Reaction & Review | The Puppetman

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror movie from 2023. That movie is "The Puppetman".

Now, I don't really know a whole lot about this movie. From what I looked up on the back of the DVD case, the plot involves a young girl of a killer, who claims to be innocent of murders that he did not commit. And she somehow finds out the truth about it when her friends start mysteriously dying off. Which, I will say does sound rather interesting. Granted, I don't know if this movie is gonna live up to that concept, but it certainly does have potential.

The only other thing I should let you guys know is that this movie was distributed by a company known as Shudder. Now Shudder actually does put out more original movies. More specifically, horror movies. And I can recall seeing at least two of them beforehand. One of them is "PG: Psycho Goreman", which is a film I covered several years ago, and I kinda liked it. Granted, it wasn't exactly worth holding onto, but I did still like it's premise. The other film that I've seen from them is "Christmas Bloody Christmas", which is a film I covered during one of my Christmas specials that I did a couple of years ago. And while that movie was certainly flawed, I still wound up enjoying it, too. In fact, I actually have added it to my list of Christmas movies that I watch every year around Christmas time.

So, Shudder does know how to put out decent movies, from what I've seen anyway of them. I'm hoping this one is going to continue the trend of it being rather decent. Or perhaps it'll actually be really good. I don't know if it will be or not, but that's what I'm here to find out. So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "The Puppetman".

3 minutes later

Wait wait, hold up here for a second. So, these radio announcers are saying that after the husband killed his wife, the police found their daughter locked up in a closet. That wasn't a closet she was locked in, it looked more like a fucking boiler room! Granted, I don't know how common it is for a closet to have brick walls, but that did not look anything like a closet. There's bit of a difference there. Just thought I'd mention that.

15 minutes later

So, guys, I'm gonna ask this. Is *anything* interesting gonna happen in this fucking movie? We're nearly 20 minutes into the movie and nothing has fucking happened. I'm hoping, maybe, something interesting will happen sooner, rather than later. But as of right now, I'm kinda already doubting it.

8 minutes later

So, guys, we finally have our first kill in the movie. And allow me to sum up how it happened. So our main characters are on a rooftop building, drinking. Charlie somehow ends up getting possessed by the Puppetman. She then suddenly walks backwards, trips on a ledge and falls to her death. That's it. That's the whole sequence of the killing and it's not really an interesting kill either. God, I *really* hope this movie will actually make their kills more interesting. Otherwise, we might have a bit of a problem here.

18 minutes later

Guys, do you want to know why I don't visit psychics very often, if ever? It's because they drone on and on and never get to the fucking point. This psychic is proving just that by making this scene fucking boring as shit. Just thought I'd share that with you guys.

17 minutes later

So, guys, good news is that we finally got another kill. Two of them in fact, as both of Michal's friends were killed in, admittedly, somewhat creative death scenes. It's just a pity that it took the movie well over half an hour to get to this point, especially knowing that there's only about 37 minutes left of it to go, but hey, at least these kills are definitely somewhat of an improvement over Charlie's death scene. So, I guess, take the good with the bad here.

18 minutes later

You know, guys, I understand that this scene was suppose to be all tense and dramatic, and I'm suppose to feel sorry now that Michal's boyfriend is now dead. But honestly, I don't. Because the way he was killed made that whole scene unintentionally hilarious. So, good job, movie, you know how to take the tension out of a scene that was suppose to be taken seriously and end up being kinda hilarious in hindsight. That's just class right there.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "The Puppetman". Let me shut this stupid thing off here...OK. God, that movie was stupid as fuck. Guys, I'm almost tempted to spoil this movie for you. Mostly about who this Puppetman is and what it's purpose is really for. However, unlike my review of "Millennium", where I spoiled the ending to that thing, I won't give out any real spoilers here. What I am gonna say, again, without spoiling who this Puppetman really is, is that the whole idea it is stupid as shit and how it all plays out isn't really any better. I'll just leave it at that and leave up to your imagination. I may leave out a hint here and there, but for the most part, most of this review will be left spoiler free.

So with that said, let's get into the review proper here and start off, as usual, with the writing. Now earlier, I had mentioned that this movie was distributed by Shudder. And I had mentioned that they put out more original horror movies. Well, this one isn't nearly half as original as it could be, as it does involve stuff like satanic rituals and plot points that I have seen in other movies. Things such as "Devil's Due", "The Bye Bye Man", and "Slenderman". I should mention that all of those movies were absolutely terrible and this movie is no exception. Granted, it's not quite as bad as those movies were, but that doesn't mean very much. It just means that it doesn't do it nearly as bad as those movies did.

One thing that this film does have in common with those movies is that the pacing is downright horrible. This movie moves along at a snail's pace as almost nothing of interest happens throughout over the first half of the movie. Our kills here, to begin with, are horribly spaced out. The first kill happens around the 25 minute mark. And the next kill? Happens just over the hour mark of the film. And by that point, there's a little over half an hour left of movie to go. And the stuff that happens between the first kill and the next is nothing but mindless padding. Such as when Michal and her friends visit this psychic to help find answers of what's going on with Michal. And this psychic just goes on and on about how we're all here to help Michal and such through this difficult time, what with her losing her best friend, Charlie, and what's going on in her own mind, before finally getting on with her ritual. That scene takes up a good portion of the middle of the movie and it's just so damn long that you're hoping something of interest happens during that long scene. Maybe the psychic herself might end up getting killed because of the Puppetman. But no, that doesn't happen. In fact, a slight spoiler here, she's one of the few characters in this movie who doesn't die at all.

Speaking of characters, that greatly transitions into the next big problem with this movie. All of the characters in this movie are just shallow and lifeless. Most of which consists of Michal and her friends. Her friends in particular have nothing interesting about them. When you first meet them, they come off as unlikable douchebags. I was gonna exclude Charlie from this because she was really trying to help out Michal by recording footage of when she's sleepwalking at night. But then that gets trampled when she lets it slip that she told one of the friends of the group about it. I think it was her boyfriend, Danny, who Charlie might've told him about, but I don't recall exactly. Which gets Michal to get all angry when she snaps at Charlie and, well, then comes Charlie's lame death scene. I won't spoil how that all makes sense. If you're seriously dumb enough to watch this movie, then it might make more sense there. Though that's not really a guarantee.

Michal herself is the only one who has a backstory which, again, ties into why she's connected with the Puppetman. But even with that, her personality is boring as shit, because she has something resembling daddy issues, because it ties into the beginning of the movie. Where her Dad ended up killing her Mom because of really stupid reasons. And what with her mind on the Puppetman, she really doesn't have anything else going on beyond that. And you would think that we would end up caring about her because she's going through these issues and you want to see her overcome them. But I can't, not when you have a character who has an uninteresting backstory and her depth is just about as vapid as the entire cast is. Seriously, nobody here has anything resembling likability or depth that'll make you want to care about these characters. They are all shallow and lifeless as they come.

And that pretty much sums up the writing as a whole. There is almost nothing here that I can say is even a remote positive when it comes to the writing. Now you would think that, with all of the shallow characters in this movie, we would have acting that is just as bad as the writing is. And yeah, you would be totally right. The acting here is horrible from just about everyone in this entire cast. Nobody's putting in any real effort because most of their character's personality come in one trait. You are either boring as shit, which would include Michal and all of her friends. You would include the police chief, who sounds about as wooden as possible. Or you have the psychic who really doesn't have much of anything to work with for her character, so she just phones it in. So yeah, acting here as a whole is fucking terrible.

Special effects, I will say, are the only thing that saves this movie from becoming shit. You do have your standard blood effects, which aren't amazing, but they're still pretty good for low budget standards. The best special effect in the movie has to go to one of the character's face burning off. It looks really good, and it's also the best kill of the entire film. Second place has to go to the other kill involving the weight lifts. I won't spoil on how these kills work, but like I said, they're the only two kills in the entire movie that makes the special effects stand out. Everything else involving CG is kinda shit. Especially in one scene where Michal jumps off a bridge to kill herself, only to be flung back onto the bridge at ludicrous speed. It's easily the worst effect in terms of CG, and that includes everything else involving it as well.

Camerawork here is pretty good. Lighting here is lit fine. The sound-mixing here is also competent. The score here is honestly nothing special. It sounds like a lot of typical generic scores you would hear in horror movies and it's definitely not something you're going to remember this movie by. But overall, the technical work here is fine.

But ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "The Puppetman"? No. There is almost no way I can recommend this movie to anyone, especially if you're a horror movie fanatic. This movie will honestly do nothing for you to make you want to go check this movie out. The only slight possibility that I could recommend this thing to you guys is if you want to watch it with friends on a bad movie night and riff on it. Because like I mentioned earlier, this movie does something that is unintentionally hilarious that it could spark some decent riffing material off of. But if you're not here to riff on it, then there's really no reason for you to check this movie out. It is boring, slow paced, and while it's certainly not the worst horror movie I've ever seen, it's definitely not gonna get another viewing from me. Now...I keep looking at that title for this movie and it makes me just want to go and rewatch the first "Puppet Master" movie from Full Moon again. So that's what I'm gonna go do next after I get done with this review.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Millennium

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a science-fiction film 1989. That movie is "Millenium".

