Reaction & Review | The Shape Of Things To Come

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a Canadian sci-fi film from 1979. That movie is "The Shape Of Things To Come".

Now I'm gonna tell you, guys, I know very little about this movie. For starters, I know that this film is based off a novel that was written by H.G. Wells. And from what I've heard, this movie has barely any connection with the novel that this thing is based off of. Which I know will turn off those who have an absolute obsession with movies not getting things that are based off the source material correctly, however, as I've stated before, I don't really do side by comparisons with the movie and book. In fact, I've never even read the book this thing is based off of before, so I can safely say that whatever this movie will do will either stand or fall on it's own standards.

Now the only other thing I know about this movie is that it was trying to cash in on the success of "Star Wars", since this movie came out a couple of years after the first "Star Wars" movie. Beyond that, I know almost nothing about it. I haven't seen any trailers or clips from the movie, so I'm going into this one completely blind here.

I am hoping for it to be decent, or perhaps even pretty good. I don't know if it will be though. The only way I'm gonna find out if this movie is any good at all, 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 "The Shape Of Things To Come".

1 minute later

OK, guys, I know you can't hear this for obvious reasons, but is it just me, or is the music sounding rather...disjointed? I thought it was just an issue only when it was on the DVD menu screen, but no, it's still the same, screwy music that's playing in the opening credits. I'm hoping that this won't become an issue later on with the rest of the movie, but I still find it really odd that the music's audio just sounds really off to me.

12 minutes later

Oh my god, are those spacesuits that they're wearing made of tinfoil?! I swear to god, guys, these two guys that are wearing these spacesuits look like they were made out of tin foil paper! Holy shit, I knew this movie was made on a low budget, but how cheap does your movie have to be where you can't even get proper-looking spacesuits for your actors to wear?! Good god...

8 minutes later

Wow...even the helmet that this guy is wearing looks cheap as shit. It almost looks like he's pulling down a grey colored trash bag over his head as he's putting it on. I swear, guys, the costuming in this movie is ridiculously cheap, and I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to handle anymore of this cheapness.

17 minutes later

All right, I think now I can safely say this. The acting from Nikki and Merric is fucking terrible. So far, most of the acting has been halfway decent, but these two actors in particular really fucking suck.

13 minutes later

So...it turns out that the people disguised as bushes are actually kids. And one of them may be infected with radiation. All right, that raises a lot of questions. Mainly, how long have these kids been on Earth, and how long have they been infected with radiation? I would assume that, you know, radiation would slowly kill a person. And if they *are* infected with radiation, then how come Kim and Jason haven't been infected by being near them in the first place? I have so many questions about this, guys, and I'm hoping that at least one of them will be explained sooner rather than later.

12 minutes later

I am gonna say this, guys, the only character in this movie, so far, who I actually kinda sorta like is Sparks the robot. Every other character has been really kinda bland, yet Sparks is the only one that's kinda saving this movie a little bit for me. Just thought I'd let you guys know.

5 minutes later

O...K...now the movie's decided to go on a trippy mood here as our characters are...well...not getting high, obviously, but I guess when they broke through the dimension, they ended up going through a weird, trippy scene. I really don't know how to describe what I'm seeing to you guys, it's just...really fucking odd.

13 minutes later

So, if radiation wasn't going to kill the good doctor, this loud noise that Omus made will. That's...kinda stupid. And underwhelming as well. But I guess it's at least effective.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "The Shape Of Things To Come". I'll go ahead and shut the movie off now...OK. Well...what to even say about this thing? I guess I should probably start by saying that this movie was a little bit disappointing. It doesn't truly suck, but I wouldn't say it's really good either. It falls on the range of being a rather bad movie. Now yes, I've seen and enjoyed a good chunk of bad movies that I have covered for this series. But this one...well, this one, unfortunately, falls short of being on the level of so bad it's good.

Let's just dive right into this thing by first discussing the writing. Now I will say that the story here had a lot of promise. I really think that this movie could've been better written, had it gone through another draft or two. Because what we have here for a story feels undeveloped at certain points. I'll get more into that in a second here, but I should also mention that this movie, not only tries to capitalize on the success of "Star Wars", but it's also trying to do that with "Star Trek" as well. And watching this movie, you can totally tell that this movie felt like a lost episode of the original "Star Trek" series. And there's nothing wrong with that obviously, but the problem here is that, like I said, parts of the story here feels undeveloped. And what we have here is a rather shallow, and kinda boring sci-film when all is said and done.

I wanna talk about the biggest plothole of the entire movie. So the entire setup of the movie is that there was this terrible war with robots that happened on Earth that caused so much damage that radiation began to take into effect. So most of the people of Earth was moved over to the Moon, where there's apparently a new city that they live under known as New Washington. And the only way for the humans to survive is with a drug that counters the effects of radiation called RADIC-Q-2. And it's here where I have to talk about the plothole involving radiation because this really bothered me throughout most of the entire movie.

So earlier, I mentioned these kids that were stranded on Earth, that also happened to be disguising themselves as bushes. So after Jason and Kim first discover that they're actually kids, Jason notices that one of the kids has been infected with radiation. Not only that, but these kids were one of the many survivors of the robot wars. So, I'm going to assume that maybe these kids were infected since they were babies. Which is whole-nother level of messed up when you actually stop and think about it for a moment. But anyway, the only help these kids have gotten, prior to Kim and Jason landing on Earth, was this old guy by the name of Charlie Montgomery, who was the doctor's friend. A little bit of a spoiler here, Charlie's dead, because he was infected with the same radiation that these kids also have. Which, again, begs the question on why our heroes weren't infected by them when they were close to these kids? You would assume that radiation is contagious and that it spreads like a virus to other people close by, so why weren't our heroes ever infected by this same radiation is something that is never explained.

Another thing that bothered me about the kids being infected with radiation is when Kim tells the children that they will be back with a full supply of RADIC-Q-2, because it's obvious that they couldn't take the children with them on their journey, due to them being infected and all. That part kinda makes sense, but here's the thing: We *never* see these kids again after our heroes leave Earth. So you're left wondering if the kids ever got treated or if they were just left to die on their own. Which is something that, I believe, should not be ignored! Why the fuck would you introduce these children if we're never gonna see them again?! That makes almost no sense whatsoever.

Our characters here are mostly dull and shallow, save for 2 of them. One of them is Sparks the robot. And that's mainly because Sparks has something resembling a personality, unlike the rest of our heroes who, again, are pretty dull and shallow. The only other character who was kinda sorta memorable is Omus, our main of the villain of the movie. He's more or less a shallow dictator, but what makes him stand out is the actor playing him, which is Jack Palance. I'll get a little more into him later once I cover acting, but I will say that both Sparks and Omus are the only two characters I can say that kind of saves this movie from being completely hollow.

One other thing that I will comment on that is sort of a problem is the pacing. This movie does feel a little bit slow at times. The best example I can think of is that weird trippy scene I mentioned earlier when our heroes broke through some sort of dimension portal, and there's this 5 minute scene where it looks like they're getting high off this entire scene. I have no idea why it takes *this* long for them to go through all that, but it really could've been trimmed down to a couple of minutes or just completely cut from the movie entirely. There was no reason for that scene to be 5 minutes long, and all it really served was to pad the film out unnecessarily.

So yeah, guys, the writing here isn't very good. Like I said before, it could've gone through at least a couple of more drafts with it's script, and there's a possibility that it could've been better. But as it is, the story here feels kinda empty and rushed, and ultimately is a rather bland sci-fi movie. With that said, let's get into the acting here. Now for the most part, the acting here is halfway decent. Even though most of our main cast didn't get a whole lot to work with, they certainly tried with what they were given. Especially Jack Palance. He was easily the best actor in this entire movie. The parts where he has to shout leans on him overacting, but it's still charming enough to where you could possibly garner a smile out of it. The same can't be said, however, for the other two actors in this movie playing Niki and Merrick. Both of these actors sound really stilted and don't know how to convey emotions properly. Especially for Merrick's actor, since he sounds the worse of the two. He literally has no range to his voice and, slight spoiler here, he dies a little bit in the beginning of the third act of the movie. And I was kinda happy he was gone then because I didn't have to deal with anymore of his shitty acting. Otherwise, guys, the acting here is halfway decent at best.

Let's get into the costuming next. Oh boy, where do I even begin with this one...? Well, for starters, I mentioned the astronauts suits that looked to be made of tin foil. And I would not surprised if that really was the case, because no matter how you look at it, they look like dogshit. Now I also mentioned the kids from earlier and how they were suppose to be infected with radiation. Well, while we only get to see one example of this from one of the kids, some of them also have white hair which is really just obvious-looking wigs. Why the others also didn't get white hair is either because the radiation couldn't affect their hair changing color, or there wasn't enough for the kids to wear is something that I don't know of.

But the most polarizing costuming has to go to Omus's robots, who are essentially just dudes in obvious robot suits. Which is funny, because the only robot in the movie that looks like an actual robot is Sparks, since he's the only one that doesn't look like some guy was dressing up as a robot. Now I say Omus's robots are polarizing, because it's either something that you're gonna get use to or it's gonna throw you off completely. Myself, personally speaking, it was something that I got eventually use to, though that might not be the case for anyone else who might have an interest in watching this movie.

But yeah, costuming here is mostly terrible. Special effects are also pretty standard, at least in terms of it being a low budget movie. The visual effects, the blood, all of that looks OK at best. And also, you don't really get to see much blood in this movie anyway, since it only happens to two people that are killed in the movie. But still, the special effects are nothing to really write home about. Camerawork here is fine. The lighting here is also OK for low budget standards. Sound-mixing is also fine. The music, apart from the screwed up opening song, is also kinda decent. It's not great by any means, but at least it kinda serves it's purpose here.

