trancejeremy

I watched this mostly because I am a HP Lovecraft fan and this is loosely based on his story, The Lurking Fear. His name isn't in the credits, but it's clearly inspired by him, by the use of the name Martense and there unique eye coloring.

Essentially in the story, mysterious deaths happen around an old decayed mansion, and the narrator slowly discovers the horrible cause.

Here, there's no subtlety, a crew goes into an abandoned asylum. Only you don't really see that much. It jumps around and it basically turns into a sadistic torture porn story with the two lead characters, one being Robert Davi looking ridiculous with emo hair and a silly hat.

And while it's somewhat sadistic, it's not particularly gory. There are no scares, either, like i said, sadism seems the goal. But it's lame, as there is no character development except maybe for the bald sheriff.

This is so unoriginal taking cliches from virtually every recent movie of its ilk, from Paranormal Activity, Insidious, Conjuring, etc. Everything is so obvious and blatant, like gags from Scary Movie or such, but they aren't gags, it's dead serious.

There's also no suspense or character development or a build up , just boom, hey I think our daughter is possessed so I'm going to watch her with video cameras. Which is probably creepier than anything in this movie.

This is about a member of a UFO hobbyist group whose niece has mysteriously vanished (which the movie is actually about). It's very slow, with long, lingering shots and goes for a very realistic feel with normal looking actors.

In some ways it feels like a David Lynch movie, but the people are very ordinary. They aren't quirky. Other than being interested in UFOs, that is.

The Shadow as presented in the pulps was a hard nosed, tough, superheroic vigilante - fighting crime with .45 automatics in each hand.

This turns him into an incompetent dandy, essentially a copy of Dick Powell as the Thin Man, minus the charm, lovely wife, and alcohol.

The other characters also bear little resemblance to their names. Moe Shrevitz is no longer a street smart cabbie, but a bumbling wimpy sidekick.

The worst part is you don't see The Shadow, really. He is in his Lamont Cranston role for the whole movie. Again, it's like they copied the formula used in other detective comedy movies - The Falcon, the Lone Wolf, etc, instead of The Shadow. And it's a shame, The Shadow was The Batman of his day, he deserved better.

Much like Dan Akroyd's career, this TV show is all over the place. And yet it remained an enjoyable TV show mostly to the efforts of the core actors.

It purports to tell the case files of the OSIR, a paranormal investigation group, In reality, even lower budget than Ghost Hunters (before they got a show). In the show, a modern, high budget world class organization with top class personnel and gadgets.

In Season 1, it was played fairly straight, with the OSIR team investigating two paranormal cases or events per show. It was perhaps a bit dry, but each case was interesting in its own right.

In Season 2, apparently to boost ratings, they brought in Matt Frewer (of Max Headroom fame) to replace Paul Miller. They also changed it to one investigation per hour. And the tone shifted from overall paranormal, to more something like the X-files - conspiracies and such (more corporate than government). In came Michael Moriarity, playing a conspiracy expert.

Season 3 scaled back the conspiracy stuff somewhat(and Moriarty's character) but still kept the same sort of focus in terms of what was being investigated. But the focus was also a lot on characterization. But in the season finale, they wrapped up the conspiracy stuff and brought back Michael Moriarty briefly.

In the last season, Season 4, Matt Frewer left the show after a few episodes and the focus changed back to more investigating stuff, not conspiracies. They also brought in a new investigator, a woman that is mostly forgettable. Dan Akroyd also pretty much stopped introducing each episode, instead using a generic one for every one.

So in a way, the show was sort of a trainwreck. Yet at the same time, it was worth watching thanks to the efforts of the core group of actors - Barclay Hope, Nancy Anne Sakovich, Colin Fox, plus the very lovely Soo Garay as a medical examiner and Peter Blais as a cryptozoologist in recurring roles.

Despite the name of the movie, this is actually an adaption of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". I guess technically it's okay, since those things in that story worship Cthulhu, but still a bit misleading. I had heard bad things about it, mostly Tori Spelling being in it, but after actually giving it a chance and watching it, I was pleasantly surprised (except by Tori Spelling). And enthralled.