Now, I discovered this movie a couple of years back when I was searching for movies that I could possibly cover off of YouTube. Now I am gonna spoil this much, I won't be covering it off YouTube. I found a copy of it at one of my local video stores for about $3. So, on the off chance that this thing does suck, I won't be losing out on too much here.

Now the main reason why this movie peaked my interest has to do with it's premise. The premise to this movie is that an airplane ends up taking a flight a thousand years into the future through time travel. How exactly that happens is something I don't know of, as of yet, but it did intrigue me enough to warrant covering for this series.

Now seeing as how I didn't have a whole lot of information to work with, I decided to dig into this movie's history and see if I could come up with anything. And I can tell you guys a couple of things. First off, this movie is based off a short story called "Air Raid", which was written by a man named John Varley. And not only did he write that story, he also wrote the screenplay for this movie, too. So, at the very least, this movie will be pretty faithful to it's source material. Granted, I haven't read the short story, but again, at least I know that this thing will most certainly be faithful to it's story.

But then I kinda came across something else about this movie. Apparently, it had a rather troubled production. The film started out life in 1979, and the story had to be written at least six different times, according John Varley. It also went through 4 different directors before it was taken over by someone named Michael Anderson. At one point, legendary actress Natalie Wood was set to be in the movie and the film was gonna be put out by MGM. Unfortunately, due to the actress's untimely death, they backed out of the project, which caused more problems for the film's production. And eventually, the movie was released by a now defunct studio known as Gladden Entertainment.

Now with all that aside, I'm curious to find out if this movie will still be any good, despite all of the problems this movie went through during it's production. I'm hoping that it is good, or at least halfway decent, but there's really only one way for me to find out. And the only way I'm gonna find out is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Millennium".

18 minutes later

All right, guys, so far, this movie hasn't given me much to work with. But I can confirm two things. One: A plane from the beginning of the movie crashed and killed just about everyone on it, after the plane hit that odd flying object. And two: Some of the passengers that had digital watches are suddenly counting backwards. Why? How? I have no idea. But I will say that at least I am interested enough to keep watching. And hopefully, the movie will provide some answers at some point.

15 minutes later

So let me see if I understand this. When they brought the wreckage of the destroyed plane, nobody, aside from Bill here, discovered the blinking red light that was a part of the wreckage? Furthermore, I'm actually kinda shocked that it survived from being damaged in any capacity. It still looks perfectly intact. Which raises my question again on how the hell nobody discovered the blinking red light when they were surveying all of the broken parts? Yeah, it was still hidden, but it wasn't hidden all *that* well. I'm sure one person might've discovered it at some point. But nope. Nobody discovered that whatsoever. I'm sorry, guys, but I find that just a little bit hard to believe.

18 minutes later

OK, I have a couple of questions here and it's really starting to bother me now. One, why exactly are our female characters from the future traveling back to 1963 to begin with? I must've missed something, because otherwise, it doesn't really make much sense unless if they were trying to fix the space time continuum, or some such bullshit like that. And two, one of their cohorts is possibly dead now thanks to a nutcase who held a woman hostage with a gun. Wouldn't that already be messing up the time paradox and causing the future to be messed up again? Guys, this movie's already starting to hurt my head, and the less sense it continues to make, I'm probably gonna end up hating this one. I don't want to hate it, but the movie's not giving me much of a choice right now. I just hope it'll make some sense later on.

3 minutes later

All right, guys, I do want to make one quick correction on my part. The woman I mentioned who got shot with a gun that was from the future is still alive. And according to her, she "stopped" the bullet. How exactly she did that? I don't fucking know. It doesn't really make any sense, but then again, this movie isn't really making much sense to begin with. But still, at least I can kinda admit that I was wrong into thinking that she was already dead.

4 minutes later

Once more, guys, I have to make *another* correction on my part. The woman I mentioned a second ago, who's now named Susan, did end up dying. I know it's probably a trivial thing to correct myself on, but it's something I feel like I have to do. So hopefully, I don't have to make that kind of correction again from here on.

7 minutes later

OK, I have a stupid question here and I know it's probably not gonna be answered, but I want to ask it anyway. Now Louise is in the past again where she's meeting Bill before he found the stunner. I'll talk more about her going into the past again later in the review. But anyway, they're redoing some of the scenes where she and Bill first meet up and she tells him that she has her own car. Yet, she doesn't have any actual keys for that car until she got into it and started it up. Did she just steal that car from somebody? Because I imagine it wasn't really Louise's car to begin with so she must've stolen that car on the fly after she and Bill got into it. I know it's a really trivial and stupid thing to be bringing up, but it's those sort of details that makes this whole movie even stupider than what it already is.

20 minutes later

OK, hold up, hold the fucking phone here! So, Louise knows that the stunner that they lost back in the 1963 flight was picked up by a young Dr. Mayer. If she knows this, then why the fuck didn't they just go back in time to a day earlier before Dr. Mayer got on the flight to make sure he doesn't get the stunner?! If he still has the stunner from back in 1963 that means he *still* has that stunner now in the current time of 1989, which means he might've already discovered what the fuck this stunner's intention actually does! Oh my fucking god...you guys have no idea how much I hate this thing now. And the fact that I have to talk about this piece of shit in the review is kinda making me dread for what's to come. This might end up being very painful, guys.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Millennium". Thank fucking god it's over. Let me shut this garbage movie off...OK. Good god, that movie was stupid as hell. You guys remembered earlier when I brought up this movie's troubled production? Well, after finally getting a chance to watch it, I'm not surprised it turned out the way it did. This movie is just so stupid and so inane with illogical plotholes that I could be here for a whole day trying to explain every stupid thing that happened in this movie.

Let's start this thing off proper here and talk about the biggest problem with this movie: The writing. And the first thing I have to talk about is when you're a doing film that involves time travel, you have to have a set of rules for which you cannot break. An example this movie brings up is that after you come back to the future from where you first time traveled, you cannot go back to that certain point in time in that location again. And this breaks that rule from when Louise is told that she has to go back to 1989 and try to stop Bill Smith, our main character, from investigating the plane crash. She ends up near the hangar from where they first meet up near the beginning of the movie, and, like I mentioned earlier, they replay some of the scenes involving them together. The only difference is the second time when Louise goes back to 1989, they extend the scenes between her and Bill as they go out to dinner to try and get Bill's mind off the investigation. Slight spoiler here, that doesn't happen. He still ends up remembering her and, well...I'm tempted to spoil the ending, but I'm not sure if I should or not.

You know what? Fuck it, I'm going to spoil the ending here. Because it's still fresh in my mind and I cannot get around it if I don't try to explain it. So, for those of you who don't want spoilers here, you might want to skip the next few paragraphs because I'm gonna be spoiling the ending here. To help with this, I'm gonna be separating it into different lines. So it'll be easier for you if you don't want to read spoilers. So if you want to skip the next section here, you are free to do so. For everyone else, I'm gonna spoil the ending and talk about why it sucked.

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SPOILER WARNING

So, you guys remember when I mentioned that whole thing where Dr. Mayer when he was younger and was on the 707 flight of 1963? Well, he still had part of the stunner with him since that time and he's been trying to discover it's secret ever since. Bill Smith visits him as he talks about the woman he saw and how he wants to find her. Dr. Mayer discovers that she might've been from the future and she's also a time traveler. Well, he ends up showing the ignition to Bill, who also had the stunner with him. Louise goes back to that point to try and stop them from creating a time paradox, or else the future she's from will be destroyed.

I should probably try to elaborate further on this. You see, those people at the beginning of the movie who died in that plane crash...never ended dying to begin with. They were taken out unconsciously and were taken to the future by way of a time gate. They then replace those people with fake identical bodies to pass off as them being dead. The reason why Louise and her people are doing this is because, in the future, their people are dying, as is their future, and they need to repopulate as much as possible, especially with females, since they're the only ones who are capable of giving birth. Now what exactly Louise is saying by her people are dying in the future is never explained. They never say it's from something, like, a virus, or nuclear war, or something related to that. She just says that her future is dying and they need to retrieve both stunners in order to stop the time paradox.

Well, here's where it gets really stupid. Dr. Mayer ends up combining both stunners that both he and Bill retrieved. Louise yells at him to stop but he ends up getting electrocuted to death after he combines them together and dies. This somehow leads to the conclusion that the time paradox is beginning to happen in the future, so she and Bill end up going to the future, and everything that's happening there is suddenly going to hell. The guy in the wheelchair explains that Dr. Mayer wasn't supposed to be dead for another 6 years. And that, somehow, causes the time paradox to happen and everyone there is going to die. So they send everybody off that they captured and replaced towards a light that would send them to a distant future where they can begin anew and keep everyone alive. This also includes Bill and Louise, and it ends with a monologue where "the end is now the beginning", or some such crap like that. But yeah, that's the whole ending.

