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Reviews
House of the Dead 2 (2005)
It wouldn't take much to top Uwe Boll, but this barely makes it.
I really hated House of the Dead. I dislike Uwe Boll video game flicks, but that one just looked like someone botched it badly on purpose. I mean it takes SKILL to screw up a movie that badly and NOT be Coleman Francis or Ed Wood.
The sequel makes no attempt to be better. It is AWFUL. Evidence of wasted potential is everywhere, missed opportunities and half-formed ideas flash across the screen, but nothing there's nothing new, fresh or carried out with any skill. It wants to be a scary movie AND a comedy, but never succeeds at either.
The idea that a college campus can be overrun by zombies and remain off the public radar for "29 Days" is pretty ridiculous, especially since there is a small town right within walking distance populated by extras who help set up our heroes and their back stories. It's obvious nod to "28 Days Later" turns a bad in-joke into a major plot blunder.
However, conveniently nearby is the elite military unit trained to deal with these sort of outbreaks. Two Lieutenants and six Privates, none of whom demonstrate ANY basic understanding of military discipline. It's never clear who is in charge, but when orders are barked, they don't make sense. People are told to hustle into their attack vehicle, a - um - delivery truck, but they sort of wander in like they're coming back from lunch and actually have to be helped up into the door. They are told to "fan out" into a building's front door. While moving quietly they have no problem exchanging dialog up and down the line. One soldier actually puts down his gun and goes hand-to-hand with a zombie, putting his arm right in the zombies' mouth. Another walks up to someone he assumes is a "survivor" in need of rescue....TWICE. The second time he receives his well-earned Darwin Award. They wear (hockey) armor, but nothing around their hands, neck, legs or other vulnerable parts. So, it isn't any surprise when morons like this end up being killed off quickly by brainless zombies and all their plans fall apart. The dialog is horrible and most of it is inane, unfunny banter that kills any momentum or tension in scenes where we're supposed to be scared for these people outnumbered by hundreds of flesh-eaters.
Lucky for us there are two special agent/scientist/underwear models who are along to provide plot-developing exposition and actually carry out the mission. Along the way they share witty conversations, especially when in the middle of a hungry zombie horde. One soldier is turned by a bug bite, another gets a nibble on the leg and turns, but these two people can wrestle with dozens of them and smear their blood over their bodies (once our hero wipes it INTO HIS MOUTH) without infection. You can never take this movie seriously because you never believe this is anything more than playtime for the actors or the production.
Where Uwe Boll created a stylistic nightmare package for a tepid "B" story, this flick plays soldier with sporting goods and clichés from better movies hoping to make something more, but never lives up to its aspirations of surpassing Boll's original.
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
Lord, is there no more originality in ST?
At least they spent a little more time on the humor. John Logan's script contains some funny moments and some relaxed bits that are fun, but never reach the same level as Star Trek IV. The dune buggy scenes are pretty neat, though it is irritating to learn we're on a scavenger hunt for parts of a faux-Data. Then the pre-industrial civilization shows up with machineguns and their own dune buggies. Huh? I forgive this scene because it seems like the closest we'll ever get to removing the starch from a Star Trek movie's uniform.
We get caught up with everybody almost right away and dispense with the "where've you been" nonsense that consumes most ST Next Gen movies.
But almost from the beginning we are hit with clichés.
Romulan Ale is both potent and illegal. Is this the only powerful spirit in the known galaxy?
Data is an android. Let's repeat this until everyone gets it.
Data has a twin brother, but he's a prototype. However, he's been programmed for evil deeds. Don't they learn? If a variation on Data appears, lock him up, demobilize him or keep him out of the security files on board the ship.
While the psychic rape of Deanna is not a cliché, it has been used in the series, was really tasteless here and does little for the story or the development of the villain.
Clone of the past me? Riker has one, Data has siblings, so why not suddenly create a clone of Picard? Happens all the time in space, I guess, especially when really good villains can't be created to do the job.
The ship is at the mercy of some doomsday device and can't get out of the way fast enough so the first officer sacrifices himself giving the captain a sense of loss for a fellow officer and close friend.
Of course, there is no sadness or sense of loss since every obvious step has been taken to ensure the return in a future film...if the price is right.
While the crew may be immortal, the ship is ultimately toast. And you MUST activate the autodestruct sequence.
When all else fails, wreck the starship.
I understand this to be the last voyage. Sadly the production doesn't have the stones to make that statement except in the tagline.
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
Boldly Going...Going...Gone
After a trial run with help from Shatner and a solo run with the help of Trek's greatest villains, The Borg, we are treated to what could just as easily have been a script for a series episode. After catching up and reacquainting ourselves with the crew, it's off to deep space and some minor-league territorial disputes that involve the cliched issue of the Prime Directive, immortality, dual cultures at odds with each other and, of course, Data's search for humanity.