So yeah, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "The Shape Of Things To Come"? Um...probably not. What holds me back from recommending it is that the writing just feels rather unfinished. I believe if this thing had gotten a much tighter script, it could've been slightly better. Granted, it probably wouldn't have saved the terrible costuming or its special effects, but at least the story could've been fleshed out a bit more. But as is, it's just not very good at all. Add on to the fact that the movie's also kinda boring, too. So yeah, unfortunately, I'm not able to recommend this thing to you guys, unless if you have some morbid curiosity for it. But otherwise, you can probably find some other low budget sci-fi movie to watch, or I guess any other sci-fi movie for that matter. And speaking of, I think I'm kinda in the mood to watch "Starship Troopers" again. So, I'm gonna go and watch that next once 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 | Cannibal! The Musical

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a musical from 1993. That movie is "Cannibal! The Musical".

Now, I've been wanting to see this film for a long time. And it's not just because it was put out by Troma, but more so of what I've heard of and read online about it. For starters, I know this movie is based off a true story about Alfred Packer, who was the only person ever convicted of cannibalism. And this movie is essentially a comedy version of his story of what happened during his trip in Colorado. Which sounds really interesting, and the fact that it's also a musical is definitely another interesting aspect to it.

Another thing I know about this movie is that this was the very first thing ever made by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Yes, the very same guys who would later create "South Park", this is their very first outing. And considering I've already seen their two other films, both being the "South Park" movie from 1999 and "Team America: World Police", this is the only other one that I haven't seen yet. So, I'm really kinda excited to see how they handled themselves the first time around.

Now I could also bring up the production history of this movie, but I'm gonna save most of that for later when I get to reviewing it. Right now, I just really want to watch this thing that badly. I'm really hoping for it to be good, and I'm hoping that it is, but the only way I'm gonna find out is if I shut up and I push play, and, damn it, I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, guys, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Cannibal! The Musical".

1 minute later

So, guys, this movie has already made a massive lie. The opening text screen said that it edited out all of the violent scenes for your viewing pleasure. And guess what happened? I just saw some guy's arm get violently ripped off and is being used against him as a weapon. Oh, and also, some other guy's neck is being chewed off and is bleeding profusely. So yeah, this movie lied already. However, I have a feeling that it's more than likely going to benefit this movie tremendously. Call it a hunch if you will.

17 minutes later

I'd just like to point this out, guys. Frenchy's two henchman here have the most fakest mustaches out of any movie that I've ever seen. And what's even more funny about it is that Frenchy himself actually has some natural facial hair. I don't know why I find that funny, guys, I just really do for some reason.

7 minutes later

I'm gonna say, guys, the songs in this movie, at least so far anyway, have been surprisingly catchy. This song in particular is no exception. I know you guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but I'm really digging this song here. And the singing's not too bad either. So yeah, I can safely say that the songs have been pretty good so far.

9 minutes later

Wow, this is somehow the most passionate-sounding song of the entire movie. And it's about a horse too! Granted, I'm not exactly a fan of love songs, but this one's actually halfway decent. I really wasn't expecting that at all.

5 minutes later

OK, I was gonna ask on whether or not the "Indians" in this movie are actually Chinese or Japanese, but now I can safely confirm that, just based on the fact that their teepee tents are based off the flag of Japan, that they are indeed Japanese. So at least that answers that question.

20 minutes later

So this is the cyclops I've been hearing about for most of this entire movie...interesting. Granted, I wasn't really expecting it to wear a fur coat and a hat, but I was sorta expecting him to have one eye. And yeah, he totally does have one eye. So, go figure.

2 minutes later

You know, out of all the songs I was expecting from this movie, one of them singing about building a snowman wasn't exactly one of them. But hey, if anything, at least it presents a new theory that someone over at Disney heard this song and decided to implement it for "Frozen", further proving Disney's own lack of creativity. At least, that's just my own theory anyway, so you can take that for what it's worth.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Cannibal! The Musical". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK.

Before I get into the review, I need to let you guys in on something first. Now as I mentioned way early on, I had seen the two other movies which had been created by both Matt Stone and Trey Parker, both the 1999 "South Park" movie, or as it's better known as "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut", and "Team America: World Police". Now admittedly, it has been a really long time since I last watched the 1999 "South Park" movie so I can't really say much on it. And as for "Team America: World Police", while I admit to enjoying that movie, I also have to say that it was...kinda overrated. That, plus some of the humor in that film wasn't as funny as it should've been. Now part of the reason why is because I had seen a lot of the clips of the movie on YouTube way back when, and I certainly found them really funny back then. But watching it in full, the film didn't exactly win me over. And I have no real plans to watch it again anytime soon.

So why go into all that first instead of talking about this movie? Well, in case you didn't pick up on it, I'll tell you guys why. See, I haven't really been a fan of Matt and Trey's stuff for a long time, and that obviously includes "South Park". Mostly modern "South Park" anyway, and that's mainly because a lot of the humor that they've been doing for the show nowadays is mainly about what's topical at the time. And it comes off as both really dated and really forced, which is mainly the reason why I haven't been a fan of "South Park" in a long time. Now there are a couple of exceptions, such as the "South Park" video games like "The Stick of Truth" and the "The Fractured But Whole". Both are really solid games, so it's not like I'm completely ignoring "South Park" entirely. That being said, it doesn't really give me much of an excuse to go and watch the show anymore. Most of it comes from clips on YouTube, and I mostly try to avoid the modern stuff as much as I can.

Which *finally* brings me into talking about "Cannibal! The Musical". Because this movie shows, to me, that Matt and Trey were at the top of their game when it comes to making a comedy. There's nothing here that I would say, in terms of humor, is anything topical or trendy that they had to make a movie or special just centered around that subject. This movie is it's own original piece. Well, I say that in a very loose sort of way, because this movie is still based off a true story. They just took creative liberties and did their own thing with it. And I'm gonna tell you, guys, the humor in this movie is really solid and funny. There's not a bunch of references to other media except for one that references an old sitcom called "Mister Ed", a show that centered around a talking horse. Beyond that, every joke here is mostly original. While they don't all exactly land, most of it is still really funny and I definitely got a few laughs out of it, too.

And since this movie is obviously a musical, let's talk about the songs next. Most of the songs in this movie are very catchy and the style of music is also kinda expandable. Now what I mean by that is that I was expecting most of the music to feel very timely, such as most of it being folk music. And while there are some songs in here that are like that, there's also a couple of songs that I wasn't exactly expecting. One of them was the song that Alfred was singing earlier about his horse. It's a love song that I would say is something akin to what Barry Manilow might sing. Which is a comparison that I didn't think I would ever make, but there you go. The other song is sung by Pry, the woman reporter that's talking to Alfred. Her song is very reminiscent to a Disney song from the 90's. Now admittedly, that song is probably the weakest song of the entire film, but I will say that the singer is really good at singing. So, it's sort of a give and take situation there. But overall, the songs in this movie are very good.

Now as for the writing itself, it's what I already surmised for you guys at the start of this thing. And I will say, again, aside from some jokes that don't exactly land, the movie itself is really funny most of the time as you get to see the whole journey through Alfred's perspective on what happened during his trip in Colorado. Basically, our band of miners, along with Alfred, are on a journey to Breckenridge to get the last remaining bit of gold that's hiding there before it's all gone. And along the way, they gotta contend with Frenchy and his two henchmen, along with the harsh environments of Colorado itself. I'm gonna try not to spoil it too much, even though there's not much to spoil here given that it's based on a true story, but let's just say that it doesn't end too well for a lot of our heroes here on this journey.

Character wise, there's not much depth to them. The only exception to all this is Alfred Packer, since he's the main character in all this. In fact, without spoiling too much here, it's less about him getting to Breckenridge and more about him finding his horse after it goes missing later on in the movie. Everyone else, like I said, there isn't really much to them. A couple of examples, one of them wants to use the gold to build a church while another one just wants to get laid since he's never a had girlfriend before. It's those kinds of motivations that don't leave room for depth. However, I'm willing to give it a pass on this, mainly because this is the kind of movie that's not really aiming to take itself too seriously to begin with. That, plus the characters themselves are rather likable, despite the lack of depth. So it's just something that you have to take for what it's worth here.

Now let's talk about the acting. So something I sorta left out at the beginning is that I wouldn't talk more about the production history until later on, and I can start doing that now. As I mentioned before, this was the very first thing Matt Stone and Trey Parker ever worked on. And this film was made while Trey Parker was attending school, so most of the actors in this movie consisted of his school mates, including Matt Stone. Trey Parker plays our main character, while Stone plays one of the miners. Now I'm also going to take a guess here and say that the extra actors that they got here were possibly their friends and family helping out, too. Not totally sure about the latter, but that's just my guess, really. Setting that aside, the acting here, at least from our main cast is actually pretty good. Everyone here turned in a rather decent showing. And I can tell that everyone that was involved in this movie had a blast working on it. So, as much as I would like to tell you that a couple minor actors kinda sucked, I can't exactly do that here, because it still looked like they were having a blast also. So yeah, overall, the performances here are pretty good for the most part.

Special effects, though, range on being kind of a mixed bag. Now this movie was obviously filmed on a really low budget. A budget that consisted of $125,000. Which is nothing to scoff at, mind you, since they did make due with what they had to work with. The biggest positives I can give are the blood and gore effects. These are some really good blood and gore effects for low budget standards. What's interesting, though, is that they are only prevalent at the beginning of the movie and the last third or so. So it's kinda spaced out, but they're still totally worth it when you finally get to see it in action. That being said, prop work here is sort of a mixed bag. I mentioned the fake mustaches on Frenchy's henchman from earlier, and there's also a couple of dead people that looked like obvious dummies. That said, I will say the costuming here is pretty good, and seems like it would be accurate during the 1870's. So at least there's that.