Now, the one question I have out of all this is why is it exactly Dr. Mayer who causes the time paradox to happen? Is it because he had half of the stunner with him this whole time? Even if that was the case, that's still a very half-assed answer because, like I mentioned way early on, they could've just gone back to a day before Dr. Mayer got on the flight in 1963 so that he would not be in possession of the stunner. And the reason why he had it to begin with was because one of Louise's friends and comrade died after getting a bullet to the stomach. So I ask again, what makes Dr. Mayer so damn special for him to be the one that causes the time paradox to happen in the future? It doesn't make any sense and it makes me wonder if he was actually a more important character in the previous drafts of this movie. I don't know, but either way, it's just a whole fucking mess with him being involved.

SPOILER END

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So, for those of you who skipped all of that, let me try to summarize it the best way I can. The ending is fucking stupid as hell and it makes no sense whatsoever. That is honestly the best way I can describe it to you guys. And it also makes this time travel story even more convoluted and stupid than what it already is. In fact, this may be one of the worst movies to ever implement time travel in it's own movie. Now I may eventually end up taking back that statement if I ever end up covering another movie involving time travel. But you know what? Just based on what I saw here, that's gonna be a challenge and a half for any movie involving time travel to implement it worse than how this movie did.

Now...setting that whole issue aside, what about the rest of the writing? Barring the spoilers, the rest of the movie is just kinda bland and uninteresting. It does start off very promising, as we have our cast of characters investigating what happened during the plane crash. That stuff, to me, was the most interesting the movie ever got. Unfortunately, however, the movie slowly backs away from that subplot and goes into the whole thing involving Louise trying to get the stunner back. And it also tries to build up some romantic subplot between her and Bill. However, they have no real chemistry with each other. They only just met, like, a day and they're suddenly already dating, having dinner with each other, and them hitting it off in a hotel room. And I should mention the first time was mostly from Bill's point of view. The second time that they replay these scenes is when we get more extended stuff between them. And it's not interesting either way because their characters are really one dimensional and uninteresting. That goes for the rest of the characters, too. No one has any real depth or personality and you're not gonna care about anyone in this movie.

What also bugs me about the second time that they go out is the fact that Louise ends up becoming an idiot because she's doing the exact same shit as she did with Bill the first time around. And I don't want to hear "Oh, it's from a different point in time where she doesn't remember any of it". I'm sorry, but I hate that kind of excuse when it comes to time travel stories. Very rarely, do they ever do this right. And this movie is most certainly not one of them.

There's also one other thing that bothered me that they really could've explored more. Now, early on in the investigation, they brought up the digital watches that some of the passengers were wearing, and that the clocks were going backwards. I thought this was gonna be used as a plot point where we found out that time is slowly going backwards instead of forwards. That could've been really interesting. But instead, later on in the movie, they just pass it off as a "computer error". Yeah...I'm not kidding about that either. Now, in a little bit of fairness, it could be said that those digital clocks were made by the people of the future and that they didn't know how to replicate digital clocks. Which, again, raises a-whole-nother issue, considering, you know, these people are from the future, so they should know how to recreate digital clocks more accurately. However, I'm attempting to put logic into a movie that seems to be allergic to it. So, why should I start making sense of it now?

Guys, like I said earlier, I could be here for a whole day talking about all the logical issues that this movie had, but I think I covered enough to give you guys an idea of how awful this movie's writing is. And yes, I could say that this movie would be fine if you go into it with your brain shut off. But I can't really do that here, because of how awful the writing is, there's no way you could not think about the writing the moment you start to question it. It really is that bad. The acting is also teetering on being bad as well. I mostly contribute the bad acting to our two main leads. Kris Kristofferson sounds very wooden here. Which, admittedly, I don't really know if that's how he naturally sounds when trying to act, because I've never seen him in any movie before until this one. Or it's possible that he wasn't given enough material to work with, which is also a possibility because, as I've mentioned so many times beforehand, you can only do so much with a bad script that's given to you. Cheryl Ladd doesn't sound as wooden as Kristofferson does, but she still does phone it in as well. She's puts almost no effort into the role that she's suppose to play and I really feel like it's the same case where her character wasn't given much to work with either. Everyone else here, aside from them, sounded OK, but nothing that will set the world on fire. But yeah, acting here isn't really good.

Special effects are actually the one thing I can say that this film does sorta right. The visual effects here look alright for 1989 standards. Admittedly, I don't know what the budget is for this film, but I'm going to take a guess here and say that it was made on a lower budget. And if that is the case, then the special effects here look fine. Costuming and makeup effects, however, are a ridiculously mixed bag. The costuming in particular is something I'm not exactly a fan of. I will admit that I sorta liked that Louise and her comrades were able to get accurate costumes and wigs that resembled hostesses from 1963. In other words, they had to match the hostesses that they stunned in the 1963 flight and replaced them as if they were actually them. That stuff to me looked pretty neat. However, when it comes to their regular costumes in the future, it looks cheap and nothing how I would envision someone in the future would dress.

The ones that stood out to me the most were the council. Now to give you guys an idea of what they look like, I want you to imagine the faces of famous celebrities in "Futurama", where their faces would be stuck in glass containment pods and are still alive. This is a little bit like that, however, the big difference here is that the faces on the council look like half-finished plastic surgery. In other words, the side of their faces would be held up to the side. Which sounds creative, in concept, but once you actually see them talking, it just looks so awkward and out of place that you're not entirely sure if that's what they were meant to look like or if there was suppose to be more done with the council than than what they look like now. Either way, it will throw you off on how awkward their faces look.

Now, aside from all of that, everything involving technical work is fine. Camerawork, lighting, sound-mixing, and music all functions normally. Granted, there's no way in hell anyone's gonna remember this movie for it's technical work, but at least all of it works fine. So I can grant the movie that much.

But overall, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Millennium"? Hell no. No fucking way am I actually gonna recommend this film to anyone unless if you somehow can shut your brain off and enjoy it as a mindless popcorn flick. But I'm gonna warn you right now, the moment that you start to think about how off the writing is, you are more than likely gonna hate this thing. Especially if you're somebody who really likes movies involving time travel. I'm personally not really a fan of these particular movies, because I think the whole time travel concept is completely overdone. But that's just me personally. If you want to take a shot at this movie, then you go right ahead and do so. But again, only if you have your brain shut off. Everyone else, I would avoid this movie at all costs. I seriously cannot recommend it to anyone who's into science-fiction films, especially ones that involve time travel. And speaking of which, I'm gonna go and watch one of the few films I have that involves time travel and is actually good. I'm gonna go watch my copy of "Justice League: Flashpoint Paradox". Because I need to be reminded of something good after watching something like this. This movie is just a massive fucking turd and I'm sorry that I even had any interest in watching it to begin with. But hey, at least the good news is that I didn't have to spend too much on it, and I would've never known if it was good or bad had I not covered it for this series. So, I guess that's at least something.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Bottom 5 Reaction & Review Movies of 2025

Hey, guys, and welcome back. Now for those of you reading this for the first time, about a day has passed since I uploaded the Top 5 Movies I reviewed for 2025. Well now, it's time to look at the opposite side of things. I'm taking a look at the Bottom 5 Movies I covered in 2025. Now I'll be honest, this one was a little bit harder to put together. I'll get a little bit more into that when I reveal the number 5 movie on this list, but just to let you guys know, there were quite a bit of bad movies last year that I had to compile and think of which ones would fit this list. But when the dust was settled, I finally decided on these 5 movies. These 5, in particular, were just bad enough for various reasons that they earned the dishonor of being on this countdown. Plus also, it gives me one more chance to rip into them on why I think they deserved to be here.

Now like before, these are *not* full on reviews. These are just summaries of what I thought about these particular movies. If you really want to know, you can go find them yourself on my blogspot account. Now with all that said, it's time to countdown the Bottom 5 Reaction & Review Movies of 2025.

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Bottom 5 Reaction & Review Movies of 2025

We kick things off with number 5 and, like I just mentioned, this was one kinda hard to put together. Because there were quite a bit of bad movies that deserved to be on this countdown. And when it comes to number 5, I narrowed it down to 3 movies. Two of those were sequels to movies that I've already covered. The other one is more of an original movie. And ultimately, I decided to pick the latter in this case. Because, while the other two films were certainly bad, they weren't quite bad enough to make it on this list. At worst, they were just disappointing sequels. This movie, though, I ended up hating because of how stupid and illogical it was. The movie I'm talking about is 2003's "Sky High".

5 - Sky High (2003)

Guys, I love stupid movies, but this movie takes up the stupidity level, ramps it up and multiplies it by 10. Because everything about the movie felt like it made almost no sense and, for a movie that was trying to take itself seriously, it fails at doing so because of it's horrible writing. The characters were all vapid and lifeless, and the story itself could've been interesting, but, well, made itself into a mess that tried, in vain to clean itself up, but ultimately didn't.