It's very slow paced, subtle sort of movie. Very picturesque, relying on a creepy atmosphere more than actual horror. This is actually quite true to the story, which relies on that air of mystery and weirdness until the ending. That is where this movie veers off a lot. It's got a much more apocalyptic ending, something more out of a Stephen King novel or maybe John Carpenter movie than you really found in Lovecraft.

I guess there are two controversial features to it. Firstly, the gay angle. I didn't even remember that until I saw the previews on the DVD. The actual movie itself isn't especially graphic in the regard, just really two scenes. Frankly, as a straight man, I found the scene of a half naked Tori Spelling more unpleasant.

And speaking of that, the second controversy is Tori Spelling. While I think actually she makes a perfect visual representation of a Lovecraftian horror, at the same time, she's one of those people that you instantly and only think of as being that person, not the character they are playing (like say, Mr. T or David Hasselhoff). So when she's on screen, it really hurts the suspension of disbelief that is necessary for a horror movie. At least a serious horror movie, maybe she'd fit into one of those campy Stuart Gordon movies.

But beyond that, I think it's just a very good movie. Some parts are just creepy as hell, which is I think what makes a horror movie successful.

This is pretty much a B-horror movie, but a good effort, I thought, comparable to a good solid outing from Hammer in their heyday. You won't be scared, but you'll be entertained. Somewhat unbelievable plot (in this case, revolving around Druids), very attractive though untalented actresses (who in this case, sadly don't show anything), even more untalented actors.

It's somewhat unusually structured. It starts off revolving around a bartender studying to be an archaeologist. Coyote Ugly meets Indiana Jones, I thought at first, but it quickly drops that angle to focus on the plot, how people on campus are mysteriously being killed or disappearing. The mystery of what is going on is revealed about halfway into the movie, then the later half revolves with the protagonists (now expanding to two, or three) dealing with the culprits behind the mystery.

I was impressed by that aspect of the plot, there are a fair amount of fight scenes, not the helpless trying to get away sort you see from heroines in horror movies, but direct confrontation.

I wouldn't say the acting is good, and it's hard to judge the dialog from the subtitles, but it's not horrible, either.

It's hard to make a really great horror movie. It's even harder to do it on a low budget, as this obviously was. This comes really close to it, but suffers from some problems. Mostly the pacing - sometimes it's too slow, other times it's jerky, like some scenes were cut out. The ending could have been somewhat better executed as well.

A farmer finds some weird skeletal remains in his field. He is alarmed and alerts his local judge, who I couldn't help but think looked like Dick Van Patten (especially in the movie Spaceballs, where he also wore a Judge's wig). The judge scoffs at the farmer's superstitious nature, but at the behest of his lady friend, goes and takes a look. When they return, the remains are gone. The judge is not amused or impressed, while the farmer is scared. Nearby is a creepy looking preacher, playing with a snake.

And so the stage is set. An outbreak of satanism begins, first with one of the judge's maids. At first it seems like hysteria, but it turns out to be more than that. Much more.

There are several disturbing scenes. Not gory, but just disturbing. Both in what the satanists do to their victims, but also what the townsfolk and the judge do to suspected witches once they realize something evil is afoot. Not so much what they do, but the callousness of it, which seems to mirror that of the satanists. Only the poor farmer and the squire seem to be really genuinely good (and likable) people.

What hurts is how the story is told. It uses a somewhat different way of telling the story, going from character to character rather than just having a main character or two, I guess it's really telling the story of what happens to the village. Which would be fine except some of it drags on too much, going into too much detail, when it should have been skipped. And conversely, it will change the character focus quickly, without much in the way of transition you so it takes some time to figure out what is going on.

The ending also didn't reach its potential. Some of the blame has to be on the special effects, which look almost comical, but it's too languid in pace, and a bit distracted, with the director apparently not decided if he wants to show the inner conflict of the farmer or a dancing naked chick.

Nice cinematography, good music. The acting is generally good, although I found the villainess's eyebrows a bit distracting. Good job of finding very very creepy children.

This is a strange mix of genres that you do sometimes see a lot of in Hong Kong films. It's partly a romantic comedy (which Netflix billed it as), but also more serious than that as well. Ekin Cheng thinks he's a hot shot gambler who just needs a chance (that is, money) to win big in Vegas. He gets that chance by stealing some money along with a friend. But things go horribly wrong and his friend ends up dead. But then he ends up going back in time rather mysteriously and has a chance to change things.