Camerawork here is pretty good. Most of it was shot with a 16mm camera, which isn't really new for low budget movies, but it still looks impressive. Lighting here is great, and that's mainly because a lot of this movie was shot outdoors in Colorado. So I would expect the lighting here to be really good. Sound-mix here is also really good. And I've already touched upon the music, so I won't go too much into it again, though I will say the score is also pretty good, too. So yeah, technical stuff here is perfectly fine for low budget standards.

Overall, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Cannibal! The Musical"?  Most certainly, yes. If you're a fan of anything that was made by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, then I would absolutely say go check it out. If you're looking for a physical copy of this movie, it should be available on Troma's website, since they do have a listing of all of their movies for sale. Speaking of which, if you're a Troma fan, I would also recommend it as well. As for myself, I really did enjoy this movie. Now I wouldn't exactly call it the best film I've seen from Troma, but I would say it's probably one of Mart and Trey's better movies than say "Team America: World Police". Again, I can't say anything much about the "South Park" movie from 99. I'll probably have to track it down again at some point and give it another watch. But yeah, this movie is definitely worth recommending to you guys. And that's always awesome to say. Now...you know what? I'm gonna go and watch another low budget movie that had both the blood and gore and was also, sort of, a musical. I'm gonna go and watch "Dead & Breakfast" again. I really love the music in that movie and I kinda want to hear it again now, so that's what I'm gonna go do next.

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.

Reaction & Review | Sabu

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a made for TV film from 2002. That movie is "Sabu".

Now, this film has a little bit of an interesting history to it. You see, this movie was originally made for TV to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Nagoya Broadcasting Network. Which, for those of you not familiar, is a broadcasting studio over in Japan. And then the film was later released theatrically. Now what's interesting about this is that the made for TV film was only 90 minutes. But when it was released in theaters, it was given an extended runtime of 2 hours. Now I'm going to assume that it was probably 90 minutes on TV thanks to commercials and stuff, but it's interesting to me that they did release it in theaters later on. Whether that was because the film was popular enough to get a theatrical release or they really wanted to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Nagoya Broadcasting Network in a big way. But regardless of the reasoning, it still ran for 2 hours, which is what I'm gonna be covering tonight.

Now the main reason why I actually did want to check this movie out is because it was directed by a man named Takashi Miike. And despite me only covering 3 of his movies for this series, I've really enjoyed all 3 of them. And I'm hoping tonight's movie will continue that trend. Granted, I don't know much about the plot, aside from the fact that this movie's story takes place in the Edo period of Japan. Beyond that, I didn't really bother to read up on what the plot is because I'd rather go into it as blind as I possibly can.

So yeah, I'm really hoping that this movie will be good. I'm not totally sure if it will be or not, but that's what I'm here to find out. And the only way I am 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 "Sabu".

8 minutes later

I will say this much, guys. I am really liking the music in this movie. It has that old-style Japanese feeling to it. Which, obviously, makes sense, since this film does take place in the Edo period of Japan and all. But still, I'm really liking the music here so far. I'm hoping the story will produce the same kind of results, but I'll just have to wait and see for now.

19 minutes later

OK, so they finally explained why Eiji was sent to that island workhouse in the first place. Apparently, some golden-colored cloth was in his bag and it is worth a lot of money. How exactly the cloth got into his bag, I don't know yet. But at least it explains how Eiji got there in the first place. So at least that's something.

14 minutes later

So, guys, just based on what I've seen from Eiji-oh my bad, "Bushu"'s behavior, it seems to me that he's suffering an inferiority complex of sorts. I know that's probably not what the film is suppose to be aiming for with his character, but to me, it just kinda feels that way right now with him.

4 minutes later

OK, this is starting to bug me a little bit now. I get what they're trying to say to Sabu about forgetting Eiji, but they've been repeating that same kind of dialogue 4 or 5 different times now, and I'm starting to get tired of it. Just thought I'd let you guys know.

18 minutes later

Wait, how does this woman even know Osue stole the gold cloth? And I want a better answer than "oh, it's a woman's intuition" thing, because that, to me, is just an excuse of 'fuck you, that's why'. I'm hoping the movie will provide a better answer than the one this woman gave out, because I don't buy that whole 'woman's intuition' thing for a moment. I just don't.

17 minutes later

Wait, so this woman, who Sabu just met for all of less than a minute, mind you, asks him that she needed to borrow some money. And Sabu, again, who *just* met this woman, is just gonna lend him all the money that he has, without even asking *why* she wants the money to begin with. Um...no. I'm sorry, but if somebody was asking me to borrow money, I would ask them, first, how much do you need, and what do you need it for. That's just common freakin' sense! But then again, maybe some people in the Edo period hadn't developed common sense yet, so I'm just gonna chalk that one up to Sabu being stupid as hell.

9 minutes later

Well, guys, I am willing to admit that, despite having a bad leg, Eiji can still kick a ton of ass with that crutch of his. That is kinda badass, really.

The Review

OK, well, guys, that was "Sabu". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off now...OK. Well...I may as well start off by saying this. I went into this movie with pretty high expectations. And the reason why I set them high is because it's from a director whose films that I really enjoy. So when I went into this one, I was expecting the same kind of results. And well...it's still a pretty good movie. However, if I were to rank this one amongst the 3 other movies that I've seen from him, this one would rank at the bottom of it. In other words, guys, this movie sorta disappointed me. Not entirely, mind you, just a little bit. That being said, however, I'm not entirely certain if it's a movie that I'm gonna be watching again anytime soon.

So now that I've gotten my summarized thoughts out of the way, let's go straight into it here. I'm gonna start with the writing, as I usually do for in a lot of these reviews. And I'm gonna start with the dialogue, because that is one of the biggest problems that this movie has, in terms of writing. Now part of it has to do with repetition. See, for the first 45 minutes or so, the characters in this movie will constantly tell Sabu to "forget him", AKA Eiji, who's been sent to an island workhouse for a crime that he did not commit. Now I do get why they are telling him this. They want Sabu to move on with his life, be independent, start a business, etc. That's all fine and good...except we are told this same kind of dialogue about 5 or 6 different times, and by that point, it gets old really quickly and you're gonna be sick and tired of hearing it. Now admittedly, the movie does eventually move on from that repetitive dialogue after the first 45 minutes or so. It's just a shame that it almost took up the first half of the movie to get there, but regardless, they do move on from it.

That brings me into the next problem with this movie's writing. Almost nothing of interest actually happens here. This movie has lot of scenes where characters are talking and almost nothing of value comes from it. Now, I want to compare this movie with another film that was also directed by Miike, which also came out 3 years prior to this one, called "Audition". That movie also had a lot of characters talking with each other and, similar to "Sabu", it also runs nearly 2 hours long. But the reason why "Audition" worked better is because stuff was actually happening, and it was actually building up to something. Sure, it was kind of a slow build, but they were still building up to the big climax towards the latter half of the movie. And by the time it reaches that moment of the movie, it ends up having a huge payoff.

"Sabu", on the other hand, really doesn't have *anything* related to a payoff of sorts. There's characters talking, but there's not much happening that makes you care about what's going on. The only kind of exception I can think of is when there's a storm going on at the island workhouse, and Eiji and the prisoners all have to work together to try and keep everything on the island stable. But aside from that, there's not really anything else going that I can think of is even worth mentioning. There's just a lot of characters talking and, well, like I said, almost nothing of interest comes from it.

Now, I probably would be OK with all this, if this film was taking it's sweet time developing its characters. But sadly, that's not really the case here. Almost every character in this movie comes off as incredibly flat and boring. Our main character, Sabu, is honestly kind of whiny whenever he has to cry. Although I'll get more into that when I cover acting. Eiji is more focused on, as he tries to survive his time on the island. And again, it probably should've worked, but even he suffers from a boring personality because he doesn't go through any real changes in the movie, aside from towards the end, which comes as a little anti-climatic. Not even the prisoners that he's made friends with are interesting whatsoever because they're not all that important to the overall story. Not even his girlfriend, Osue, who, a bit of a spoiler, is the one who actually put the gold cloth into Eiji's bag and her reasoning for it is really kinda stupid. I won't spoil why, if you're really curious in checking this movie out. Just don't expect a halfway decent explanation out of it.

So...yeah, this one is kinda hard to admit, but the writing here is definitely the weakest thing about this movie. Now again, I will state that the movie itself isn't necessarily bad, it's just nowhere near as strongly written as the other movies that I've seen from Miike up to this point. Now, I will say that, despite all the problems the writing does have, the acting is mostly really solid. The only one I would say that turns in a somewhat flimsy showing is the actor playing Sabu. Now I say somewhat flimsy, because his acting is mostly pretty solid...at least until he has to start crying, and it feels rather flaky. I get that acting while crying is somewhat difficult to pull off, but he doesn't exactly pull that off very well here. The rest of the acting, though, like I said, is pretty solid for the rest of the actors, even if the script that they were given to work with was on the weak side.

I will also say that the sets here, along with the costuming and makeup effects look great. You can tell how much effort was put into it by that aspect, along in trying to nail down on how people looked during the Edo period of Japan. It's really impressive to see. There really isn't much I can say about special effects, aside from blood effects, which are very, very little here to begin with. It's ultimately nothing special.