The story itself, I thought was going to be really interesting. Because it presented itself with 3 different possibilities. Does our main character accept death and await reincarnation? Does it remain a ghost forever? Or does it seek revenge upon her killer, only for her to lose her soul forever? I thought it was going to go the route of having alternate endings, but sadly, it doesn't. It just stuck with the traditional one ending and nothing else. And even then, the ending itself really sucked.

And the stupidity factor comes in multiple cases here. Such as when our main character detective is told that guns don't work on the supernatural. And what does he do? He uses his gun to try and stop our villain even though he was just told earlier that they don't fucking work! Guys, I've criticized Shane Abilene's horrible shooting skills in the "Triple-B" movies from Andy Sidaris that he's in, but I don't think even he would be stupid enough to shoot at something that he couldn't even kill. This detective, though, is stupid as fuck because apparently he's too focused on getting revenge for his wife being murdered.

I could also mention the pacing issues the movie had, too. The movie was over 2 hours long even though it had no reason to be that long in the first place. Guys, I wanted to like this movie, simply based on it's premise, but this film disappointed me so much that there's no way in hell I'm ever gonna watch this movie again. And again, I *love* stupid movies, but there's only so much stupidity I can take from a movie that wasn't even trying to be "so bad, it's good". Well, guess what? It's not "so bad, it's good", it's so bad, it's boring". Yeah, this movie's also boring, too, which also adds more to the pacing issues. But I've kinda dwelled on this movie enough as is. So with that said, "Sky High" comes in at number 5.

Number 4 is a movie based off a Marvel Comics character that I usually like. But that doesn't mean it's prone to being in a bad movie, and this one is most certainly his worst. Coming at number 4 is "The Invincible Iron Man".

4 - The Invincible Iron Man (2007)

Now I've covered quite a handful of these Marvel animated movies and just about all of them have ranged on being average at best. But if you want the lowest of the low, then look no further than "The Invincible Iron Man". A character who, again, I usually do like. And at least with the other movies I've covered that feature Iron Man, both in the latter two live action movies and the other animated films that he's in, they're at least able to give you something of value from the character. This movie, on the other hand, offers nothing but a coalmine of suckittude.

To start with, the animation ranges on being subpar at best to horrible at worst. The latter in which it involves CG. And it's some of the worst-looking CG I've seen implemented in any animated anything in a long time. The worst part about it is that it looks and feels unfinished. I mentioned it beforehand in my review, but there was a scene where Iron Man is trapped underwater and as soon as he moves his arm to get free, it actually skips a frame of animation! Like, holy shit, how cheap do you have to be where you have to actually *skip* a frame of animation and still look like shit?! Granted, a lot of DC's direct-to-video animated films have had their problems of bad CG when it's implemented into their own animated films, but it's nothing in comparison to how poorly implemented it's used here.

On top of all that, the story is really kinda just reworking Tony Stark's origin story, which isn't really that great. Also, Tony Stark's father is still alive in this movie, which I still find really strange because I'm use to him not being around in the live action "Iron Man" movies. But anyway, this movie also tried to foreshadow a prophecy that when the Mandarin rises from his grave, an "Iron Knight", AKA Iron Man, will show up to do battle and defeat the Mandarin once and for all. And guess what? That *never* happens in this movie. Some other character, whose name I don't fucking remember and don't care to re-read my review to find out, ends up beating the Mandarin in a really retarded and cliche way that I've seen done in other movies and TV shows. And the worst part about it is that it doesn't really do it very well either.

Guys, I'm just glad that this wasn't the only "Iron Man" film to exist, prior to his debut in the MCU. Because if it was, it would've tarnished my interest in the character and I probably would've had no interest in ever watching any of the "Iron Man" movies. Granted, I wasn't really a fan of "Iron Man 2", while "Iron Man 3", though very flawed, was still entertaining enough to make me want to keep rewatching it. So for all of the sequels faults, at least they have something there that you could care about. This movie doesn't make you care about "Iron Man" whatsoever. And like I said, if this film had been the only movie to exist that starred Iron Man, I would've hated the character before I even got the chance to like him. Which is saying a lot because it could've been much higher on this countdown, had I never seen any of the live action movies. But since I have, the blemish here only does enough to get to number 4 on this countdown.

We jump from comic books to video games, because number 3 is the only video game adaptation I reviewed last year. It's a series that I have, admittedly, grown a bit more fond of thanks to playing games like Resident Evil's 2 and 4, along with a few other games in the series. But when it comes to movies, it's been hit or miss, and this one is, by far, the biggest misfire of it's movie adaptation career. I'm, of course, talking about "Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City".

3 - Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City (2021)

Oh dear lord, where do I start here? Well, first of all, this movie tries to adapt Resident Evil's 1 and 2 into one movie. Which, that by itself, is kind of a huge mistake because, one, you're trying to tell two different stories in under two hours long. And two, you would also have to cut a lot of corners just to try and make your film adaptation to work. Which, in the hands of a competent writer, *maybe* you could get away with it. But again, trying to tell two different stories in under two hours just doesn't work here.

So not only does the story not work, all of the characters are all really forgettable or are changed for the worst. To give you guys a couple of examples, Leon Kennedy is more of an inept rookie than he was in Resident Evil 2. Which is in stark contrast with his counterpart in that game because, while he was a rookie, he wasn't completely inept or stupid like he is in this movie. Albert Wesker has an out of the blue face turn towards the end of the movie that makes no fucking sense whatsoever because, well...fuck you, that's why. Other characters like Sherry Birkin, who had a major role in Resident Evil 2, is reduced to having no reason to be in this movie outside of name recognition. Which I found to be the biggest baffling change that they did here because Sherry actually has a purpose in games like Resident Evil's 2 and 6. So why the fuck this movie changed that completely makes no sense whatsoever.

On top of all that, we had terrible CG, the lighting being kinda shit in darkly lit scenes, and the acting being also terrible as well. And do you want to know the worst part about all this? This movie was suppose to serve as a "reboot" of sorts for the live action "Resident Evil" movies. And if this is the best this movie has to offer, I hope it never fucking happens. Because even though I have never seen any of the previous live action "Resident Evil" movies, I have no interest in ever watching them. Granted, I didn't have any interest in them to begin with, but this movie solidified that decision for me because it is easily the worst "Resident Evil" movie I have ever seen. If you want better "Resident Evil" movies, go watch the CG animated films. They're not exactly great, but they do a hell of a much better job in being more loyal to it's source material. And this is coming from someone who normally doesn't care about any of that. But this movie prevented me from not doing so because of how poorly made it was in being a live action "Resident Evil" movie. So yeah, "Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City" gets it spot at number 3.

Number 2 is a movie that, for quite a while, was in contention to be number 1 on this Bottom 5 list, but something else beat it, and I'll tell you what it is in a little bit. But first, I should talk about the movie that came in at number 2. Number 2 is a movie that involves vampires and they also speak mandarin. If you don't know what I'm referring to, the movie I'm talking about is "Chinese Speaking Vampires".

2 - Chinese Speaking Vampires (2021)

Allow me to summarize the entire plot to you guys right here: Some actor is trying to land a film role that's supposed let him speak Mandarin. He has to go to a Mandarin speaking school where he has to learn the language within a month, otherwise, he doesn't get the role. The head teacher of this Mandarin school is also a vampire that is trying to recruit other humans into vampires. Thus, leads into our battle between our heroes trying to stop the vampires from taking over the world. Or possibly just LA, because I kinda remember one of the vampires admitting that.

But anyway, this story is shit and mostly plotless. The movie was suppose to be aiming to be a horror comedy, which it fails miserably at because nothing about the movie is remotely funny. It even tries to go for more racial humor, but it doesn't work because none of it is really funny. And I normally like racial humor, but this movie just does it so casually that it comes across as really awkward and unnecessary. The characters were about as interesting as moldy bread is. There is a romantic subplot between our main character and another girl that is shit. There is *nothing* here that you make will laugh.

On top of all that, the fight choreography is poorly done and edited too. Not only are the fight sequences nauseating to get through, because of all the fucking jump cuts and everything, but it's also inconsistent as well because of our final fight between our main character and the main mandarin-speaking vampire. Why is it inconsistent? Because it shifts from between night and day between each cut and the filmmakers couldn't decide if the scene was suppose to be shot in the dark, or when the sun was suppose to come up. It was so poorly done, much like every other fight scene in this movie.

There was also the issue of the lack of makeup effects. Because, since this movie is suppose to have vampires and all that, you would naturally think that we would get to see them biting their victims. Well, guess what? You get the bites, but you don't get the bite marks. Because when you see our main vampire trying to bite one of our victims, you don't actually get to see the aftereffects of it because there are no bite marks on *any* of the victims. Guys, how fucking hard is it to include something as simple as something like bite marks? It couldn't have cost that fucking much, but apparently, the filmmakers didn't have the budget for it...somehow. Either that, or the special effects team were too fucking lazy to get off their asses and actually include something as mundane as a fucking bite mark!