The end and beginning are fairly serious, the middle is extremely funny in spots, almost slapstick.

The English captioning is terrible at times, which is odd, because part of the movie is in English (it's set in Las Vegas), and they can't even get the subtitles for the English parts right.

The movie starts off with something of a bang, a very impressive recreation of a medieval battle complete with slo-mo effects.

I hope you remembered the first movie well. Because if you don't, you won't have any idea what's going on. Even if you did see the first movie, things will be very confusing, because the plot is all over the place. If the movie weren't 2 1/2 hours long, I would think a lot would have been cut out, explaining all the running around, but it's just poor direction. Or maybe just a poor script. Was all the body changing really necessary? Another big problem is the characters. In order to make the villain of the movie seem to super-brilliant, all the other characters in the movie are incredibly dumb. Dumb as in you'll be yelling at the screen for them not to be doing things.

That said, it's got some nice scenes. Mostly the beginning and this woman driving an RX-8.

I wasn't expecting much out of the film, but they do tout lots of impressive live action air scenes, which sounded appealing to me. And in truth, there are some. But most are simply stuff you'd find in an air show, I was expecting more in the way of dogfights. There is a dogfight eventually, but it consists of 2 CGI F-15s shooting 3 CGI missiles at the plane, and the plane "dodging" them.

Basically, the highlight is a live action air scenes is maneuver called a "Cobra", where the plane sort of rears back on its tail in a controlled manner. Which is neat, but not the sort of thing that wows people who don't understand what the maneuver is (though I guess is probably very popular in Russia, since I believe they invented it). The most impressive action scene is not in the air, but a battle on an air base, between Russian special forces (I think) and terrorists.

Anyway, the plot of this is a little hard to follow. There's a super secret new Russian plane (actually just a SU-30, a nice enough plane, but nothing special). And terrorists are trying to do something to the pilots. Then we find out that it's Malcom McDowell who is the terrorist, and ex-CIA agent, with Armad Assante being a current CIA agent trying to stop him (or something). Rutger Hauer is technically in this, but he's in two scenes. And just what he is, I wasn't sure.

The trouble is, it's long. A lot of the story focuses on the "good" pilot, who isn't a jerk like the others. We see him fall in love with an American animal rights person (?) who looks 100% Russian (pretty, but doesn't even remotely look American), then he has some angst with his father (who is the designer of the plane, I think), and the antics of the other pilots. That stuff should have been trimmed out. And much of the spy stuff is boring. You have Malcom McDowell vs Armand Assante's team of CIA (I think) along with a Russian duo (who are likable, but not overly competent). They play a cat and mouse game, but it's hard to know what exactly is going on.

It does suffer from a bad English dubbing, but there are worse. Much much worse. It's passable. The real problem is all the dull scenes. Cut it out and it would have been a good movie. As is, it's worth a watch, but not great.

This sounded like a really interesting movie from the blurb. Nazis, occult , government conspiracies. I was expecting a low budget Nazi version of the DaVinci code or the Boys from Brazil or even Shockwaves. Instead you get something quite different, more psychological, more something like from David Lynch. That was actually a plus. But the way the story is told is just awful.

Part of the trouble is the casting. Andrienne Barbeau's character starts off the moving being somewhat timid and afraid. She just doesn't do that well, even at her age, though she certainly tried. The actor cast as the son apparently thought this was a comedy. Most of the other actors also seemed to have thought this was a campy movie, or at least acted like it, rather than simply being quirky. The only one that I thought did really well was the daughter, Siri Baruc.

Another big part is the pacing. It starts off very slowly. So slowly you might be tempted to turn it off. But then it gets compelling for a while when you get to the daughter's suicide and the aftermath. But shortly afterward, it all becomes a jumbled mess. Some of this was on purpose, but much of it was just needlessly confusing, monotonous, and poorly focused.