Camerawork here is really good. Lighting here is fine. The sound-mix here is good, too. The score in this movie is also great. Like with the costuming and makeup effects, the music also feels like it came from the Edo period of Japan, and it's great stuff. I actually really like the music here. So yeah, I can say that much when it comes to this movie.

Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Sabu"? It's kinda difficult to answer that, honestly. I would say that if you are someone who likes the works of Takashi Miike and you want to see something of his that you haven't seen yet, I could maybe recommend this one as a rental. If you can find it on DVD for cheap, or if you can find it somewhere online, I would say it's worth checking out at least once. But to watch it multiple times over...I'm not entirely sure I can say that. Like I said, the writing here is the biggest weak point of this entire movie. And it may not be enough to watch it again on repeat viewings. Now who knows? If you really liked this movie more than I did, then I say go for it. It might totally be worth your time. But as for me, personally speaking, I just don't see myself watching this thing again anytime soon, if ever. Which is really disappointing to say, because I really like Miike's work as a director, but this one didn't exactly win me over as it should. But that's OK, because I do have his other movies that I've covered for this series on my DVD shelf. In fact, I think I'm gonna go watch one of them right now. I think "Audition" will be perfect for this one because it's my personal favorite of his. So I'm gonna go watch that next once I get done typing this one up.

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 | The Horror At 37,000 Feet

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a made-for-television movie from 1973. That movie is "The Horror At 37,000 Feet".

I'm gonna tell you, guys, the main reason why I wanted to cover this movie in the first place is mainly due to the casting. Before I get more into that, however, I first should let you guys know about the plot to this thing real quick. The plot, from what I've skimmed on the back of the DVD case, is about a group of passengers that have boarded a jet from London to Los Angeles, and they apparently face some kind of horrifying elements from one of the artifacts that, I believe, is cursed. I'm not entirely certain about the whole thing at this time, but I'll find out once I start watching this thing.

Now, again, the main reason why this movie peaked my curiosity is it's casting. Specifically, there's 3 cast members that I recognize immediately. The first one is Chuck Connors, who was the star of a popular Western TV series from the mid to late 50's called "The Rifleman". A show that I watched quite a bit of, and my Mom watches it almost religiously on MeTV everyday. The second cast member is Buddy Ebsen, who was mostly known for playing Jed Clampett from "The Beverly Hillbillies". Again, it was a show that I loved as a child, so I'm kinda interested to see what he'll do here in this film.

And the last cast member I recognize by name is Captain James T. Kirk himself William Shatner. Now I'll admit freely that I didn't really watch a whole lot of the original "Star Trek" series. My Dad was more into it than I was. I was more familiar with it's 2nd series of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", and to a lesser extent with "Deep Space 9" and "Voyager". But still, I have grown to appreciate the original series over time and it's cast of characters.

However, I'm getting a little bit off track here. Point is, those 3 cast members sold me on this movie so I'm hoping for it to be good. I don't know if it will be, but I do also know that the film is short. It's only 73 minutes long, so if it somehow ends up sucking, my pain will be short and sweet. But I'm still hoping for it to be good. The only way I'm gonna know for sure, though, 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 "The Horror At 37,000 Feet".

6 minutes later

OK, I have a question here. Now, I've only been on a plane 3 times before, so my experience on this is gonna be limited. So, as the opening credits are going on, I'm getting to see more of the inside of the jet itself, and it looks to be fucking huge! I mean, there are so many seats on this plane, and the strange thing is, not counting the 2 stewardesses, there's only 9 people that are chartering this flight. Do you really need this big of a plane for only 9 people? My only guess as to why they need a plane this size is to carry this cursed artifact, but still, I'm not sure if it's necessary to use this sort of plane for *only* that purpose. And also only for 9 people as well. Again, I understand that my experience with being on a plane is very little, but I just felt like I needed to point that out is all.

10 minutes later

OK, that noise is seriously starting to get to me. You guys thankfully can't hear it for obvious reasons, but it's starting to aggravate me and I have a feeling that it's not going to stop anytime soon.

8 minutes later

All right, I have another question here. So, the jet is currently caught in some sort of wind stream. Meaning that they're stuck and the plane's not going anywhere, despite it still flying. And they know that they're already on limited fuel the longer that they're in the air. At what point do you announce something to the passengers that there's some sort of problem with what's going on? I get that you don't want them to go into a panic, but there's gonna come a time sooner or later where you *have* to say something. Just thought I'd point that out.

5 minutes later

Wait, so this stewardess heard the dog growling inside the cargo hold. We, the viewer, already know what's going on inside of the cargo hold, and she doesn't. But instead of checking the cargo hold to see what's agitating the dog, she decides to go back to her business the moment the dog stops growling. How stupid is this bitch?! If I was one of them, I would at least open the door a little bit to check what's going on *before* I went back to my duties! I'm sorry, guys, but that is just stupid on a whole host of levels.

8 minutes later

Well, guys, I think it's safe to say that, whatever's in that cargo hold, it has the power to freeze people and dogs in it's tracks. So how exactly anyone's gonna combat against this is anyone's guess, really. I will say, though, it does leave me curious enough to keep watching, so at least it's something.

9 minutes later

What the fuck...? So.....part of the carpeting has come off and there's smoke coming from it, too. And then it just fades to black, before cutting back from a non-existent commercial. I'm gonna be honest with you, guys, I have no idea what's going on right now. This is kinda weird and confusing, really.

7 minutes later

So they're really gonna go all out on dressing up this child's doll as Sheryl by giving her some of Sheryl's hair, some of her fingernails, and putting makeup on for it to become a replacement sacrifice for the real Sheryl. That, to me, guys, just seems kinda stupid and yet, I wouldn't be surprised if it actually works. Just saying.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "The Horror At 37,000 Feet". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off now...OK. Well, first, I have to make a correction on something. A little while ago, I sorta snarked at the idea that the doll replacement for Sheryl's potential sacrifice, while stupid, would somehow still work. Well, slight spoiler here, it doesn't. So that was a mistake on my part. But anyway, as for the rest of the movie, well...it was OK, I guess. I mean, it wasn't really horrible, but it's not exactly good either. It's somewhat of an average movie at best.

So, let's go ahead and dive right into this by first talking about the writing. Now, strangely enough, I've seen this sort of plot where people are trapped on an airplane in which haunting things are suppose to happen. One of those instances I saw was in a segment of the "Twilight Zone" movie I reviewed last year, which was also a remake from one of the episodes of the old black and white TV show. I really liked it then, so I was curious to see how well they would try it here with an all star cast such as this. And well, like I already said, it's not exactly great, and part of the reason, which I'll get to in a second, has to do with it's characters.

But as for the writing itself, it's something very similar in which there's some remains of an abbey that haunts the jet in which holds our 9 passengers, and it's revealed later that one of them says that there's a sacred druids jewel that somehow ties one of the passengers onto a plane, in which their ancestor was sacrificed to some God, and that they're back again on some set time period to try and seek another sacrifice for her, that being Sheryl, of course. Now since I mentioned the doll didn't actually work, what actually works involves another theory of mine that I thought up of way early on in the movie, though I didn't say anything about it at the time, because there was a possibility that I could've been wrong. Well, it turns out that it was actually correct. I won't spoil it for you guys on the off chance you want to go see this movie for yourself, but it actually makes a lot more sense now the moment that shit starts to go wrong for our passengers.

Speaking of which, I think now is a perfectly opportunity to talk about the characters. Most of them aren't exactly well developed. The ones who I can think of at the top of my mind are the cowboy star, the little girl, Paul's wife, and Buddy Ebsen. What's interesting about Buddy Ebsen in this movie is that he's basically playing as Jed Clampett, only in this film, he's not a hillbilly and he has much less money than the Clampett family has. He's still a millionaire, but like I said, he doesn't have much money as he did when he was on "The Beverly Hillbillies". But anyway, his character in this movie really doesn't have much to work with, other than the fact that he's just a millionaire. Chuck Connors is playing the heroic flight captain, which I'm totally OK with, even if he really doesn't do a whole lot here either.

The one character who does stand out the most is Paul Kovalik, who is played by William Shatner. Paul is essentially a former priest, and the way he comes off in this movie is rather cynical, but strangely enough, he still has enough charm to where he comes across as being likable. When compared to someone like Sheila, who somehow has the knowledge of the abbey and it's secrets, and is also kinda creepy at times too, Paul easily comes off as the most likable of the cast. That, and the doctor, who's played by Paul Winfield. But again, I'll get to that when I cover acting. The only other character I can mention is Alan, who is the guy responsible for transporting the cursed artifact on the plane in the first place. I would say that it instantly makes him the most dis-likable character in the entire movie, though admittedly, his character is also really kinda bland, so make of that what you will, I suppose.

But anyway, guys, the writing in this movie isn't all that great. Now I will say that the pacing here is really good. But then again, considering the movie's only 73 minutes long, I kinda expected the pacing to be as such. So with that said, what about the acting? Well, I will say that the acting here is actually pretty good. The one who stands out the most, again, is William Shatner. And that's mainly because Shatner is doing what he does best, which is hamming it up as much as he can. And when you let him do that, he makes your movie look that much better. Granted, the movie is still average, but average is still a positive. And that's better than nothing if you ask me. But anyway, the acting from the rest of the cast is, like I said, also pretty good too. Not just from the cast members I mentioned earlier, but also Paul Winfield, as he also turns in a great showing. I would say the weakest actor is easily the little girl, but then again, you can only expect so much from child actors, and she only has a few lines of dialogue in this movie to begin with anyways. So yeah, acting in general here is pretty good.