Oh yeah, and speaking of which, the special effects were horrible, too. Mainly, when it comes to CG. The CG effects are atrociously bad. Which, I kinda hinted at in my review when I mentioned all of the vampires who turn into dust, but I never flat out stated it when it came to it's CG. So yeah, I'm letting you guys know now that the special effects are fucking garbage here. There wasn't a single thing that I liked about this movie. And normally, this kind of shit would hit the number one spot for this year's Bottom 5.

But then something else came along and beat that movie by a mile. So, what movie came along that it deserved to be on the top of this putrid stain of this Bottom 5 countdown? Well, it's a movie that, not only is really poorly made, but it also pissed me off on a somewhat personal level, too. So with that said, the number one movie on this year's Bottom 5 goes to "Robert And The Toymaker".

1 - Robert And The Toymaker (2017)

Now, why would this film, in particular, be at the number one spot? Why would this film piss me off on a personal level? Well, something interesting happened after I finished typing that review. I said that, after watching this fucking garbage of a movie, I said that I was gonna go watch "Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge". Which is not only my favorite "Puppet Master" movie, but it's also something that I watch every year around October, what with it being Halloween and all. So, I went over to my DVD collection, popped in the movie, picked the third option, because the first disc contains the first 5 movies and all, and I pressed play.

And guess what happened? I got audio for the movie...but no dialogue. There was no dialogue playing whatsoever. Now I thought, OK, maybe it's just on my end and maybe I didn't adjust the wires properly. So I popped it out to check the disc, and there were no scratches on it. So disc error wasn't an issue. I tried to mess around with the wires to get it the movie to play...but I still got no dialogue for it. Again, the audio's music was playing, but *not* the dialogue. And you want to know the fucked up part about is? Every other movie on that DVD works perfectly fine. I got audio and dialogue for the other 4 movies. But "Puppet Master III" did not give me that same kind of treatment. And eventually, I had to give up on watching it. Which frustrated me to no end because I wanted to watch my favorite "Puppet Master" movie in the series and I couldn't do that. And guess what? I *still* can't get it to play properly. I don't even know if I'll ever get a chance to watch it again anytime soon because this movie, in particular, pissed me off so much that I decided to say fuck it, this hunk of shit is gonna be on this year's Bottom 5 list and it made it straight to the top of it, as well.

Now, setting aside why I couldn't watch my favorite "Puppet Master" movie in the series, this movie is also really poorly made, too. This movie is, to quote a certain reviewer from the past, "a perfect storm of failure". This movie fails on every conceivable level. There is not a single frame in this movie that I enjoyed. This movie doesn't even have the basic job of showing it's own opening title during the whole movie. Guys, for everything I've said about all of the bad movies that I've covered for this series, at least they're able to show you it's opening title like any other movie in history would. This movie, though, didn't want to do that. At least, not my copy of it on DVD anyway, back when I had it. I've long since traded it in and I'm thankful for it. But yeah, this movie didn't bother showing it's opening title. And that tells me they either forgot to add it in, or they were so ashamed of themselves for making this movie that they didn't even bother adding it in just in case some asshole online critic couldn't decipher what the movie they were reviewing is. Which already kinda backfires since they released this movie on DVD and all.

But anyway, setting aside that, I probably should mention that the story for this film is essentially just a ripoff of "Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge". Which is partly why I ranted about why I couldn't watch it earlier because I watched a piece of shit knockoff instead. We have our main character who is basically this movie's version of Toulon, if Toulon had been stripped of all his depth and backstory. We have our dolls, who are nowhere near as cool-looking as Toulon's puppets were, we had a forgettable Nazi General who was nowhere near as interesting as Klaus was from "Puppet Master III". Instead, he spends his time chewing up the scenery in the worst way possible. He's not like the villain from the 1993 "Judge Dredd" movie where he was actually doing the same thing, but was still funny while hamming his performance. The Nazi General in this movie talks so much that he doesn't know when to shut the fuck up. And you're gonna hate him for the same reasons.

Guy's, there's nothing else here that I can say worked. Special effects are garbage, the sound-mixing is horrible, the acting is atrocious, *nothing* about this movie worked. And do you want to know something else that I found fucked up about this movie, aside from it being a shitty knockoff of "Puppet Master III"? I was doing a little digging on other reviews of this movie, and I found out that this thing is part of a series of movies, the third to be one to be exact, and it's a prequel to how it all started. And do you want to know how many movies this fucking thing has centered around it? 5, including this one. They were all directed by some guy named Andrew Jones. And I'm gonna say this right now, just in case anyone's stupid enough to ask me, no, I am never reviewing another one of these fucking movies from Mr. Jones here. In fact, I'm gonna swear off reviewing anymore movies that this guy has made. How the fuck this guy was able to shit out 5 movies out of this garbage is something that baffles my mind. As I said, I'm not reviewing anymore movies from his shitbag series, because if they're anywhere near as bad as this thing was, I'm probably gonna end up banning all of Andrew Jones films from ever being covered for this series just out of spite. That's how much I hated this movie, guys. It is unwatchable from start to fucking finish, and that's why "Robert And The Toymaker" ends up on this year's Bottom 5 list.

And there you have it, guys. I actually got both lists out this time. Probably a month late, but at least I got them out this time. So, I hope you guys stay safe and I will see you all later for another year of Reaction & Review. Peace.

Top 5 Reaction & Review Movies of 2025

Hey, guys. Well, I'm gonna attempt to put this one out this time, because last year, I said I was going to delay it and put it out later in that year, but I didn't because of my own personal laziness. That said, I feel like I owe you guys after skimping out on it last year. So hopefully, this makes up for it.

Anyway, setting that aside, let's dive right into this year's countdown lists. For those of you reading this for the first time, I'm gonna fill you guys in. Normally, every year around this time, I would take a look back at some of the movies that I've covered this year and try to compile it into two different countdown lists. One is for the Top 5 Best Movies I covered last year, which is what you're reading currently. And the Bottom 5 List, which consisted of the Bottom 5 worst movies I've covered as well. Now as a quick disclaimer, these are *not* full on reviews of these movies. These are just my summarized thoughts on them. If you want to read the full the reviews, they should be in the 2025 file on my blogspot account.

Now as per tradition, we're gonna start on a positive note. Because there were certainly a decent amount of movies I watched last year that ended up on being pretty good. Now when I say that, I don't mean that they were all great movies or anything, so a lot of them are not gonna make the cut for this countdown. That being said, I did find 5 movies that stood out at me and won me over the most. So, without further ado, guys, it's time to countdown the Top 5 Reaction & Review Movies of 2025.

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Top 5 Reaction & Review Movies of 2025

We're gonna kick things off with number 5, which is a movie that I really wanted to see for a long time, and by the time that I actually finished watching it, it ended up being totally worth the long wait. Number 5 is a horror comedy that goes by the name of "Frankenhooker".

5 - Frankenhooker (1990)

Oh boy, guys, this movie really did deliver on what I was expecting from a horror comedy. It's funny, it's very witty, and the story, while just a different variation of Frankenstien, is still really fascinating in it's own way. The only thing that could potentially hold this movie back for someone is it's slow pacing. It does take almost an hour to get to the main character becoming, well, what she is on the front cover.

However, unlike some movies I reviewed last year, one of those you'll definitely see on the Bottom 5 list, it gives you a reason to watch, as our main character is trying to get the necessary body parts from hookers into making his girlfriend whole again. Which I know sounds fucked up, and there's a scene in this movie where hookers literally blow up from smoking cocaine. I'm dead serious about that. It's funnier if you watch the movie for yourself to know how exactly that all makes sense.

But yeah, guys, this movie is really funny, and if you're patient with it like I was, then you're definitely gonna get a good laugh out of it, too. I truly believe that this film will get better on repeat viewings. I can totally see that happening, and I'm personally happy that I finally got to watch it for this series. So yeah, guys, "Frankenhooker" comes in at number 5.

We jump from one comedy to another one, and this one is from two people who I know can write really good comedy. And this movie is definitely one of their best outings. The movie is from Matt Stone and Trey Parker, which is called "Cannibal! The Musical".

4 - Cannibal! The Musical (1993)

Now, in my review of this movie, I talked about how I wasn't as a big of fan as I was with "South Park", mostly because they tried to capitalize on whatever trendy thing is going on in the world at the time, and it just ends up being dated and not as funny as it could be. Their earliest episodes when they were just stupid comedies were probably some of the funniest things they had ever put out. Though that's just my opinion. I have no issues if anyone finds modern "South Park" to be really funny. But for me, it's just something that kinda made me distance myself from "South Park" a little bit.

That being said, even though I have my issues with how Matt and Trey handle "South Park" nowadays, I am reminded of movies like this when they weren't very topical about anything. This movie is from a time to when Matt and Trey's writing was at the top of their game. Though to be fair, Trey Parker was the one who and wrote and directed, while also producing and starring in it, along with Matt Stone. But still, the movie is comedy gold. The jokes here are witty, and they're funny, and they're guaranteed to make you laugh.