Hiding behind the bad guy makeup this time is F. Murray Abraham as skin-peeling Adhar Ru'afowho is ineffective on his own in the same way any other Next Gen villain is due to limitations of screen time and any real sense of danger.
The problem with this episode is that it resigns to telling small stories on a big screen and assuming fans or neutral moviegoers will accept something that wouldn't have been greenlit as a film without the Star Trek logo. But since the props were in the closet and wardrobe still warm from the dryers across the lot on Voyager, it was cheap and easy to shell out another episode for the built-in audience, tie it into marketing millions in merchandise, cash a fat check and add another lame, inept story to the increasing library of Star Trek videos.
At this rate, Star Trek X could be about the peril confronted when an Enterprise toilet malfunctions, so long as we stop every ten minutes to find out what color hair Dr. Crusher has this time out, hear Worf growl, and give Data ten minutes to explain that he's a puppet without strings dreaming of being a real boy. It would still make money. Fans would complain, but they'd still shell out the money for the new insignia patches, the new uniform patterns, soundtracks, action figures and not care a graceful Gideon's damn about the simple fact that there is no longer anything vaguely resembling an adventure story in the Star Trek universe outside the novels.
Better scripts are written for ensemble casts of comparable size while incorporating moral and philosophical ideas that seem to make Trek unique in its genre. I wonder if it's time to look outside the Trek ranch for new ideas and influence to revitalize the franchise.
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Most Interesting, Still Ridiculous
The problem with the Generations franchise of Trek movies is that there are too many people to squeeze into 2 hours and still introduce interesting villains, supporting characters and a STORY. TREK finds time to interrupt what could have been a decent story with forced character-profile scenes that go nowhere except to interest fans of those characters/actors. DATA is the worst of it. After the horrible and disappointing subplot of "Generations" we get to see Data go toe-to-toe with the Borg Queen with lines that should have gone to Stewart. There was no reason to involve Data except that he has a fan base and demands third billing (which surprises me that he isn't above Frakes since Riker has little to do but mug, chatter orders and provide exposition.)
We also have to catch up with everybody - rank and duty changes, prosthetic updates, backstory vignettes - before we get into the story of this installment. The Borg are sufficiently scary and nasty, but the Borg Queen character was a disappointment. I like the idea of a mechanical, soul-less collective and the Queen just cut into that by posing the idea that there's a shallow, vain harpy at the center of it all. Alice Krige played her with a sensuality that helped enahnce the character, but ultimately undermine the greatest of Trek villains.
In the end I hoped Hawke would live and a few less-than-necessary regulars would die just so we could clear the slate for Trek 9.
Star Trek: Generations (1994)
A great television special, but with a bigger film stock
Okay, the problem with this one is, like all the Next Gen flicks, in the following:
1. Every main character must have a five-minute sketch placed randomly in the midst of the main story. It may or may not have anything to do with the main story, but as long as we have Crusher reporting the casualties, Worf reminding us he's a Klingon of the highest order, Riker shouting "Red Alert" and Troi mentioning something doesn't "feel" right, they've fulfilled their contractual obligation and fan expectation.
2. Brent Spiner must have something important to do, but it should have NOTHING to do with the main story. It must have to do with his Pinnochio Complex so the attention is on him. In Generations, his bits are the WORST. I FELT LaForge's irritation and I would have used the phaser on him instead of Soran.
3. NOW, add a story that is hashed together from a one-hour episode. Now that the first two items have eaten an hour of screen time, a smaller-scale main story can replace an epic vision that justifies moving from syndicated TV to a venue that charges $8 a head.
Back in the seventies, as a kid, I looked forward to those great TV reunion specials. Most were crap, but there were a few that honored the spirit of the source material without daring to be pretentious or derivative. Generations would have made a great summer replacement special on NBC or on the UPN, but the end of the Enterprise-D and the coolness of McDowell's Soran didn't make up for all Shatner's unneeded backstory, multiple death scenes or Data's pining for a missing kitty.
Television fare on a bigger screen. A disappointment or an insult to me as a fan? Not sure yet. Let's see how they do with the next few.
The Blair Clown Project (1999)
A Project Worth Watching, at last
Yes, I know everybody's sick to death of Blair Witch rip-offs, especially of the snotting, scared girl in the wool hat shining a Maglite up her face and sobbing. But you know, this movie actually transcends that level of mediocre parody...it actually pulls off a genuine satire of a really pretentious and inept original.
The Blair Clown Project has a handful of truly brilliant and inventive moments and they succeed in satirizing what made the original film so irritating - long, pointless scenes of camera-mugging, over-emoting actors and excessive padding.
As parodies of "Blair Witch" go, this is one of the best, perhaps second only to the pornographic version released last year, but certainly better than the hordes of knock-offs done by anyone with an 8mm camcorder and a few acres of woods nearby. I strongly urge you to see this movie, preferably with a large group of people and a case of malt liquor.