Special effects are...kinda shit. Now being that this is both a low budget movie, and made for TV, we're not exactly shooting for the stars here. That said, the effects in this movie aren't really good. They're very minimal, but still. There's one particular effect that I want to talk about, and that involves the scene I mentioned about the carpet on the floor opening itself up. Now the first time you see this, it actually looks kinda cool and a little bit creepy. However, what sorta ruins it a bit is the second near the end of the movie where the carpeting opens up even more. Because on the second time, you can actually see a couple of the wires that are attached to the carpeting pulling it apart. Now on the first time from way early on, you don't see it because the scene was mostly shot in the dark, which gave the illusion of the carpeting opening itself up magically. But on the second time, you can physically see the wires that are pulling the carpet apart. Now while the effect for it is indeed crap, I'm also gonna put part of the blame on the lighting for that scene because they didn't bother to try and hide the wiring at all. And because of that, it makes the effect look really cheap, even for the standards of 1973.

But setting that aside, the camerawork here is good. The lighting, minus the one shot I already talked about a second ago, is mostly decent. Sound-mixing here is fine. The score here is really kinda forgettable. There's nothing about the music that makes it stand out in anyway, so I'll just chalk that up to being really forgettable.

So ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, can I recommend "The Horror At 37,000 Feet"? Kinda, sorta yes. Like I said, it's not a great film, and it's one that I'm probably not gonna get around to watching second time, but if you are curious, the movie should be up on YouTube. So before you decide on whether or not you should buy this movie on DVD, it's best to check it out on YouTube first, if it's still available anyways. And if you like it enough, go for a physical copy of it. It certainly is an interesting movie, and I would say that it's worth watching once. Though whether or not you want to watch it again and again is something I can't say. As for myself, well, like I said, I don't believe it's worth watching a second time, but the movie's still average. And like I said, average is still a positive, and that's far more credit than I've given a lot of movies I've seen for this series. So anyway, I'm gonna go and watch something else. And I think I'm gonna go and rewatch my copy of "Christine". I haven't seen that one in a little while, so I'll go and do that next when I get done with this one.

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.

Reaction & Review | Max Cloud

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a sci-fi flick from 2020. That movie is "Max Cloud".

I'm gonna tell you, guys, part of the reason why I bought this movie in the first place was because of the cover. It just looks incredibly 80's to me and I'm sort of a sucker for those sorts of covers. That said, there is another reason why I wanted to check this movie out, which would be it's premise. The premise is basically a gamer somehow opens a portal to her favorite video game and ends up trapped in the video game world. And to escape, she has to beat the game or she'll either remain a prisoner there or end up dead. I'm not totally sure which is accurate, but regardless, that premise alone intrigued me enough to warrant covering for this series.

Now of course, I am aware that just because a movie has a really cool premise doesn't always translate to a good movie. I have been let down by certain movies that have had awesome premises and most of them just wind up being either really disappointing or complete shit. Now I'm hoping that this movie is not gonna end up like that. I'm hoping for it to be really interesting, or perhaps even really good. I don't know. The only way I'm gonna know for sure 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 "Max Cloud".

7 minutes later

Well, guys, I can say so far that the soundtrack is already awesome. Why? Well, you can't hear it for obvious reasons, but the song that's playing right now is "Dare" from "Transformers: The Movie". I'm hoping that this is a good sign of things to come.

14 minutes later

OK, that's something new. I've never seen the remains of a ninja's dead body being used to cover up the patches of a hole before. I'm not totally sure how that works, but I feel like it would be a pointless question if I delved further into that. So, I may as well just accept it...for now, anyway.

1 minute later

OK, hold up a second here! So it's been established that our main character, Sarah, is in the video game world as another character in the game. And yet, she's also being seen right now as herself, physically, playing as...another character. Um...I'm sorry, but I find this a little bit hard to believe, considering the circumstances that are going on right now. I'm hoping, maybe, that I'll get use to this as the film goes on. But right now, it's just throwing me off slightly.

4 minutes later

So, you guys remembered earlier when I was praising the soundtrack of this movie? Well, I'm gonna have to rescind that a bit. Because right now, we're stuck with shitty techno music. I mean, granted, most techno music is shit in general, but this is only further proving why I despise it in the first place.

8 minutes later

OK, guys, I'm just gonna say this right now. The acting, at least coming from our villains anyway, is fucking terrible. I'm gonna get more into this later when I talk about the movie itself, but I just wanted to let you guys know now in advance. This kind of acting that they're spewing out is absolutely horrible.

7 minutes later

I believe I've found a problem with this movie, guys. The whole idea of being trapped in a video game as a video game character sounds sorta cool...until you actually watch it and realize that it's not. Again, I'll get more into this later when I eventually get to reviewing it, but I'll say this in more simplistic terms. The humor in this movie really kinda sucks.

7 minutes later

So...our main villain watches fitness videos on his CRT TV while working out. Well...at least that's kinda something. Mind you, it's really fucking stupid, but at least he keeps his health in check, I guess.

6 minutes later

OK, I have a question here, and I know it's a really stupid one, but I'm really curious about this. So we're being dumped with exposition about Revengor's backstory. Revengor, for those of you wondering, is the name of the our main villain. And we know about his backstory, because Sarah's friend, Cowboy, is reading off what's written in the strategy guide for the game, and Sarah's character is reciting it word for word to our game characters. Now setting aside the obvious video game character shtick and the strategy guide, how does Jake know all about this? I'm asking this because Jake, from what I've seen up to this point, is mostly a somewhat goofball character, and yet, somehow, he knows all about Revengor's backstory. Again, I know this will mostly be seen as trivial and stupid, but it's just something that I'm rather curious about, you know what I mean?

11 minutes later

Wait, wait, wait a fucking minute here...so, Sarah's father, despite scolding her for playing too much video games, is actually a gamer himself...? And he's not even the slightest bit freaked out that his daughter is trapped in a video game at all? I'm gonna be honest with you, guys, this is probably one of the stupidest fucking twists I have seen throughout this entire movie. But then again, this whole movie has been fucking stupid, so why should I ask for it to make sense at this point?

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Max Cloud". And we're closing out with the same awesome song "Dare". Actually...listening to more of it, it actually sounds like a remix of the song. A really cool remix, I should add. Again, I know you guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but this remix of "Dare" is actually really good. Well...as much I'd like to listen to it more, I have to review the movie eventually. So I'm gonna go ahead and shut the movie off now...OK. Well...what to say about this movie?

I may as well start by saying this. I stated earlier that there are movies that I've seen before, both for this series and on my own time, that had really cool premises, but unfortunately wound up being really disappointing. And unfortunately, this movie is another one of those that falls right smack dab into that genre. This movie is really disappointing. Now I will clarify and state that this movie isn't truly awful or anything. At least, in terms of the disappointing movies I've seen beforehand. This one isn't nearly as bad as it could've been. But, just because it's not as bad doesn't mean that it isn't a bad movie. It's still a bad movie overall. And normally, when it comes to B movies, I have a huge fondness for those sort of films. This one, however, doesn't really have the same kind of charm as those movies do.

And to prove this, I'm first gonna start with the biggest problem that this movie has: the writing. The writing in this movie is kinda shit. And I first have to start off by talking about it's premise. As I mentioned earlier, the premise is that our main character, Sarah, gets trapped in her favorite video game as a character from the game itself. And the main gimmick of the whole movie is that she can't control herself. She can only be controlled by someone else playing as her, in which case it's her best friend, Cowboy, who's using a spare controller he brought with him after her Dad took hers away. So OK, that concept is sorta weird, but it could still be sorta interesting as we get to see itself play out, right? Well...no. Not really.

That brings me into talking about the film's humor. Now, I can see that this film is trying to be a sci-fi comedy. And bless it, it's really trying. In fact, this movie almost feels like it's trying to be a throwback to those family comedies from the 80's and 90's. But unfortunately, it just doesn't really work here. The dialogue here feels really corny, which I'm normally fine with that, but the problem here is that it just feels a little bit too forceful. At a couple of points, mostly towards the end of the film, they even try to do the whole "meta humor" angle, where they'll reference something about them feeling like they're in a video game. And I'm just gonna be straight-up with you guys, I mostly despise meta humor. Because, like I said, it feels really forced and unnecessary. The only ones I know that are able to get away with it is "Looney Tunes". And that's mainly because "Looney Tunes" has been doing it for decades and they're smart enough when to admit it without having it feeling forced. This movie, while, again, only does it at a couple of points, is still rather forced and cringy at best.

Speaking of which, I want to mention the gimmick about Sarah being controlled as a video game character again. Because, first off, they don't really do much with this sort of gimmick, in terms of humor. There's only one point I can think of that came off as incredibly cringy and somewhat forced. So, Sarah as Jake, is stuck walking into a wall. Why is that? Well, that's because she's stuck in her walking animation on the TV screen from the game. And the reason why she's even like that to begin with is because Cowboy was away from the controller at one point to take a whiz. And when he's away, that's when she's stuck in her walking animation. And the characters, in game, ask if he's alright or if there's something wrong with him. And that may sound funny, in concept, but like I mentioned way earlier, when you see it play itself out like that, the humor of the joke just doesn't work. Mainly because, her character in the game isn't even matching how she's walking on the TV screen as her pixel character. It would've been more funnier if she was actually matching that, but instead, her character Jake just runs his head into a pole and it just doesn't come as funny as it should.