The songs here are also great and mostly really catchy. Now granted, Matt and Trey's other work like "South Park" and "Team America World Police" also worked in songs, too. But this is some of the better songs from them, even for something that came out before "South Park". If you're a fan of musicals, especially musical comedies, then this is one I could wholeheartedly recommend to you guys. This movie is great. Both as a musical and as a comedy. And I'm really happy that this one turned out the way that it did. So yeah, guys, "Cannibal! The Musical" comes in at number 4.

Number 3 is a movie that I covered back when I did "Lupin the Marathon" for Reaction & Review. And most of them were really fucking good. But there was one movie from that marathon that won me over just enough to be put on to this countdown. The movie in question is "Lupin the 3rd: Farewell to Nostradamus".

3 - Lupin the 3rd: Farewell to Nostradamus (1995)

I'm gonna tell you, guys, when I went into this film originally, I was a little bit skeptical. Because this is one of those movies in Lupin's film catalog that most people would say is an instant recommendation. And I sorta feared that this one was going to fall victim to a lot of movies that people overhyped and would never live up to it's own reputation. I still thought the movie was gonna be good, but I had that inkling of doubt that it wouldn't be as amazing as a lot of fans made it out to be.

Well thankfully, I was totally wrong. This movie is awesome. It has everything you would come to expect from a Lupin movie. The action is really cool, the music is top notch, the animation is some of the best I have seen, especially from something that came out in 1995. And all of the recurring characters are just as cool as they were prior to this one. I'm even going to include the little kid, Juila, to an extent. I'm not a fan of children, but she was one of the more tolerable child characters I could put up with.

Now I also mentioned back in my review of the movie that if I were ranking this in my top 5 Lupin movies I have seen, I would've put this in a top 5, just not sure where though. Well, while I still haven't decided that part, I can tell you guys, in no particular order, my top 5 Lupin movies are "The Castle of Cagliostro", "Farewell to Nostradamus", "Dead or Alive", "The Pursuit of Harimao's Treasure", and "Voyage To Danger". Those, right now, are my top 5 Lupin movies. Now, of course, if I happen to cover any more Lupin movies for this series, I might change that list at some point. But for now, that is currently where it stands. And not only is "Farewell to Nostradamus" on that list, but it's also number 3 on this Top 5 countdown.

We now come to number 2. And I'm gonna tell you guys, right now, I had a very hard time picking these two movies for number 1 and 2. They were incredibly awesome in their own ways. But ultimately, I did make a decision. A rather hard decision, but still conclusive. Number 2 is a film that ranks up there as one of my favorite Christmas movies of all time. That movie is, of course, "Silent Night, Deadly Night".

2 - Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

Oh my god, I cannot begin to tell you how happy I was when I finally got to cover it for this series. I knew it wasn't exactly going to be on the happy side of things. In other words, it wasn't going to be another one of those "feel good" Christmas movie that most people are comfortable with when they think of Christmas. Mind you, I do enjoy a fair amount of those movies myself, especially when I do watch them around Christmas time. But as some people may or may not know, I enjoy a good horror movie, especially if it's something involving Christmas. And, holy shit, does this movie match those standards tremendously.

I think what makes this film so amazing is the fact that it knows what kind of story it wanted to tell. About how our main character, Billy, just ends up trapped in this mental state of never getting over how his parents were killed during Christmas by a guy in a Santa suit. And how he's always reminded of that incident whenever he witnesses something traumatic happening in front of him. And when it eventually gets to a point where he decides to "punish", thanks to a certain nun, it's when the character just finally has enough and just goes on a killing spree of anybody doing anything "naughty". Basically, guys, it's a tragic character who ends up becoming reborn through something that he knows is irredeemable, but it makes him the most memorable character of the entire movie.

The kills here are all great. There even a couple of kills here that genuinely made me laugh out loud. Granted, I understand that's it's not really a horror comedy, but when kills like the ones in this movie happen, they really catch you off guard and are almost guaranteed to make you laugh. Now I also know that this movie was critically panned at the time of it's release because of how mean-spirited the film was and why it was pulled out of theaters so quickly back then. But I'm really happy that it's getting a cult following again because I really do think that this is a movie that you should see at least once. At least, if you're into these sorts of movies like I am.

Oh, and before anyone might ask me of this, because I know there's that one person who might comment on and actually ask me this. No, I am not watching the remake that came out last year. I was exposed to a clip of it unintentionally and it looked like shit. I'm just gonna leave it at that to where I hopefully never have to hear about it ever again. I'm just gonna stick with the first two movies and leave it at that. Maybe I'll cover the sequels after the second movie but I'm not promising anything. But yeah, "Silent Night, Deadly Night" is amazing and I love it. Not quite enough to make it to number 1 on this countdown, but still amazing in it's own right.

Now, you might have noticed from the selection of movies on this list that most of them are comedies, with the exception of "Silent Night, Deadly Night", though it was still hilarious in it's own unintentional way. And there was one movie that made me laugh, almost to tears, because of how funny it is. But then again, considering the source material, I kinda expected a lot of comedy to be had there. So yeah, if it's not any indication, the number 1 movie is "Batman: The Movie".

1 - Batman: The Movie (1966)

You know, guys, prior to going into this movie, I had mentioned that I had never seen anything involving the Adam West series from the 60's. I was aware of it, of course, but I had never seen any of it. And I said that if I enjoyed this movie enough, I would check out the series at some point. Well, not only did I love this movie, I loved it enough to at least get the first season on DVD for a cheap price. And you know what? I'm enjoying it as much as I did with this movie. Holy shit, is this movie fantastic in every aspect.

The comedy here is gold, the characters are all silly, ridiculous, and filled to the brim with campiness. The acting is stellar from the entire cast, the music here is great, the costuming is fantastic. Everything that was in the Adam West show is here in all it's glory and, my god, is it amazing. This is one of those movies that I mentioned in my review of it where it knows what kind of movie it wanted to be and let's itself have fun with it. Which is something that I don't see from a lot of modern superhero movies anymore. Though I could also just attribute it to the fact that they're still stuck in this "Cinematic Universe" phase that studios want to pretend is still a thing, even though they know that it's on it's deathbed.

But I'm getting *way* off topic here. Bottom line is, guys, this movie is fantastic. And it ranks up there as one of my favorite Batman movies of all time. It actually ranks up there as one of my favorite superhero films of all time. That is how amazing this movie really is. And I'm damn proud of myself to have finally seen this movie. If you haven't seen it, and you are a Batman fan, you should check it out. Especially if you are into comedies, because this movie is one of, if not *the* best superhero comedies of all time. And you know what? I'm kinda tempted to just watch it again right now after talking about it. So yeah, guys, "Batman: The Movie" is my number pick for the Top 5 Reaction & Review Movies of 2025.

Well, guys, there you have it. My Top 5 Reaction & Review Movies of 2025. And we're only half done, because tomorrow comes the dark side. I'm gonna take a look at the Bottom 5 Reaction & Review Movies of 2025. And I have quite a bit to say about those particular movies. But until then, guys, take care, and I will see you all tomorrow with the Bottom 5 Reaction & Review Movies of 2025. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Stan Lee's Mighty 7

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to "Tales of the Longbox" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, we're closing out this marathon with something kinda unique. It's an animated pilot film from 2014. That movie is "Stan Lee's Mighty 7".

Now the story behind this movie kinda goes back a ways to 2003, as originally, this particular team was called the "Super Six", and they were gonna have their own animated series produced by DIC Entertainment. Now for those of you too young to remember, DIC was the company that produced quite a number of cartoons in their day such as "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show" "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog", "Captain Planet and the Planeteers", and the original English dub of "Sailor Moon". Now mind you, there's a *lot* more than what I could name off of, but those are the ones that I do remember from them the most.

But getting back on topic, that "Super Six" series I mentioned never made it to airing. Don't really know why, exactly, but regardless, it never happened. Then in 2010, the "Super Six" was renamed as "Stan Lee's Super Seven" thanks to companies like Archie, A Squared Entertainment, and POW! teaming up and made the newly made Stan Lee Comics. However, due to a legal issue involving a toy manufacturer with the same name, that being Super7, the name was eventually re-changed to what it is currently with "Stan Lee's Mighty 7".

Now here's where it gets kinda interesting. See, the Hub Network managed to acquire the airing rights to the pilot movie in 2013 and it was gonna be aired on their network the next year, which it was. Now as I was reading the plot summary on the back of the DVD case, I noticed a particular line where it said that this film is the first of a "fantastic trilogy". Now I looked it up to make sure if the other movies actually existed. And guess what? They don't. Why? Well, thanks to the Hub Network being changed to Discovery Family, those movies never made it to airing, even though they were supposedly finished. So whether or not they will actually see the light of day in any form is up in the air, really.

But with that said, I'm curious to see if this movie will actually be any good on it's own standards. I'm hoping that it is, which will then lead me to wonder if we missed out on a potentially amazing series. I don't know if that's gonna be the case or not, but there is only one way for me to find out. And that is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Stan Lee's Mighty 7".

