Desslok

First, let us get this right out of the way. This is not King Lear. This is not Casablanca or Citizen Kane. There is no high drama or good acting expected in any Friday the 13th Movie. Anyone going in expecting anything in this list is going to be disappointed. Hard core.

What we do expect: fine young females showing some titties, having sex and drinking beer. We expect to see some hard core murder performed in unique and interesting ways. We want buckets of blood as Jason fulfills his roll as an unstoppable killing machine. Little details like plot and character development get in the way of what we paid our money to see: Death and lots of it.

Given that - how does Jason X stack up? It's an absolutely bad movie in just about every respect imaginable - and it's perfect.

It's got all kind of interesting death in it - the first one on the spaceship with the liquid nitrogen springs to mind. The problem is that it hits you with probably the best death right off the bat - so there is some pacing issues with the way the murders play out, but it's hardly something to get worked up over.

The movie has the highest body count of any previous Friday the 13th movie - at least 20, with the potential of several thousand if you count the space station that Jason blew up. Those looking for a visceral good time will have everything they want - in spades.

The writing is even clever at times. Case in point, the bait used to distract Jason while the heroes get away (to say more would give away far too much). Suffice it to say that this is a damn funny scene, probably the best moment in the movie. Me and my crew were on the floor laughing so hard I had trouble paying attention to the rest of the movie.

I was afraid that sly and pretentious films like Scream and Scary Movie had destroyed the horror genre forever with their "Nudge, nudge - look how clever WE are" approach to the old school 80's slasher flick. Fear not - this movie trumps those films live never before. I was worried that a series of movies that was over TWENTY years old - teenagers who saw these films on Showtime and HBO in the dark well after they were suppose to have gone to bed who now have teenagers of their own - had nowhere else to go, had no gas left in the franchise.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

In short, if you liked Friday the 13th 1-9, then part 10 will rock your world.

Very little character development at all - for ANY of the characters, aside from a brief mention of the deposed king (but even that isn't touched on). Illogical developments in plot and story run rampant though out - simple things like the horsemen that cant catch four midgets on foot. What did they give then a head start to keep things fair?

An even worse sin - no ending to the movie. Even the Empire Strikes Back and Back to the Future had self contained stories, despite ending on a cliffhanger. Here the movie just stops. Bang, full on dead stop. No resolution, no "to be continued", nothing.

And the movie was too damn long. Trim out the fat and give me a two hour version please.

Very little character development at all - for ANY of the characters, aside from a brief mention of the deposed king (but even that isn't touched on). Illogical developments in plot and story run rampant though out - simple things like the horsemen that cant catch four midgets on foot. What did they give then a head start to keep things fair?

An even worse sin - no ending to the movie. Even the Empire Strikes Back and Back to the Future had self contained stories, despite ending on a cliffhanger. Here the movie just stops. Bang, full on dead stop. No resolution, no "to be continued", nothing.

And the movie was too damn long. Trim out the fat and give me a two hour version please.

First - I've been traumatized by every horror movie in the book. From Friday the 13th to Psycho, I've seen 'em all. That's why I was suckered into seeing this stinking pile of refuse laughingly called a movie. I was intrigued by the press the movie was getting, and it sounded like an interesting premise.

An hour and a half later, I was disgusted that I had paid 7 bucks for this train wreck. No - even worse, I had paid the highest price of them all: two hours of my life savagely ripped away from me that I will never get back.

Somewhere along the line, film goes have mistaken two hours of people on screen swearing at each other at the top of their lungs as character development, and running around in the woods non-stop as a plot. Half an hour of set up - and then an hour and a half of nothing - and then, the shock ending - where nothing happens. Have people's sensibilities been degraded by modern culture that they find this enjoyable?

No monster/witch at the end. No pay-off whatsoever, at all - zip, nada, zilch! Now, I by no means have to have a full blown million dollar CGI special effect to scare the ever-lovin crap out of me. In fact, less is more - the most scary movies I can think of are where they never show, they simply suggest. However, the viewer needs **SOMETHING** to hang their hats on - a fleeting shadow of a great white shark under the water, a dripping claw on the Nostromo, a long shot of a man in a black jumpsuit in Haddonfield - something. What does the Blair Witch do? Make scary noises in the woods at night. Ooooh - hold me! Oh - and don't forget about those scary sticks and piles of rocks? I find scarier things in my breakfast cereal.

Horror movies are frequently known for their plots - or lack of. Most of the time, this is true - a generic slasher flick often is a string of events loosely held together by a vague narrative. In the right mood, this can be even kind of fun, in a cheesy sort of way. However, the most cookie cutter Friday the 13th movie has more going for it in the coherent narrative department than this amateur attempt does. I was hoping for something more than "Kids go into the woods to make a movie, kids get lost, kids run around for several days, kids die." What the hell is that?!?

After seeing the film, the next day at work I was going off about it - and was instructed to go to blairwitch.com for the full back story. Surprise, surprise - guess what! There was indeed a full history on the legend, write ups on the characters, and more background information that I could hope for. If the creative (sic) team did all this work, then WHY THE HELL WAS NONE OF IT IN THE MOVIE?!?!? A viewer should not have to go do homework to get the complete story.