So, on the humor side, it definitely misses more than it hits. And as for our characters, well, most of them aren't really that well developed. Sarah is a gamer who likes video games (duh). Cowboy is her best friend and doesn't have much of any personality to begin with. Same goes for her Dad, even with that stupid twist about him. Speaking of twists, there is one character that I'm going to mention briefly, and she comes from the "Max Cloud" game, who goes by the name of Rexy. Now, I was originally thinking about spoiling this, but for the sake of anyone having any interest in watching this movie, I'm not gonna entirely spoil it here. I will say that there is a twist involving her character. However, by the time that it's resolved towards the end of the movie, it comes off as incredibly underwhelming. Because it's mentioned once throughout the film, and it doesn't get mentioned again until the very end. And like I already said, it's a very underwhelming result in regards to her character.

As for our main titled character, Max Cloud, he actually does have something resembling a backstory. You see, even though he likes to play the heroic space hero, it's not really what he wanted to be when he grew up. As a child, he wanted to become a pastry chef, much like his mother. And he would mention that he always wanted to help his mother out in the kitchen as much as he could. But by the time his mother died, his father forced him to become a space commander and, well, the rest is sort of history with him. I could also mention Revengor's backstory, but since his story was told through exposition, while Max Cloud actually got a scene of his backstory played out, Revengor just comes across as somewhat of a lame space alien that would honestly make the villains from the beginning seasons of "Power Rangers" feel ashamed to be around him.

So yeah, the writing here is not very good. And you're bound to ask a multitude of questions about it the moment you start to think about all of the logic issues the movie has, along with it's cringe-worthy humor being not very funny. However, there *is* one way that I could recommend this movie, but I'll get into that later once I reach my final verdict. For now, let's get into the acting. And, oh boy, the acting here is mostly terrible. The only one I can say that actually turns in a halfway decent showing is Scott Adkins as our main titled character. Even though he is stuck with a lot of cringe-worthy, corny dialogue, he does try to make it sound lovably bad, almost to a point where it's a little charming. So, I do have to give him some praise for actually trying in this thing.

As for the rest of the cast, well...they really sucked. I mentioned the acting from our space aliens sounding really horrible, and it didn't change whatsoever. Most of the acting from them sounds really gravelly, with the actor playing Revengor sounding the most terrible. He really tries to range his gravelly voice, but it just comes off as really off-putting. And since I referenced "Power Rangers" a moment ago, I'm gonna compare him to a villain that also had a gravelly voice. The one I'm referring to is Lord Zedd. The reason why Lord Zedd's voice worked was because he was voiced by the late Robert Axelrod. And Axelrod actually had a good range on when to either sound really menacing or silly, depending on the writing in those episodes that he was in. The actor playing Revengor almost tries to go for that kind of range, but it doesn't work because his gravelly voice almost makes him seems like he's just overacting. And it's not the good kind of overacting when he's trying to sound campy. It just sounds like he has a complicated case of throat cancer instead.

But surprisingly, as bad as his acting was, he's not the worst actor in this film. The worst actor, by far, would have to go to the guy playing Brock, the cowboy bounty hunter. His acting in this movie, I would say, ranges on sounding incredibly wooden and subdued. And the reason why I say it's subdued is because he has an accent that I *think* is suppose to be Scottish, but I can't tell because his acting is really quiet most of the time. And I have no idea if that's how he naturally sounds like when asked to act, or if it's the script he was given, or if he's just a really shitty actor that has either a really thick Scottish accent or is he's just putting up an accent. Either way, his acting in this thing is just horrible across the board.

Special effects are probably where I'm gonna give the most praise here, because the special effects in this movie are great. For a low budget flick from a few years ago, this looks amazing. Everything involving the CG alien world looks really cool. You do feel like you're in another world here as it looks dark and barren, which is great to see. Our sets involving the ships also look really cool, too. Costuming here is great, as is the makeup effects on our aliens. The fight choreography here is decent as well. So, just about everything involving the special effects is great here.

Same thing goes for most of the technical stuff. Camerawork, lighting, and sound-mix are all perfectly fine. The music, however, is something that I'm really disappointed with. It starts off great with the inclusion of "Dare" from the animated Transformers movie, but then it starts to go downhill when they started to include techno music. Guys, techno music, at least to me, is mostly garbage, and this movie is no exception. All of the techno music that they include here is shit. And anything that's not garbage techno music is nothing memorable whatsoever. So yeah, outside of one good song and it's remix, the music here is mostly shit.

And when all is said and done, guys, am I able to recommend "Max Cloud"? Well, like I mentioned earlier, the only way I can actually recommend this movie to you guys is if you have your brain completely turned off and you try to enjoy it as a mindless popcorn flick. If you go into it with those standards set, then chances are that you'll really like it. However, if you're someone who has a bit of a higher standard when it comes to sci-fi films, then you're most likely gonna want to avoid this thing. This movie tries to be campy and cheesy as all hell. Which again, I would normally enjoy those sorts of movies, but this one is not exactly something I'm gonna be watching multiple times over, let alone a second time. This movie is just too disappointing for me to even enjoy watching, even if I did try to watch it with my brain completely shut off. It's not worth the effort, and I'm kinda sorry that I pissed away $13 bucks to get this movie on DVD. It's certainly not worth *that* much. If you seriously want to buy this movie on a physical format, wait for a price drop around $7 or $8. But other than that, I just can't find myself to fully recommend this movie to you guys, other than what I already stated. So now, I'm gonna go and watch a better sci-fi movie. And you know what? Seeing as this movie wanted to include my favorite song from the Transformers movie from the 80's, I'm gonna go and watch that next, because that song inspired me to go back and rewatch that awesome movie again.

So 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 | Frankenhooker

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror comedy from 1990. That movie is "Frankenhooker".

I'm gonna tell you, guys, I've been wanting to watch this movie for the longest time ever since I saw the trailer for it a couple of years ago. And eventually, I did find a copy of it at one of my local video stores and ending up buying it. However, for one reason or another, it just kept getting pushed back for other movies I had lined up on the schedule at the time, and I just couldn't find room for it. Well, being that this is the time of the year where I watch horror movies everyday this month, I figured that this was *finally* the time to stop holding it off and actually getting around to watching it.

Now if you don't know anything about this movie, the plot to this is essentially about some guy's girlfriend, who ends up dying through unfortunate circumstances, and he somehow, someway, ends up rebuilding her using parts of dead prostitutes and, through the power of science, ends up bringing her back to life. However, she's not exactly...herself, as I remembered from the trailer I watched way back when. And yes, that seriously is the plot to this movie, but it sold me on wanting to check this movie out, and I'm finally gonna get my chance tonight to see how it plays out.

One other thing that I should quickly mention, before I start this thing, is a quote that's on the front of the DVD. And it's from Bill Murray himself who says that if there's one movie that you should watch this year (ala 1990), it should be "Frankenhooker". Now, I don't know exactly if he was saying that in either a positive or negative way, since his comment is slightly vague, but nevertheless, it probably left some kind of impression on him to say something about it. Now granted, I know a celebrity's opinion is incredibly useless, especially when it comes to anything regarding politics, but I still felt like mentioning it just because.

So, I'm hoping for this film to be really good. But if it somehow ends up sucking, I'm gonna be a bit disappointed by it, because I've wanted to see this film for the longest time, and it would be a fucking shame if it turns out it's garbage. I'm really hoping that it isn't garbage, but there *is* that small chance that it could be. I don't know. The only way I'm gonna know for sure if this movie is good at all, 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 "Frankenhooker".

6 minutes later

You know, guys, it's weird. While I did remember the overall plot of the movie, I didn't remember exactly how she died. Well, now I actually do. And it's still kinda messed up. Granted, it was kind of her fault for standing in front of the lawn mower before moving, but still, it is sort of a messed up way to die.

7 minutes later

OK, I have a bit of a question here that just came to me. Why does Jefferey have photos of his dead girlfriend's eyes closed? It was weird enough to have it on the sketched body where he also had a still photo of her with her eyes closed on the head, but why does he have at least two frames of her of the exact same shot of her eyes closed? Is that just, like, a secret fetish of his of some kind? I don't know, but I find that to be really kind of odd and creepy, you know what I mean?

6 minutes later

OK, I knew he kept the head of his dead girlfriend somewhere, but what's even more messed up is the fact he's having dinner with her and pouring wine inside of her mouth, which is obviously spilling the wine from underneath her head. I think it's safe to say, even though I know Jefferey confirmed that himself, is that he's kinda messed up in the head. And that's me being nice, mind you.

15 minutes later

Guys, I have rarely used a drill before, but I've never used it to try and drill it inside my head before like that and *not* have blood come spilling out. Part of me is really curious to know if that's even feasibly possible, but at the same, I probably don't even want to know the answer to that.

2 minutes later

I just saw a guinea pig blow up. What's surprising to me is that there was no blood splatter when that happened. Now I don't know the anatomy of a guinea pig, but I'm pretty sure it's suppose to contain *some* blood. Still though, that was kinda messed up, and Jefferey's mind has definitely gone more places now that I didn't even think were actually possible. And yet, it still makes Jefferey the most interesting character in this entire movie so far. That's definitely something.

6 minutes later

Well, guys, I think this is pretty obvious, but Keenan Thompson said it best. Cocaine is *definitely* a hell of a drug, as I'm seeing now where all of the prostitutes are getting high off of Jefferey's drugs that he brought with him...for some reason. And was also kinda stupid enough to toss the bag to the girls that had their money. Still, I didn't think I'd quite get to see something like that in this movie.

2 minutes later

O...K...I never thought I'd get to say this, but out of all the things I was expecting from this movie, exploding hookers was not certainly one of them! And it's still going, too! Again, guys, cocaine is certainly a hell of a drug. Just thought I'd let you guys know.