3 minutes later

OK, guys, I'm just gonna say this right now, the flash animation here looks OK...and then I see the character's moving their bodies and their mouth movements as they talk, and it just looks really awkward and disjointed. I'm hoping, maybe, it'll get better as the movie goes on, and perhaps maybe I'll get use to it, but right now, it just looks really off-putting to me.

11 minutes later

Guys, I would love to tell you that I care about these characters, but so far, I haven't been given much of a reason to care about anyone here outside of Stan Lee. Hell, I don't know even remember their names, so far, but I'm hoping that'll change later on once I actually get to know who's who, eventually.

8 minutes later

So, guys, good news and bad news here. Good news is that we're finally getting some establishing names for our characters, thanks to Stan Lee. Bad news, though? I still don't really care about any of these characters yet because they're all still kinda vapid and shallow at the moment. But at least getting some establishing names is baby steps, I guess.

13 minutes later

So Micro, upon discovering that the ocean is made up of salt water, he puts water from a toilet into a cup and gives it to the fat one for him to drink. You know, of all the toilet humor I've heard of involving shit, that is honestly the most disgusting thing I've seen. Just...what the fuck, man?

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Stan Lee's Mighty 7". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Well, where do I start with here? I guess I can say that this movie, on it's own standards is just barely average. I wouldn't call it horrible or anything, but it really is nothing ultimately special, even if it's coming from Stan Lee himself.

Let's start by talking about the biggest issue with this movie, which would be it's writing. To start with, I think I know why this movie never got an expanded upon with it's planned trilogy. Now I gave you the reasons as to why in regards to behind the scenes, but I may know another reason why this movie never got anything beyond it. See, when you're doing a pilot film for a television series, your main goal is to sell the viewer on it's premise. Give them a reason to make you want to watch the show beyond it's pilot. And unfortunately, I don't really think this movie did a very good job of that because this story just feels like a very generic superhero story that we've seen played out many times beforehand and doesn't really stand out. The only thing that makes this team unique is because you have Stan Lee's name on the cover. That, and he's also in this movie, not just as a cameo this time. Though I'll talk more about him later when I cover acting.

I want to talk about the characters next, specifically, I want to talk about our new team here, the Mighty 7. Now seeing as how we're working with a superhero team, you want to establish who your characters are, their powers, their personalities, and something resembling an interesting backstory. Well, of the four requirements that I mentioned, there are only two of them I can say that they establish well enough. And those are the characters and their powers. And in terms of the former, they don't really get their superhero code names until a little over the 20 minute mark of the movie. However, what holds these characters back is the other two missing requirements. Their personalities are all shallow and vapid, and though they do have something resembling backstories, it doesn't really feel like there's enough here to make you want to care about these characters.

To give you guys a couple of examples of this, one of the characters in this movie is called Lazer Lord. I know he technically has another name, but I honestly don't remember it all, so I'm going by what he's given by Stan Lee in this movie. So anyway, Lazer Lord's backstory is that he was supposedly framed for a murder that he says he did not commit. In which, I mean he murdered some professor and the one who apprehended him was one of our other heroes known as Strong Arm. That backstory of his is *never* expanded upon again in this movie after they show a bit of it through a flashback. So you never really know if he actually did kill somebody or not, which I thought they were going to at least have that explained, but sadly, nothing ever comes from it.

As for our other heroes, we have Micro, who's basically this movie's version of Ant Man/The Atom, and Kid Kinergy, who possesses psychokinesis, and they both grew up in an orphanage together and eventually had to steal for a living. Roller Man is a victim of war who basically ran off after being one of the only survivors against the Taegons, who are basically just an army of lizard people. Lady Lightning, who's basically just a female version of the Flash from DC Comics, was kidnapped as a child by thieves and forced her to steal stuff for them in exchange for her freedom. It's never really said on how she actually got her powers, but that can also be said for just about all of the other heroes in this movie. There's also Silver Skylark, who's the only character in this movie who doesn't have anything resembling a backstory. It's implied that she has an interest Lazer Lord, but it doesn't go beyond that here. Her main gimmick is that she can fly. That's it. If you really want to stretch it, she could be considered to be this movie's version of the Falcon. But again, that's really only stretching it.

So yeah, while most of these characters do have something resembling a backstory, it's just not enough backstory to work with. Now granted, it is possible that more of their backstories were expanded upon in the other sequels. But seeing as how they have never been released, I don't really know if that's the case or not. So I'm never gonna know anything else about these characters unless, maybe, I actually cared enough to look up their comics online. But after watching this movie, I really don't feel the need to look into these character anymore than this movie, seeing as how they're all pretty generic, both in personality and their powers being rather unoriginal.

I could also say that this thing suffers from a rather short runtime as well. This thing clocks in at only just over an hour long, and I feel like it doesn't really cover enough material here. OK yes, you got our heroes and you also got our villains, both of which are very generic and forgettable. The Taegons, like I said, are essentially just lizard people looking to invade and conquer. And then you have the U.S. military on Earth who are lead by an equally boring General who also doesn't have anything resembling an interesting personality other than leaving a teaser at the end that he'll crush the Mighty 7. Which, that probably would've had some substance, had those two other sequels not been put on the shelf. But since they are, it really means absolutely nothing.

So yeah, writing in this movie is incredibly mediocre. There's nothing about it that stands out, other than having Stan Lee's name on it. And speaking of which, I'm gonna go straight into acting next. And I have to talk about Stan's performance in this thing. You see, unlike his cameos in a lot of Marvel's movies, this one has it where he has more than one line, and it shows. His performance in this thing is very one noted. He doesn't really give out much of a range in his voice. Now I can't necessarily blame him for this because Stan Lee is playing himself in this movie and it's possible that he probably didn't have much to do with the writing itself. But it gives me the impression that Stan's at his best when he's either giving out one line or not saying anything at all. That being said, I wouldn't really say he's the worst actor in this thing. The worst actor, sadly, has to go to Michael Ironside. He plays a character named Xanar, who's the leader of the lizard people, and he easily phones in the weakest showing. His talent in this movie is completely wasted, and I suppose he only signed on for that easy paycheck. Which, if that was the case, then congrats to him. He really didn't have many lines here, and I imagine that he only had so much to do with the script he was given. Regardless, he's easily the weakest actor in this movie.

The rest of the acting, though, is actually pretty good. Despite not having a whole lot to work with for their characters, most of everyone else did a decent job in trying to give some kind of life to their characters. So if anything else, I have to at least grant them that.

Let's talk about the animation. And I'm going to say that some of the animation here feels...a little bit off. I talked about it a while back, but the animation and the mouth movements of our main characters felt off to me. And the reason I thought that is because it looked a little unfinished. I'd say the mouth movements are the worst, because most of it doesn't entirely match up to what the characters are saying. Now I wouldn't say that's prevalent of the whole film, but I would say a good portion of it does look that way. And it's gonna stand out to you, especially if you're looking for it like I did. If not, then it might not be as noticeable to you as much. But when you first see it, you could definitely notice it. Same goes with some of the movements, especially when a character runs. Because the running animation looks awkward and I don't know if that was intended for every character to run like they do, or if that was just the animators cutting corners there. I don't know. But like with the mouth movements, it is something that you might also notice and whether you get use to it or not is obviously up to you. Most of the animation isn't bad, a lot of it, aside from certain moments, is animated decently enough. So I'm not gonna say the animation is wholly bad, it's just something that you're either gonna get use to or you're really not.

Sound-mixing here is fine. The music is really kinda forgettable, if not just serviceable. That's really the best way I can summarize the score in a nutshell. It is what it is.

Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Stan Lee's Mighty 7"? Kinda, sort of. I would say that if you have children, or are associated with children in some way, then I would probably say yes. The movie's barely over an hour long, and if they're a fan of Marvel, then yeah, I would say go ahead and let them see this. However, I would probably only recommend it for children around 7 or lower. If they're older than 7, then they're probably not gonna enjoy this very much. Even if you're a fan of Marvel Comics yourself, there's honestly not much of a reason for you to watch this thing, unless you're a fanboy that absolutely must watch anything with Marvel's name imprinted on it. Other than that, you can really just skip this one. There's nothing interesting about the Mighty 7 themselves as a group, and I may have given this team a bit less slack if the other two movies were actually released. But since they're not, I can't find myself reading anything else about them or even giving this movie a second viewing. So yeah, this movie is very skippable, unless, again, you have children around the age of 7 or below. So now, I'm gonna go and watch a better movie. And seeing as how I wanted to watch a better movie involving a better team, I'm gonna go and watch "Justice League: Throne of Atlantis". That one is definitely really good and I kinda want to watch it again right now. So, that's what I'm gonna go do next.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of this year's installment of "Tales of the Longbox" here on Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Modesty Blaise

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to "Tales of the Longbox" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a British comedy from 1966. That movie is "Modesty Blaise".