The real problem, is it's simply not a pleasant movie to watch. It's slow, dull, none of the characters are likable. Overuse of imagery and sets. Some movies you see characters get tortured. In this, it's the viewer that does. It does have a few creepy moments, most notably the creepy Nazi paintings and the credits, but the rest of the movie is mostly just tiresome.

Army of Darkness can be considered a cult classic, so I guess it's surprising we haven't seen more ripoffs of it. However, I can't imagine we'd ever see one like this.

To those that haven't seen Army of Darkness, a regular wisecracking Joe with a shotgun is accidentally teleported into medieval/dark ages times and must save the inhabitants there with a combination of future know how, leadership abilities and fighting ability from a supernatural evil.

It was a silly movie, but worked because Bruce Campbell has charm and wit, and the script was genuinely funny.

Replace Bruce Campbell with Stephen Baldwin and replace the Evil Dead with Harpies. Replace the claymation low budget special effects with blue screen special effects straight from a shopping mall vendor or amusement park. And take out the witty banter and one liners and replace them with dialogue that makes the worst dubbed Italian film seem like Shakespeare. Watch at your own peril. About the only redeeming feature is the female lead, who isn't much of an actor, but is attractive, in a mid 30s sort of way.

I rented this from Netflix because I have always have had a strong interest in UFOs. I didn't expect much from it, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The blurb for the movie almost tells too much, the movie itself starts with 3 rural looking folk hunting an alien in the woods. The movie really starts when they catch one - just what do they do with it? That's what the movie deals with, coping with the captured alien and revealing the back-story. Rather than using flashbacks, the back-story is told in bits & pieces in regular conversation. You kind of have to piece things together yourself, which I found to be fun. But even by the end, you'll still be wondering about a lot of things.

The acting was really good (except the female lead), as was the characterization. To a certain extent the characters were stereotypes, but at the same time, they were believable ones. And for that matter, likable, which always ups the tension in a horror movie, because you start to care about the characters.

The special effects were also quite good for its presumed budget. Some were pretty gruesome. Also a whole lot of use of bad language, but largely in a believable way.

There are some plot holes, I think, and it's not something you'd want to watch over and over. But very much worth watching once.

The plot of this movie isn't exactly new - young person is chosen for adventure, then faces various trials and tribulations. It's pretty much a staple of mythology in any culture. What makes it interesting is that it's based on Japanese mythology.

Japanese mythology is literally one of the most colorful in the world. So a movie based on it really needs to be vivid to do that mythology justice. And here, this movie really succeeds. The various Yokai or goblins or critters are portrayed exceptionally well.

Where it really doesn't work well is as a movie. It's difficult for children to be the main character of a movie, because frankly, children are obnoxious. It can be done. Unfortunately, that's not the case here, the main character in this is really obnoxious, very whiny and wimpish. I supposed it's supposed to make the viewer sympathetic, but he's just so wimpish, you are more likely to yell at him for being such a loser.

I could excuse this if the movie were aimed at children, but I cannot believe it's meant for them, because it would scare the hell out of them. Even the nice Yokai are incredibly creepy and would give them nightmares for months, if not years. Also some scenes of graphic violence, and well, the secondary villain is incredibly sexy and is also perhaps not appropriate for children (might jump start boys into puberty).

Also, like some of Miike's movies, this is drawn out too long in some parts, but then rush too much in others. Nice cinematography, though. Probably more enjoyable to just watch it with the sound off and just enjoy the visuals.

This is one of those movies that had a lot of potential, but just didn't quite live up to it. It's apparently loosely based on that crazy doomsday cult in Japan that used Sarin gas - but in this case, the cult is much more competent, and received military training from Russia. The opening is of the cult's military trained members fighting a Japanese SWAT (or SDU as they call it) team, which has one survivor (one half of the main duo in the film).

But then the leader gets captured in Hong Kong. So the cult wants him free. The Japanese want to extradite him. So both the Japanese cop and the cult visit Hong Kong. There the Japanese cop joins forces with a Hong Kong cop who sort of goes rogue, because he screwed things up somewhat, and because he's angry with how the lady cop who is in charge of the case is running things. Meanwhile the cult members start working on a big sarin gas bomb, in order to force the Hong Kong authorities to release the cult leader. And the lady cop handles tracking down the cult, but doesn't seem too concerned by things.