4 minutes later

Wait, so Jefferey kept the bag of body parts in the trunk of his car. And I should mention that it's partially open, where some of the other body parts are exposed. Are you telling me that *nobody* saw this as Jefferey was driving back to Jersey? Granted, I understand it's probably really late at night, but I'm gonna tell you guys, if even one person saw that, I'm sure they would've notified the police as soon as possible. But that's just me trying to put in logic into a movie about a guy trying to revive his dead girlfriend through the power of science. So, make of that what you will.

8 minutes later

Well, guys, it took almost an hour, but we're finally getting to see Elizabeth in her new body. And in most cases, I would say that the pacing leading up to it is rather glacial, however, I'm tempted to give it a pass here, and I'll tell you why later once I get to reviewing this thing.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Frankenhooker". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Wow, um...where to even start with this one? So, I mentioned that little quote from the beginning that was made by Bill Murray. About how he said that if there was one movie that you should watch in 1990, it would be this one. And I'm gonna assume he meant that in a positive way. Because if so, then he was right. This movie is definitely really interesting. I wound up rather enjoying it a lot.

Now with that said, let's get into the review here, shall we? I'm gonna start with the biggest problem that normally would be a deal breaker for me. I've noticed a recurring pattern within the past couple of weeks where I've seen certain movies that have had one certain problem to them. The problem I'm referring to is pacing. And the two movies that I'm talking about are "Spaced Invaders" and "Robert and the Toy Maker". Both movies had horrible pacing problems in which they were mostly the reason why I ended up not liking them very much. Of course, there were other problems there as well, but pacing was definitely a big issue when it came to those movies.

This movie is no different, when it comes to having a pacing issue. Because after the little prologue where Elizabeth dies due to an accident involving a lawnmower, we don't get to see Jefferey's dead girlfriend show up alive again up until about 50 minutes later, which is nearly an hour into the movie. And by that point, there's only about a half an hour of film left. And in a lot of cases, I would say that the pacing for this movie is really fucking terrible, because we were promised to see our character that's shown on the poster of the movie, and she doesn't show up until there's about 30 minutes left to go of it.

But this is one of those rare cases where I can *actually* overlook all of those pacing issues. And the reason why I can do that here is that, unlike the two movies I mentioned a moment ago, this movie actually gives you a reason to watch. It gives you a reason and a purpose to make you want to keep watching. You want to see how exactly Jefferey is going to try and revive his dead girlfriend to life through his own messed up science. I'm gonna get more into that in a second here, but just to summarize this for you guys, the pacing in this movie isn't exactly good. However, I will say that it does have a rather big payoff once the movie picks itself up and gets itself rolling. It really is one of those cases if your patience is tolerant, then you will definitely be satisfied by the time the movie is over. I'm just gonna leave it at that.

Anyway, let's get into the actual writing itself here. And if you couldn't tell by the movie's title, this movie is essentially it's own version of "Frankenstein". Only in this one, it features hookers blowing up and our main character being out of his fucking mind. I could go into depth about both of these things, but of the two, I'm mainly going to focus on Jefferey himself. He easily has the most interesting depth in this movie, because as it goes on, you begin to realize that he's not necessarily doing this out of love for his dead girlfriend, but more so just because he wants to give her a more sexier body. Now the love is certainly there, it just's more focused on the sexier parts in his mind. Which is why you see him constantly working the details on the anatomy of the sketched drawing from the beginning of the movie. I mean, he *really* goes into bits of detail on what needs to be changed and parts he needs to make it work. Which is where he later gets the idea of using a prostitute's body for that very purpose. And well, I kinda already spoiled it at the very beginning of this thing, where he uses more than just one body part of a hooker, although I'm not really sure if that counts as a spoiler, since the back of the DVD case says he uses the body parts of New York City's prostitutes in order to make a new body for Elizabeth.

So yeah, the story here, conceptually speaking, is nothing entirely new here. However, I will say that what elevates this film is the fact that it's a horror comedy. And it knows it, too. This movie's comedy is actually really funny, and you're guaranteed to get a laugh out of it. And if this thing somehow ended up being a serious flick, in a more darker setting, then it would've absolutely destroyed this movie. There's no way someone would've at looked at this and thought they could make a serious story out of it. There is just no way anyone could've pulled that off. And thankfully, the filmmakers here didn't go that route. This film is a straight-up horror comedy and it knows when to have fun with itself.

And speaking of which, let's go straight into the acting here. I would say the acting in this movie is mostly hammy with a side of wooden. Now what do I mean by this? Well, first off, I am going to say that the best actor in the movie has to go to Patty Mullen as Elizabeth. Her acting in this movie is hammy and over-the-top. Although that's mainly when she's first brought back to life. The best part of this, though, is her expressions. Her expressions are so fucking hilarious when she's trying to act like a robotic zombie, that it seriously makes her stand out as the best thing about this movie. Although considering that she is on the front cover and all, that's sort of a moot point. She is *the* reason to watch this movie. Almost every other actor is either hamming it up or sounds incredibly wooden. The most wooden actor has to go to the guy playing Zorro. His acting in this movie is so wooden, and so terrible, that he ends up being laughably bad. And the thing is, despite some questionably bad acting, I believe everyone had a blast working on this movie. So, props to the entire cast here, they made this movie worth watching for various reasons.

Special effects in this movie are fantastic. Despite this being a low budget movie, this movie has some of the best practical effects I have seen in a long time. Now granted, some of the body parts Jefferey took with him in his trunk are obviously fake-looking, but that's honestly just a minor fault. Everything else involving practical and visual effects are amazing. Especially towards the last 10 minutes of the movie. I'm not going to spoil that part in case you're curious enough to watch this movie, but I will say that there is no way in hell that I could ever describe to you guys what I saw during those last 10 minutes. It really is something that you have to experience for yourself in order to understand what I'm getting at here. Aside from that, the makeup effects and costuming on Elizabeth look great, as do most of the rest of the cast here.

Camerawork here is really good. The lighting here is lit perfectly. Sound-mix here is fine. The music here isn't exactly all that great. I mean, most of it I can remember from it is some club music. But then again, club music sucks in general, so make of that what you will. Mind you now, the soundtrack here is far from awful, but it's not exactly the best thing about this movie either.

So, when all is said and done, guys, can I recommend "Frankenhooker"? Oh yes, guys, I can totally recommend this movie to you, guys. As long as, again, you have patience for a slow-boiled movie like this. I promise you it's still worth it, especially when the second half of the movie kicks in. It's definitely worth your time. As for myself, I really enjoyed this movie. Now, I will admit that, when it comes to B movies, this one isn't exactly at the top of my lists of B movies that are my favorite, but it's still a really entertaining film on it's own standards. And if you can somehow find this movie on DVD or Blu-ray or somewhere online, go ahead and give it a watch. If you're a B movie fan, then you're most likely going to love this thing. I'm most certainly going to add this thing to my list of movies that I watch every year around this time and it'll certainly have a good spot on my DVD shelf. Now, I'm going to continue my little marathon here and watch another horror movie. Perhaps I'll watch something like "Stitches", because that's another good horror comedy to me. So I'm gonna go and do that next as soon as 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 | Robert And The Toymaker

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror movie from 2017. That movie is "Robert And The Toymaker".

Now, I discovered this movie at one of my local video stores some time ago. And as I was reading the description of the movie's plot on the back of the DVD case, something about it peaked my curiosity. Before I tell you what exactly it is, I'm first gonna give you guys a summary of the movie's plot. Essentially, there's an Occult book that has the power to bring inanimate objects to life, and it somehow ends up in the hands of a Toymaker. The guy uses it to bring his toys to life, and later ends up getting arrested by the Nazi's because they want the book that somehow ended up in his possession. Oh yeah, did I mention? Yeah, this movie apparently takes place during Nazi Germany in 1941. So they arrest him, and his toys that are brought to life go to rescue their master and exact revenge on the Nazi's.

Now, some of you reading this will probably think that sounds like a really cool premise. And, in fairness, it really is a cool premise for a story taking place during WWII. Except...I've already seen this premise done in another movie. Which brings me to why this movie peaked my curiosity in the first place. Basically, guys, this movie's plot sounds like a complete knock-off of "Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge". I should mention that "Puppet Master III" is my favorite entry in the "Puppet Master" series, and is also the best movie of the entire series. Hell, I watch it every year around the Halloween season, along with the first 4 movies of the series. So, for a movie to basically try and rip-off that movie's plot is very eyebrow raising to me. Especially if you're going for the third movie and not, say, the first "Puppet Master" movie. But that's just me digging a little too much into that.

In fact, I don't believe that this thing is even trying to hide the fact that it's essentially a knock-off of "Puppet Master", because on the front of the DVD case, there's a tagline that specifically states that "There's A New Puppet Master In Town". Yeah...I can see that they were being *totally* subtle with that tagline. But hey, you know what? Just because this movie's premise is basically a rip-off of "Puppet Master III" doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be a bad movie. Heck, I remembered watching "Munchies" for this series, which was also a knock-off of "Gremlins", and I thought it was halfway decent at best.

So this movie could still be pretty good. I don't really know if it's going to be so or not, but that's what I'm here to find out. And the only way I am 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 "Robert And The Toymaker".

19 minutes later

So, guys, we're almost 20 minutes into the movie and we haven't even gotten to the title screen yet. We're still on this opening prologue that's still going on. And considering this movie is just a little over 80 minutes long, a slow start is something that you really shouldn't be having right now. This film is off to a *really* slow start, and I fear it's going to kill the momentum of this entire movie.