Now, from everything that I was able to look up about about the character in question, Modesty Blaise started off as a comic strip from 1963. She then got 11 novels and 3 movie adaptations. And of those 3 that exist, this is the very first one of hers that I'm gonna be covering for this marathon.

As for the movie itself, I don't know very much about the plot. Although, from what little information that I could find, this movie is considered to be a very loose adaptation of the comic strip that this character is based of off. So chances are that this thing is gonna have very little to do with the character from the comic strip. That said, I care very little about accuracy to the source material, so long as the movie is entertaining. Plus, I've never read anything involving Modesty Blase, so I couldn't really pinpoint any inaccuracies, even if I wanted to do.

So now, I get to see if this movie is any good on it's own merits. I'm hoping that it is, but I won't know for sure yet, unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Modesty Blaise".

5 minutes later

O...K, I totally wasn't expecting that guy to blow up after ringing the doorbell with his umbrella. That totally caught me off guard! We're certainly off to an explosive start, guys.

19 minutes later

I just saw someone snap a mime's neck and then throwing him off a cliff. If that was meant to be funny, it really wasn't. In fact, it was kinda stupid and pointless, really.

18 minutes later

Guys, this is the first time in a long time since doing this series that I've ever had to admit something. I have no clue what the fuck is going on in this movie. Nothing is making any sense here. And the more that I continue to watch this movie, my brain is just going to sleep because the movie seems allergic to make sense of it's own nonsense. And the worst part about this is that I still have less than an hour and 20 minutes to go here until it's finished. This may, in fact, be very painful, guys.

20 minutes later

So, guys, we're over an hour into the film right now and I feel like I need to ask this. This thing is suppose to be a comedy, right? So when the hell does it start to get funny? I haven't laughed once since the movie started and my patience with it is starting to run thin. This movie is so mind-numbingly dull that I'm not even sure if I want it to be funny anymore. If it can produce one joke that'll genuinely make me laugh, or perhaps even garner a smile out of me, then this movie has already accomplished enough. I'm hoping that it does that, otherwise, I'm gonna be a little bit angry here.

12 minutes later

So those packs of cigarettes that Modesty and Willie had with them when they were taken into separate cars turns out to be colored tear gas. That's...a little creative. It still isn't really funny, mind you, but at least it's a little creative.

20 minutes later

Why the hell isn't this thing finished yet...? You guys seriously have no idea how boring this fucking movie is. And the fact that it's *still* going on is just making me question why the hell am I still watching this? There still isn't a single joke that has made me laugh yet and I feel like I'm not going to get that either. And I can't shut the film off because, as per rules for Reaction & Review, I have to watch the whole movie through until the end credits show up. There's still less than a half an hour to go and the end credits can't come soon enough. This is just painful, guys.

10 minutes later

Oh my god...the editing in that shot was terrible! OK, so we just had a scene where Modesty was using a custom-made bow and arrow that she Willie had built, and the arrow that she shot was nowhere even *near* to where it was suppose to be hitting the guy! How the fuck do you screw something up so easily and thought that it was worth putting in the movie? That is just...god, that was just horribly put together.

The Review

Oh, thank you fucking god, it's done! Holy fucking shit...well, that was "Modesty Blaise", guys. Let me shut this garbage off now...OK. Finally...now, I actually have to talk about this fucking movie. Oh...fun. Well, I guess, if you somehow haven't gotten the message yet, this movie was shit. Plain and simple. I don't know if it will reach the Bottom 5, because it's still very early in the year, but this one is already in contention for that unworthy prize.

Now, let's actually talk about the film itself here. I'm gonna start with writing. What fucking writing...? There is nothing here that I would constitute as a story that is worth even caring about. It is so shallow and nonsensical that I can't really pinpoint anything worth mentioning, other than Modesty, and her partner Willie Garvin, trying to retrieve some jewels from our main villain Gabriel. And that's just an abridged version of the whole plot. There's nothing else that I can say about the plot that I would try to struggle into trying to remember anything worthwhile. I haven't been this dumbfounded by a movie's plot since I watched "Fright House" a couple of years ago. And mind you, "Fright House" was shit in it's own right, but at least I was able to kinda sorta make sense of some of it. This thing, though, refuses to make any level of sense. And I probably would not have minded it as much if the humor was at all funny, and it really isn't.

Speaking of which, let's talk about the film's humor next. As I mentioned at the start of this thing, this movie is suppose to be a comedy. More specifically, it's suppose to be a spy comedy. And when you think of spy comedies, most people would immediately think of something like the "Austin Powers" movies. Now while this movie is nowhere near as raunchy as those films are, it is at least trying to be funny in it's own campy sort of way. Unfortunately, however, none of the humor really lands all that well. The closest that this movie got to me smiling a little bit is when during the beginning of the movie, some guy exploded after ringing the doorbell with his umbrella. And the only reason why that kinda worked was because it comes right out of nowhere. But beyond that, nothing else here in terms of humor is really all that funny. It tries, mind you, it's just not trying hard enough.

And that's where we come to the next problem with this movie: The runtime. This movie clocks in at just about 2 hours long. This thing felt so long, and so boring, to where the movie felt like it was going on for over 2 and a half hours long. It is that painful to get through. We have tons of padding here, which makes the movie all the more a chore to get through. Maybe if this movie were about 90 minutes long, it would probably be a bit more salvageable. It wouldn't necessarily make the movie good, mind you, but at least it wouldn't be as boring as it is currently. And it would also be less of a chore to get through, too.

As for characters, well, much like with the lack of writing, there are no characters here that are worth caring about. In fact, I could barely remember character names, outside of the ones that I already mentioned not too long ago. Modesty Blaise, William Garvin, and Gabriel. Everyone else I can just write off as filler because nobody else has anything resembling a personality or an interesting backstory. It's possible that these characters might've had more depth in the comic strip and in the novels. But as I've said before, movie adaptations of anything should stand or fall on it's own standards, and this falls flat on it's ass hard because it fails at being interesting in every way, both in it's characters and writing.

So yeah, that's the best way I can summarize the writing in this movie. It's slow, it's boring, it's painful to get through. And the humor just doesn't work here. Now yes, it's possible that you *could* get a laugh out of this movie, but that's gonna be a bit of challenge for you once you try to go through the whole two hours that this movie has for a runtime and not fall asleep through any of it. Trust me when I say that I struggled to stay awake and I almost couldn't do it. But, I kinda have to because that's just how I am when it comes to doing this series for you guys. But yeah, in short, writing here is terrible from just about every aspect.

Now let's talk about the acting. And I'm gonna say that, even though I think the writing here is terrible and the humor isn't really all that funny, I am willing to admit that the acting here is actually pretty good. I can see that just about everyone here is trying to work with what they've been given and it's a pretty decent effort. So, as much as I can slam the writing here for all of it's missteps, the acting kinda makes up for it. Not by much, mind you, but at least it's something resembling a positive.

Costuming here is pretty good, too. And when I mention the costuming, I'm mostly referring to any of the outfits that Modesty Blaise has to wear. Almost all of her outfits look pretty good. And while the effect of her changing into her outfits is nothing more than a standard jump cut, at least the outfits themselves are fine. So, I'm not going to harp on that issue too much. That said, I *do* want to mention that one bit of editing that was incredibly noticeable. As I mentioned earlier, Modesty was using a bow and arrow to shoot at one of Gabriel's guards to take him out. Now to give you guys an idea what the scene looks like, the guard is left to where our heroes are suppose to be and Modesty Blaise is aiming away from him. And this is where the awful editing comes in because, as soon she fires the arrow, the arrow is suddenly in the chest area of the guard. And again, Modesty was aiming the arrow *away* from the guard. She was not aiming at him when she was doing this. And yet, somehow, as soon as the arrow releases, it then suddenly shows up on the guard's chest. It's so badly edited that it almost comes off as being hilarious for all of the wrong reasons. And it makes me question on who, when they edited this thing, thought it was a good idea to greenlight that scene and no one tried to stop them? It just boggles my mind that they got actually away with it, too.

But other that, guys, the camerawork here is fine. Lighting here is also decent. Sound-mixing here is OK. The music here is, well...it's OK, too. Though I will say the opening song really kinda sucked. I don't really know how to describe it other than that. So yeah, the music here is just average at best.

Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Modesty Blaise"? No. There's no way in hell I can actually recommend this film to you guys. Not even for morbid curiosity's sake. The story is non-existent, as are the characters. The humor doesn't really work and it's an overall chore to get through. If you want to watch a better spy comedy, the only ones I can think of are the "Austin Powers" movies. Provided, of course, if you're into raunchy humor and all. But yeah, I would totally recommend those over "Modesty Blaise" any day. I know this character also has a couple of more movie adaptations, but to be honest, after watching this movie, I really have no interest in ever watching them. This thing put me off on ever giving the character another chance, and I'm not really gonna lose any sleep over it. Speaking of which, I'm gonna go and get some rest. Because this thing tried to put me to sleep and I need to shut off my brain as is. So, I'm gonna go do that next and hopefully I can be rid of the thought that I actually had to sit through this movie.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.