Part of the trouble is that the action is often told from 3 viewpoints - the cult members, that of the duo, and that of the regular police (led by a lady cop). This can be confusing, and apparently one reviewer missed why the duo visited a school that the cultists were using as a base (they didn't stop randomly, they heard a police report).

Also, since it's apparently a Japanese-Hong Kong production, language difficulties add some weirdness to it. The Hong Kong cop speaks Chinese, which gets subtitled okay. But the Japanese cop (and sometimes the Hong Kong cop lady and a few others) speak English, but is sometimes not the right words (or phrased oddly), and often is different from the subtitles. That doesn't help things.

But the real problem is the action. There are a lot of gunfights, but somewhat they aren't as exciting as it should be. It's hard to put my finger on exactly, I guess for one, there really isn't a huge body count, at least not among the bad guys. But for another, the ending part of the movie involves a hostage situation, and there's just so many hostages, it's hard to see what is going on.

I think there are a lot of comparisons to be made with John Woo's "Hard Boiled". Especially the ending. I wouldn't say this mimics that exactly, some aspects seem borrowed from Die Hard as well, but it falls far short of either movie. A lot of people get killed in it, but it's not overly bloody. There are some rather disturbing scenes of how people are killed, so definitely not something you want children to watch.

I liked it, and the story is original enough that I didn't know what the ending was going to be like, but probably wouldn't want to watch it again.

I don't know if this is actually supposed to be true (like "Fire in the Sky"), or the "true" part is just for dramatic purposes. Either way, it plays out mostly like a horror movie. You start with a group of shallow, mostly attractive young people. They manage to wreck their RV in a deserted place, running into Jason Connery (who does an impressive job of acting and looking like a rural American).

It's actually an okay movie until the ending. When it really turns into a bad-ish horror movie more than anything else. It's not so much even the clichéd nature of it, but the fact that it is so rushed. Much of the movie is simply the various characters talking, then boom, all the action seems to happen at once (in the final 20 minutes of the film). No suspense or anything, really, once it starts.

The special effects are surprisingly good for what presumably was a very low budget movie. The blood actually looks like blood, not syrup. The aliens are generally never clearly seen which helps, but when they are, they don't necessarily look like guys in suits.

While watching the film though, I was really struck by how silly the aliens were acting. (This is perhaps because it is a "true" story, famed UFOlogist Jaques Vallee argues that UFOs are not aliens from another planet, because they seem to act so stupid.) Anyway, probably not worth getting unless you are a Jason Connery fan. I really don't think it works that well as a horror movie because of the rushed ending. And I don't think UFO fans will be too impressed either, because nothing is really new in it. It's basically like a more gruesome "Fire in the Sky".

This is basically a modern day attempt at recreating the 50s and 60s style Kaiju (ie, big monster) movies from Japan through the use of computer animation. For the most part, it works very well, although because the computer models are actually better actors than the real ones in the old movies, it doesn't have a campy feel, more of a serious one.

It's only about 27 minutes, but some places indicate it as being longer. Since it's not that long, there's not much of a setup, basically it's the future, mankind is in space, then all of a sudden, a monster from Mars falls to the surface for reasons that aren't clear. Then there is a short-ish battle between it and a giant robot.

Very neat idea, but suffers from not being longer. Kaiju fans will find it to be a novelty, but most people won't really find it worth a rental...

I just saw this on DVD and I honestly haven't laughed so much in a long time. This is a very funny, very silly, very stupid movie, one that is a parody of various other Hong Kong films (and a few non-HK films as well, like Pulp Fiction and the Transporter).

The main character played by Ronald Cheng, is a slacker of sorts, who suddenly is told by a trio of beautiful women that he is actually an undercover cop, but has apparently lost his memory. He's enlisted to infiltrate the organization of a triad boss, also played by Ronald Cheng (though this isn't obvious, the two characters look a lot different).

He does this for a while, but then apparently in effort to parody a bunch of other movies, it takes some very strange plot twists, basically involving his friendship with his large (somewhat Sammo Hung-esquire character) roommate, who has a crush on one of the lady cops.

But he's then drawn back into working for the police again as an undercover mole in the crime organization, and it starts to again parody a different sort of movie genre (which I don't want to spoil).