11 minutes later

OK, I have a big question here, and I know it's not gonna get answered by this point, but I'll ask it anyway. So, the daughter of this German family was shot by the Nazi General while she was running away from her house. How long has she been running for? I'm going to assume it's nighttime now, and if it is, I don't think any normal human would be able to still run with a gunshot wound to the stomach for that long, considering it was still daytime as she was running away. I'm sorry, guys, but you can only suspend your disbelief for so long before it starts to insult your intelligence. Just thought I'd mention that.

16 minutes later

All right, this has been bugging me for a while now and I feel like now is the time to mention this. I know you guys can't hear the movie for obvious reasons, so you wouldn't be able to notice this issue. But I can barely hear the dialogue that's going on right now in this scene. I have my volume up at full max and I *still* can barely hear a word that's coming out of most of these actors mouths. I'm gonna get more into this later when I eventually talk about the movie itself, but I'm gonna let you guys know right now that the sound-mixing in this movie is incredibly poor here.

12 minutes later

OK, this Nazi General is the textbook definition of how *not* to chew up the scenery. I swear, guys, he talks so often in this movie, and he's also part of the reason as to why this movie's pacing is so fucking bad. I hope by the time he gets killed in this movie, it'll be a bloody, gruesome death. And if that doesn't happen by the time the movie ends, I'm gonna be a little bit pissed.

12 minutes later

You guys have no idea how happy I am that this film is almost over. The pacing in this movie is so bad that I've resorted to counting down the minutes until this movie is finally over. Do you have any idea how bad it is when you can't even focus on the movie itself and you just focus on when it's finally gonna be done? That's how bad this movie truly is!

The Review

And the movie ends almost the exact same way that "Puppet Master III" did, except we're now being treated to stock footage of WWII. O...K, well, I'm thankful that the movie's finally over. I can now shut this garbage movie off...OK. So, guys, that was "Robert And The Toymaker". And this here is a first for this series. This is the first film I've ever watched that doesn't have a title screen of the movie. It has a DVD menu screen, but not when you start the movie. It never shows up and, quite frankly, it gives me the impression that the filmmakers themselves were too embarrassed to even show that much, which tells me a lot about the quality of the movie I just watched. Yeah, guys, I'm not gonna mince any words, this movie was complete shit.

So now, let's actually talk about the movie itself, and good lord *that's* gonna be a fucking challenge in itself. Well, I can start off by talking about one of the big problems this movie suffers from already. Similar to last week's movie "Spaced Invaders", the pacing in this movie is fucking horrible. I really thought the opening prologue was bad enough, because that entire segment takes almost half an hour to get through, but nope, I was *completely* fucking wrong. The rest of the movie is just like that as well. It is so slow and so boring to a point where, by the last 20 minutes or so of the movie, I just started to look at the runtime on my DVD player to show how much of it is left. I never had do to that for *any* movie beforehand. Even the shittiest of movies I've watched almost *never* made me do that before. But this may be one of the first ones that ever does it for me. It is so painfully dull that I just stopped caring about it as the movie was too busy slogging itself in it's third act.

Now the story, as I clearly predicted, is essentially a rip-off of "Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge". The only difference between this movie and other knock-off films I've seen beforehand is that this one probably has the least amount of effort put into it. While I'm kinda happy to see that it's not a shot-for-shot remake of "Puppet Master III", that doesn't mean that what is here is any good. For starters, the characters in this movie are completely shallow and shit. Now, compare it to "Puppet Master III", where they gave you a reason to care about certain characters and why Toulon is out for revenge to begin with, this one doesn't give you one single reason to care about its characters. Our main character, Amos Blackwood, is basically this movie's version of Andre Toulon. Except he has no real character depth, compared to Toulon, who had at least several movie's worth of depth and personality. While Amos is only working with just one movie, and he has all the depth and personality of dried-up paint.

The only things you kinda learn about Amos Blackwood is that he's running a failing business where he makes and tries to sell dolls. And speaking of which, since this movie is suppose to be a knock off of "Puppet Master III", you would expect his dolls to be kinda interesting. Unfortunately, they're really not. The only doll that has any sorta depth is Robert, the doll with the short red hair. And the backstory behind Robert's creation is that Amos discovered the body of a young boy, who was carrying a doll with him, which somehow Amos got his hands on. And he used parts of the doll's body to create his own doll in the form of Robert, who I should also mention, is named after the death of the young boy who was killed. Robert, the doll, is basically this movie's version of Blade from the "Puppet Master" series, except he's nowhere near as cool-looking as Blade was. The rest of the dolls in this movie aren't that important, nor are they worth talking about. Also, there's only 3 dolls that he brings to life, compared to the 6 or 7 puppets that Toulon had made, and none of them are nearly as interesting as they were.

Going back to the horrible pacing for just a moment, there's one character who attributes to the horrible pacing. Our Nazi General in this film talks so much that I honestly wanted him to die in a bloody and gruesome way. And well...I sorta got that. It's not exactly great, but I still kinda got what I wanted out of it. But anyway, this Nazi General has a *really* bad habit of chewing up the scenery. The worst moments with him are the opening prologue and near the end where he's interrogating Amos. These scenes go on for so long and the Nazi General's dialogue just doesn't make it any better. His dialogue consists of him talking about deception and lies in the opening prologue, to rats and their true nature somewhere in the beginning of the 3rd act. The middle of the movie has him doing nothing, which makes his character all the more worthless as the movie goes on by.

So yeah, guys, if it's not made any clearer, the writing in this movie is awful. Setting aside this movie being an obvious ripoff of "Puppet Master III", on it's own standards, the pacing is horrible, and the story is just completely wasted. Also, one other thing I should quickly mention about pacing is that the dolls themselves don't start to take action until about maybe 40 minutes or more into the movie. Yeah, it takes *that* long to get to, and even then, the kills themselves aren't that interesting, except for one part where Robert stabs a Nazi in the crotch. But even then, it's still not very interesting, and everything leading up to the final moments of the movie is boring as shit.

Now, setting aside all that, let's talk about the acting. Most of the acing in this movie is terrible, partly because most of the German accents that are put up in this movie really suck. Now mind you, I'm far from German myself, but even I can tell when someone's putting up a terrible German accent, and this movie's definitely guilty of that. Speaking of which, I need to talk about the actor playing our Nazi General. Now this is very strange to admit, but he is both the best *and* worst actor in this entire movie. See, I'm convinced that this actor is trying his best to have fun with his role...but the problem here is that he's not trying hard enough. Like with every other actor in this movie, his German accent really sucks. I would say his acting in general is wooden, but that would be sort of an insult to all of the dolls that were made for this movie. He sounds very quiet in almost all of his scenes, and I have no idea if that's either how he generally acts when putting on a German accent, or if that was just his general direction for this movie, or if it was the terrible sound-mixing that made him sound very quiet.

In fact, let's skip ahead to that, shall we? First off, to summarize the acting in a nutshell, it's completely horrible. Almost as horrible as the sound-mixing for this movie. You see, guys, for almost a majority of this movie, most of the actors dialogue sounds very quiet. And again, I had my volume up all the way, and I *still* couldn't hear a lot of the dialogue that was said in this movie. Almost all of it is quiet, and part of me still wants to blame it on the acting, but I really want to put the blame on the person in charge of the sound-mixing. In fact, looking at the back of the DVD case, the person in charge of the sound-mixing production goes by the name of David Bekkevold. I don't know what convinced Mr. Bekkevold to think that this even sounded half good, but this is just really poor work on his part, because had he took a little bit more time in actually mixing the actors dialogue properly to where it's perfectly listenable, there wouldn't be much of a problem here. I mean, the acting would still sound terrible, but at least it would help if Mr. Bekkevold got off his lazy ass and actually fixed the sound on this movie.

So...anyway, seeing as how I skipped past the special effects, let's talk about them next. I will say that, when it comes to the designs of all the dolls that are in this movie, I will say that they look pretty good. I am willing to admit that much. And when it comes to the puppetteering, that in itself looks OK, too. I mean, sure, it's not great either, but it could've been a lot worse, too. That being said, I want to mention the makeup effects on Amos Blackwood's actor. I don't know why there is so much makeup on him to begin with. Part of me thinks that they couldn't get an actual elder actor to play the part of the toy maker himself, so they resorted to putting on a lot of makeup on his face so that he looks somewhat older. And I'm gonna tell you, guys, it looks horrible. The wig looks laughably shit, and the makeup effects on him look incredibly pale as well. I don't know *why* he looks so pale in this movie, but for some reason, he does. And it just makes me wonder why they didn't even try to cast someone older to play the role instead? I don't know, but regardless, it is what it is, and it just doesn't look very good on him.

Camerawork here is halfway decent. Although admittedly, there is quite a bit of shaky cam going on the second half of the movie, which sorta makes the whole film disjointed, seeing as how the first half looked fine. Lighting here is OK. And the score here is completely forgettable. So yeah, technical stuff here is a very rough definition of mixed bag.

So, guys, with all that said, am I able to recommend "Robert And The Toymaker"? No. Hell no. As a ripoff of a much better movie, it sucks balls. On it's own standards, it still really sucks because there's almost nothing redeemable about this movie that's even worth watching for. This movie borders on being unwatchable, what with it's abysmal pacing, horrible acting, and almost even worse sound-mixing. This movie has nothing going for it. If you somehow find this movie on DVD, Blu-ray, or somewhere on some streaming service, do not waste the time on it. This movie is not worth a single viewing. In fact, I was very close on shutting this movie off prematurely just so I can go watch "Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge" because it's such a good movie. I'm probably gonna go do that right now, because this film left a horrible taste in my mouth and I need to be reminded of something good right about now. So yeah, I'm gonna go watch my copy of "Puppet Master III" right now, because I've already seen the other two this month already, and I'm gonna continue it with the third movie. Which makes all the more sense to me.

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