Bit-size impressions: Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever

Okey.. Ballistic is about Sever (Lucy Liu), a rogue DOA trained-from-childhood agent who kidnaps the DOA leader's son (or possibly FBI leader? He commands DOA agents, but he has a FBI back-story, so..?) as revenge for his involvement in the bombing of her family, and Ecks (Antonio Banderas), a former FBI-agent who's called back to active duty to hunt Sever who he thinks has information about his not-really-at-all missing wife, and some missing nano-bots I thought were brain-control bots, but seemed to be internal assassination bots? And then enemies turn out to be friends and friends turn out to be enemies and the bad guy is married to Ecks wife and the kid might not be the bad guy's son, but is carrying a nano-bot, and, and..

I was trying! I was genuinely trying to pay attention to the plot, I gave this movie my full attention, but it's just. so. boring! It's like the movie is actively -trying- to make you disinterested.

The camera-work and cinematography feel like a tv-movie, the acting is non-existent, the pyrotechnics are all flash and no bang, the "action" is laughable, the editing is incompetent, the story is convoluted and overly-complicated... and I just put more into this review than anyone did during this production.

Towards the end of the movie Lucy Liu and a DOA hench-man throw down their weapons to have a martial-arts fight-off, and you just sit there baffled that the movie still thinks it can get away with a scene like that.

After sitting through one and a half hour of this nothingness I wasn't angry, I wasn't annoyed, I wasn't even disappointed, I literally felt nothing. I just went "well, that was boring, lets watch something else."

A 2002 full cinema-release action movie with Lucy Liu and Antonio Banderas.

Do. Not. Watch.

Bit-size impressions: Journey to the Center of the Earth

Asylum's "answer" to "why is the whole exploration force women?" seem to be "why can't they all be women? Are you sexist?" Well played Asylum, well played.
This makes their Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008) movie the highest number of female leads vs male I've seen in a long while.. 

A California science/military institute is doing a teleportation experiment, planning to send our group of women to (I assume) a similar institute in Stuttgart, Germany. Instead the team end up in the center of the earth, where they're chased by a T-Rex, poisoned by plants and hunted by huge spiders. Fortunately the sister of the team leader (and the experiment head's ex girl-friend) has a huge drill that's already dug deeper than ever before, so she and the experiment head set out to dig their way into the core to save the team.

The movie itself is okey - a bit boring in places, but passable entertainment. Most of the leads do decent performances (besides the blonde, dainty soldier. How did you get on this mission?!?), the special effects are adorably bad and the story is okey. Props for smearing the women in gunk and not keeping them pretty while they're escaping dangers and spider webs (and the same running footage... Every time..). 

The single male lead was the only one who got out spot free, so to speak, so it was almost like he was the designated eye-candy. ^^
I wish they'd explained the tough girl's infatuation with the blond one, as it was never clear if she was bullying her because she liked her, or because she had PTSD..

And please, for the love of God, give Dedee Pfeiffer better directing on what to do with her hands, or tie them down! *glasses on, glasses off, glasses on, glasses off, pen in mouth, pen out, pen in, pen out..* She was a slave to her props in most of the exposition scenes!


At least it was better than the 2008 Brendan Fraser one. I'm -still- pissed at that infuriating "family movie", where we spend most of the movie following the underage teenage nephew creepily hit on the adult woman who's there to be their guide.

Bit-size impressions: Battle of the Damned (2013)

Dolph Lundgren (Max Gatling) is sent into a quarantined Malaysia(?) to rescue Jude, the daughter of a high-paying CEO, where she's staying in a mansion? embassy? along with other survivors; "good guy" leader who prefers waiting out the outbreak, scientist who keeps insisting they're NOT zombies, white dress girl with the hots for Gatling, jogging girl (why is she always jogging?!) and wannabe samurai Elvis.
At first they're less than thrilled by Gatling's mission to get out of the zone, but when Jude's "big secret" is revealed everyone(citation needed) bands together to get her out as soon as possible.

-Non-zombies might not understand how corners work, but they're amazing at stair-climbing.

-Random robots show up half-way through the story and have way more personality and design than the characters.

From the one-dimensional characters to the awkward story, the saddest thing about this action film with stunt men and martial artists in main roles, is that the fight sequences are incredibly boring.

Best line:

(Killer robots from Japan have just shown up and murdered a whole lot of non-zombies)
Gatling: "How did you get here?"
Robot: "We walked"

Christopher Hatton obviously recognizes that his robots (from his previous movie; Robotropolis) are his best feature, so I hope he keeps this up, and I'll end up seeing these robots randomly insert themselves into every movie he makes.

Bit-size impressions: Santa Claws

"Santa Claws" by Asylum is adorable. Santa Claus is allergic to cats (among other things), so when he's given three kittens to take care of, he's incapacitated and the kittens have to take over the job. *squee* 
It's low budget, and it feels like they didn't manage to film all of the scenes, so the plot is inconsistent, but there was no way a pitch like that wouldn't be adorable. 