It's just really all over the place. It really is like Scary Movie or Airplane where they take a bunch of other movies and sort of make a pastiche out of them. If you haven't seen those movies, you won't get the parody aspect of it, but there are a numerous sight gags and just the main character acting dumb. By no means high brow comedy.

There are some action scenes, but these are parodies as well. While the action scenes are extremely well done and impressive, they are very much over the top and clearly meant to parody action movies. Especially cool is the bullet camera parody.

Don't expect a serious movie out of this, in terms of plot or characters. The plot makes little sense because so many elements are parodies, and the characters similarly are taken from other movies. Check your brain at the door. The opening sight gag making fun of Initial D clearly tells you to.

I borrowed this from Netflix, while browsing the foreign films section. It listed it as being based on a famous case in Brazil where 2 UFO contactees (people who think aliens have contacted and talked to them) were found dead wearing lead masks. Which I had read about, and was intrigued it got turned into a movie.

Alas, Netflix kind of got it wrong. It's only very loosed based on that (mostly in that there were 2 people involved), it's actually perhaps more derived from the UMMO case, which was mostly in Spain. Basically people got mysterious notes and such purporting to be from aliens, along with technical info on UFOs and some supposedly advanced technological devices.

Anyway, the movie deals with two men. One is a young man who seemingly has a decent life. Decent job, attractive girlfriend, friends. But he has a thing for UFOs. And he suffers from some other personal problems. While his girlfriend is hot, she's also a tease, and he is preyed upon by a middle aged fat women who is after his body. He doesn't like it, but nevertheless, after being led on but then rejected by his GF, has to slake his lust with her.

He meets another UFO buff, who also has a pretty good life. Solid job as a machinist (or something in a factory), but something of an idealist and an outcast. They bond, and they go to a couple of UFO events. Then they run into trouble, and well, any more and I would give away the ending. But it's both unexpected and not.

Kind of a long movie, but it really does do a great job of portraying what the whole UFO contactee scene is like (Even though it's set in 70s Spain, it's little different than the contactee scene in the US). There's lots of little nice touches in the film. For instance, lights flickering mysteriously in some scenes. And while it's very much fiction, it's also very much based on what actual contactees are like. If you've read Jaques Vallee's Confrontions/Dimensions/Revelations trilogy, you will see it conforms exactly to his observations of them (which also tally with my personal experiences of them).

The acting is excellent, the actors really bring their characters to life, even the ones with small roles, as is the cinematography (unfortunately, the DVD I got was the Full Frame version, but the movie really looked nice). It's not a comedy, but there are a few amusing bits.

I'm not sure most people will like it, but if you are familiar with Jacques Vallee's work, it's almost a must see. People who like personal dramas will also probably like it. There's no action or suspense, really, and the supernatural aspects are more puzzling than anything else.

This is a review of the DVD version.

Basically it's a tale of Bloodrayne, a dhampir (half-human, half vampire, popularized by Blade, but actually a real legend, albeit in real folklore they could just sense vampires, they didn't have superhuman strength) who basically wants revenge on her vampire father, Ben Kingsly. She's being pursued by the forces of her father, along with a trio of vampire hunters headed by Michael Madsen and Michelle Rodriguez, who she eventually joins forces with.

It's set in the 16th Century, but is hardly historically accurate (and as an adaption of a video game, it was hardly meant to be). The movie is rather jerky, in that it doesn't transition smoothly from scene to scene, but there are leaps in what's going on. Little to no characterization, either. In a way, it reminds me a lot of Tsui Hark's movies. And like his movies, this movie actually looks very nice, cinematographically. Some really vivid colors, landscapes, etc.

There's quite a bit of fighting scenes and quite a bit of gore, but the fighting is all very fake looking.

On the surface the cast is pretty decent, but Michelle Rodriguez is the only one who actually acts or at least, takes it seriously. The lead actress seems to be a female version of Keanu Reeves - she has two expressions - confused and blank. Michael Madsen just is hard to take serious in a role like this. Meat Loaf looked like he had fun, mostly he just rolled about and fondled a gaggle of Romanian prostitutes, which I guess would be enjoyable.

