defending the Earth rather than some galactic space patrol but it seems most of them are assholes deliberately sent to their doom.The aliens are big "transformer" like machines. Much of the story is told by (very well done) CNN newscasts. Michelle Rodriguez and singer Ne-Yo are also in it.

There are rumors circulating of a sequel. Liebesman was working on the next "Mutant Teenage Ninja Turtles" movie at the time of this writing.

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Found Monster Footage

CLOVERFIELD-2008-A monster attacks New York. A group of friends at a farewell party try to survive. The story is told through the eye of a hand held camera one of them is using. The monster is huge and drops smaller creepy alien types with big teeth. Although it's a chaotic mess, the director Matt Reeves does a good job of getting the whole story across. The group dwindles as they try to stay alive and find their friends but it seems to me if they had made their way to The 59th Bridge they could gave escaped to Queens! The jiggly POV shots are ok but it doesn't really look like some amateur film. And can anyone explain why the camera battery lasted so long? Director Reeves previously directed episodes of the TV show FELICITY and later made LET ME IN. At the time of this writing he was working on a Planet of The Apes sequel. JJ Abrams was one of the producers. (and like his TV series LOST, where the monster came from or what happens to it and the world are left unexplained) The big surprise for me was it was only 85 minutes!

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PS: I was just informed that a huge video campaign (including fictional websites like in LOST) were used before and during CLOVERFIELD's release. Using hints from that there are ways to piece together where the monster came from. Apparently I'm the only person who didn't know about this!

Evil Remake

EVIL DEAD-2013-Sam Raimi's classic low budget horror masterpiece is given the big budgeted Hollywood treatment. Some stupid young people decide to take their drug addicted friend Mia (Jane Levy) to an isolated cabin in the woods to cure her. Bad idea. No really, it's idiotic even if one of them is a nurse. After one dork reads some passages from The Book of The Dead, Mia starts acting real weird. She sees dead people, spits blood, levitates and talks in a Linda Blair/Exorcist. It sorts of copies the original in some respects but as usual with so many modern horror stories you don't about the characters, the SFX are more disgusting than horrifying and the acting sucks.  

It was the first feature made by Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez (who also co-scripted). He had previously made a Sci-Fi short ATAQUE DE PANICOL (PANIC ATTACK) which debuted on You Tube. You can see it here and decide whether it was a good enough to warrant him a debut film costing 30 million dollars:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dadPWhEhVk .


But the movie did well so I guess it doesn't matter.

Original director Sam Raimi and original producer Robert Tapert were to of the producers for this remake as well as original star Bruce Campbell (who has a cameo).

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