Illogical plot devices abound. They get lost in the wood because "I threw the f'ing map away, you stupid &!^@#^" - a plot crowbar if I've ever seen one. Or how about ignoring common sense - even I, a city boy to the core, would know that if you follow a river downstream, you will eventually wind up SOMEWHERE! Anywhere - a road, a farm, the freakin' ocean, for god sake! Yet this simple concept eludes the characters (and I use the term 'characters' very loosely.). Or - the best one yet: if I woke up in the middle of the night, with the forces of evil shaking my tent like Lucifer himself was outside, I sure as hell would **NOT** grab my camera and keep filming as I ran. I would haul ass as fast as my legs would go - buck naked if need be. Yet they have the presence of mind to keep the film rolling? And what about that survival book that the filmmakers take great pains to point out in the beginning of the movie - and yet never shows up again?

(Note to the creative (sic) team - next time, don't just make the movie up as you go. Take some time and formulate a dialogue and a story - maybe even write a script. I know it's a bold concept in this modern day and age, but your viewers will thank you for it.)

For those of you who seem to have forgotten what a *truly* frightening and/or movie is, let me bring you up to speed on required viewing: Exorcist (the creepiest movie ever), Jaws (a film that traumatizes an ENTIRE generation of people, keeping them off the beach for years, has something going for it), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Shining, Halloween, Night of the Living Dead, Ring (a classic Japanese horror film proving that terror is not exclusive to North America), Alien, and of course the granddaddy of them all - Psycho. Of course, all the sad people who have bought into the hype of the movie will call me closed minded and an idiot for not falling to my knees and worshipping this movie. Fine - whatever. I'll just be over here watching

Bottom line - do not be suckered in by this movie. Go rent a good horror flick instead - you'll thank me for it.

I don't believe all these people and their bad reviews. For example - "The Godzilla should be reborn in more fresh and creative ideas. … 1. Volcano erupts or islands are blasted to show that the Godzilla backs once again. 2. Troops and weapons are just helpless. 3. Rampaging a city (most likely Tokyo). 4. People get panicky and look on the rampaging and fighting."

What the hell do you want from a Godzilla movie! That's like going to a Jackie Chan flick and expecting intelligent storytelling instead of a framework for the stunts. That's what you get here. The barest of plots, aliens with no back-story and motivation other than to show up and put the beatdown on G, and **BIG** **ASS** **FIGHT** **SCENES**. You want Shakespeare, go watch that Mel Gibson flick or something. Leave my Kaiju out of it!

"As for a alien creature from outer space? what the hell was the writer thinking??" - Duh, like Godzilla is normal.

"Any movie with a Troma stamp on it is great." - Troma used to produce good schlock, until they started making fun of themselves. 'look', they say - 'we're making <wink, wink> a Bad Movie. <nudge, nudge>. This movie is superior to the Troma studios because Toho takes the movie seriously. It may be camp, and everyone may KNOW that it's a big block of cheese, but that doesn't mean that they don't make a sincere effort. They do put their heart into it - and it shows. Surprise, the writer and director managed to treat G (and the audience) with respect, passion and of responsibility due the series. - far more than the 1998 over-hyped, overblown US version did. The US version is just a cheap action flick with, unable to stand out amongst the crowd of Hollywood schlock that the industry churns out every year.

Is it an example of good film-making? No - this is not the level of Casablanca or Citizen Kane. To expect otherwise is foolish. Is this a good G film? Hell yeah! Compared to the other G films in the series, this one is a clear winner!

The King of the Monsters is back, baby.

Witness now the dawning of our tomorrow. Shining brighter than the daybreak of light is the brilliance of the Shizuma Drive. Our only reliable future of energy, which includes dependability in every home and the Earth's only answer to the waste of atomic and oil energy.

But beware, for our shining future has also cast a dark shadow of revenge - BIG FIRE, an underworld organization, who's only goal is absolute world domination!

Do not panic, for we are protected by the international police organization formed by the Experts of Justice, keeping our world safe from the evils of Big Fire. Amongst their ranks is the bravery of one boy who commands the mightiest robot of all - a young boy called Daisaku Kusama. ..

The set up and intro may sound cheesy, but it's far from it. I am shocked - nay, stunned that it took me this long to get around to watching this series. Everyone should immediately drop whatever they are doing at this moment and watch Giant Robo. It's that cool.

The more observant of the crowd might notice that GR looks a LOT like a series called Johnny Socko and his Flying Robot. Or one might dismiss it out of hand as just another "Giant Mecha fighting" series. Giant Robo is neither. It is very loosely based on that Johhny Socko - but very, very loosely, and it is SO much more than just Big Robots beating the hell out of each other.

The plot revolves around the last sample of the prototype Shizuma drive, Big Fire's efforts to obtain the sample, and the Experts of Justice's attempts to keep it out of their hands. Along the way, villains turn out to be not quite what they appear to be, good guys die, the golden egg that is the Shizuma drive isnt quite the blessing that everyone expected - basically the plot undergoes so many twists and turns, that the view ends up is nowhere near where they started. It's like Babylon 5, but animated - and better.

The animation is a cool retro look, like the animated Batman series. The music is a grand symphonic score, worthy of John Williams, the story - I cant get enough of it. It's a bit confusing when characters get introduced in waves - you cant tell 'em apart sometimes without a score card. But stick it out - this series is WELL worth the trouble.

It's a nearly all ages film - no sex or nudity, plenty of violence - but it's all cartoon-ish, and way over the top (like a Jackie Chan movie). Some swearing, but not excessively so.