I especially like the girl who wants to keep the kittens for herself, in her own little corner of hell. 
That kid reveled in that role!

Bit-size impressions: Hudson Hawk

Hudson Hawk (1991) is really one big mess of a movie. Part sight-seeing ad, part heist movie, trying to be a comedy, plot all over the place, while all the actors seem to be confused about just what kind of movie they're playing in, they're definitely not playing the same genre. 

I'll give it credit for making me like David Caruso though, since his silent, absurd character at least surprises me..

Bit-size impressions: My Babysitter's a Vampire - the Series

"My babysitter's a vampire" is a surprisingly good kid/teen series. I think it's a nickelodeon series or something (I watched it on Netflix), and although both the concept and the monster of the week plots are entirely standard, the nerdy characters and how they parody popular culture while being aware of their own unoriginality makes it funny and interesting to watch.

Bit-size impressions: Pitch Perfect (and Bring it On)

I feel so out of character, not only did I rent a movie on play store, we watched a "girl" movie. Having said that, Pitch Perfect was really fun, but totally carried by its secondary characters (fat Amy, Benji, Asian girl), and while I thought this movie was better then Bring it On overall, I think Bring it On did the "outsider girl being forced into a community group, getting friends, falling out and reinventing the group" plot better.

And I so cared more about Benji's side story than anything else. So happy when he was *spoiler*. 
The songs are great. Planning on seeing Pitch Perfect 2 (and I want to watch Bring it On, again..)

Bit-size impressions: Cat. 8

The "category" series (it's not a series at all, just 3 disaster mini-series all based around "category" disaster warnings) have gotten progressively higher budget, better actors and more unrealistic. Cat. 8 was a straight up spaghetti sci-fi, with a villainy defense Secretary and one of the smartest presidents I've seen (after they killed the president in a really stupid accident and upgraded the vice-president).


I preferred Category 6. Its bad acting and insane dialogue was at least funny. This one just annoyed me with its "science".

(and yes, I do on purpose watch all the (bad) sci-fi and disaster b-movies on Netflix, so I do know what I'm getting myself into)

The Elf who didn't Believe

Wow, "the elf who didn't believe".. Shoe string budget, director, writer and most actors from soft core films and the most annoying score I've ever heard. 
There was a semblance of a good story in there, but it wasn't developed, and the actors that did a good job seemed to just be acting in their own little world. 

Still amusing enough because of the over the top evil "Mr. Slick" and the incredibly sarcastic butler "Whitlock". 
Also, the slapstick elements at the end were surprisingly good.

Bit-size impressions: Make Mine Music

Rewatching for the nth time for Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet with the Andrew Sisters and The Whale who wanted to sing at the Met with the amazing Nelson Eddy. 
I'll never get tired of these gems.

Bit-size impressions: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

No likey. Stupid food puns. No plot. :(

Bit-size impressions: The Hunters

Some glimts of good acting in this B youth movie. Keenan Tracey does a great job! 

Sort of a teenage Warehouse 13/Spy kids movie.

Bit-size impressions: A Monster in Paris

The script is very easy, and the object design is really poor, but the songs are great and the world design is amazing. It's worth watching just for the overview designs. 

I just wish I could see it with the original voices, the dubbing ruins so many of the characters.

Bit-size impressions: Space Chimps

Argh, bad animation, stereotypical characters, horrible, horrible script. 
Might end up making my 'worst animation movies' list unless this story picks up.

(In a rather damning indictment, I can't remember if it did)

Bit-size impressions: Flood

David Suchet, sneaky, murderous waves, intricate family connections and really stupid Americans (horrible accent!)
Aah, British version of these catastrophy B mini-series.

Bit-size impressions: Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Del Toro always has some plot issues, but his art direction and creature designs are second to none.
And I love Perlman's Hellboy and Jones' Abe.

Bit-size impressions: Cat. 7: The End of the World

Well, this went from a catastrophy movie grounded in science with too many characters and weak script (cat 6) to a pure sci-fi mess with Horror shooting. 
Stop with the fancy editing!

Bit-size impressions: Inkheart

This genre is one of my guilty pleasures. I will always watch children's fantasy movies. 
It has some balancing issues, and Brendan Fraser is weak, but the overall story is good.

Bit-size impressions: Jack the Giant Slayer

Cliché script, extremely referential and horrible main actors, but the supplemental cast makes it worth watching.

Bit-size impressions: Cat. 6: Day of Destruction

Don't know what to think of this mini-series. The script is horrible and the direction is wooden, but there's so many good actors in it! ‪Thomas Gibson‬ does a great job, even though his scripted conversations make his character an egocentric asshole (doesn't seem to be on purpose). 

So many characters, and sort of, but not really intertwining story-line, and totally evil boyfriend, and..