It's not a terrible movie, just a fairly standard B movie. Not unlike something put out by Hammer studios in the early 70s, combined with the sword & sorcery movies of the early 80s. Possibly worth a rental if you are into such movies, but definitely not worth buying.

The advertising blurb for the movie said it was "a Japanese take on a classic spaghetti Western", and sure enough, it is. Although that genre actually has its roots in various samurai films, most notably Yojimbo, this movie definitely seems to draw more from Segion Leone's westerns.

The plot is largely "Once Upon a Time in the West", except instead of Charles Bronson, the person wanting revenge is a young lady, Saki, played by the very attractive Ryoko Yonekura. Then it sort of switches to "A Fistful of Dollars" for a while, has a brief "A Good, the Bad and the Ugly" interlude, then goes back to "Once Upon a Time...". The ending is pretty original It's enjoyable, but the production values are pretty low. While it tries to emulate the style of HK gun-play, it comes off more as a community theater level of special effects/stunts/gun-play.

With better action choreography, better gun effects, and the movie just filled out more (it's only about 65 minutes), it would have been a much better movie.

Tsui Hark is a great cinematographer. As a director, though, his movies tend to suffer from two things - jerkiness and confusion. The latter usually stems from the former, that is, scenes often lack any sort of transition, but are put together too abruptly. So it can be hard to figure out just what the heck is going on, nor does it let the plot sink in. He tends to focus more on visuals than trying to convey a coherent story.

Time & Tide definitely suffers from his trademark style. It's often tricky to follow just what is happening. That said, there is a very good movie in here, although the main character, the young punk bodyguard, is not particularly likable.

The action scenes are quite unique, especially the fight in the tenement apartment building. I don't think I've seen anything like that.

On the down side, some of the movie, the parts trying to fill out the lives of the 2 main heroes and their pregnant women was sort of a snoozer and something of a cheap way to make the characters more interesting.

This is one of those movies that looks promising. But it really lets that promise down. It's neither good or bad good (in the campy sense), merely very very boring. And that's how a film really fails.

The apparent aim was to make a campy sort of movie - you have a cast of ridiculous characters seemingly out of various animated comedies like Sealab, King of the Hill and possibly South Park. You have one bald guy who likes to dress like a priest, another guy who wears army fatigues (and looks like the guy who mutters from King of the Hill), a goofy Science Teacher, another bald guy who wears a deck of cards on his arm.

The trouble is, none of the concepts really works. All of the actors play their roles too tightly, and it comes off as more pretentious than anything else. The only exception would be the campus cop leader.

The plot apparently revolves around a romantic dispute over a guy in drag. This was when I started putting the DVD player on "x4". Nothing much happens, but near the end we get sort of a surreal sort of fight with a guy painted blue and wearing a helmet and everyone else.

While Doom wasn't the first popular first person shooter for the PC, it was the first one that was a phenomenon, the followup to id's Castle Wolfenstein.

Basically, you played a marine on Mars sent to investigate why a base had suddenly gone quiet. All the other Marines went ahead and never came back so it was up to you. Eventually you discovered that somehow a gateway to hell had been opened, and the base invaded by demons and devils The recent remake of the game, Doom III, actually put you (the player) inside the bad while all hell was breaking lose.

This movie follows the original game's plot, a team sent to investigate, but changes the demons from hell to pretty much just zombies. I had to say it, but if you've seen any zombie movie, you've pretty much seen this.

That said, it has a lot going for it. The characterization is actually well done, the acting is good, the special effects are slick. Just driven down by a clichéd plot.

Someone else commented that the plot of demons from Hell was changed to zombies so as to not offend Christians, but the opposite is far more likely. If they didn't want to offend Chrisians, they wouldn't have added a crazy Christian character who likes to cut himself whenever he takes God's name in vain (gee, that's not offensive or anything). I suspect they changed it from Hell and demons to zombies to be more secular, as the screenwriters view of what a Chrisian is like is obviously the crazy guy, even though I don't think any Christian is actually like that.

It's a shame that Hollywood let it's anti-Christian bias ruin an otherwise pretty good movie. Not that Doom had a really sensible plot, but it sure made a heck of a lot more sense than the one in this.