Transmorphers - More than meets the eye, but your eyes will hurt

I'll always prefer movies/creators that try to do way more than they have the capability to and therefore fail miserably, over movies that just couldn't be bothered trying more than the bare minimum (I'm looking at you Birdemic, the only movie (so far) I've ever rated a "1" on IMDB), and Transmorphers definitely falls into that first category.

This Asylum mockbuster, trying to look like Transformers (released the same year), is actually in the vein of Matrix/Cleopatra 2525 with elements from Demolition Man, Blade Runner, Star Wars, Terminator and Transformers (the animated ones), and some (inadvertent) social commentary.

- A hundred years after mankind blew up the skies to combat the rising army of robots, the remaining humans have been surviving under the earth, keeping a stale-mate by not engaging the robots, and prosecuting anyone who suggests fighting. Finally scientists think they have found a way to fight back, but the team sent out to test the new device were all slaughtered. Seeing no other option, the military defrosts known pro-war vigilante Warren Mitchell and his friend "Itchy" to launch a final, desperate attack at the robot overlords. But is there more to Mitchell than meets the eye?

The script is trying way, way too hard, with so many sub-plots and characters that it's hard to keep up (I only mentioned about half the plot threads in my summary), not to mention the amateur editing that rhythmically flashes "lightning bolts" at you and runs both the sound effects and the music over the voices when we're outside making it impossible to hear what anyone is saying (which unfortunately is almost half the movie), and yet, there's a certain charm to the whole thing.
While none of the plot elements are unique or new, the way the story is grafted together is pretty well done, and the lesbian sub-plot (from not having enough male lead actors) blends quite well with the futuristic, dystopian setting (though she is a really bad general). It just doesn't have time to develop any of the story threads since it's basically forcing 5 films into 1.

The ending is genuinely almost good, and Matthew Wolf as Mitchell is head and shoulders above Asylum's usual actor quality, while Griff Furst (Itchy), Sarah Hall (trooper), and Shaley Scott (crazy person, see above) all deliver quite entertaining performances.

If you can handle the headache-inducing flashing and the inept sound editing, and like different takes on known sci-fi plots, this asylum mock-up is actually worth a watch.

P.S - Leigh Scott, you can overlay the countdown over all the scenes, even when we switch to people/places where the countdown wouldn't be heard. We would understand that it's an editing choice to bring all the different plot elements together.

Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008) review/love letter

It is not often I watch a movie and go "why have I never heard about this one before, it is amazing!", knowing there and then that the movie will become one of my new favourite things, but that's exactly what happened when I watched Starship Troopers 3.
I was one of the people who really liked Starship Troopers the movie, and I still credit it for stopping the incredibly annoying "these bad aliens are attacking the earth because they're aliens"-trope films like Independence day and Titan AE perpetuated. But, any interest I had in the subversion and social commentary alluded to in first movie was extinguished by the travesty of a body-snatcher "horror film" Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation. Bleh.

Marauder is the third film in the series by writer Ed Neumeier, and the first one he directed himself  - apparently to firmly answer once and for all the debate over whether the first movie was a satire or not.
Marauder just ramps everything up; the satire, the social commentary, the propaganda, the mass-manipulation, the "to defeat our enemy we're becoming our enemy", humans still underestimating the bugs, people benefiting from the war going on forever as both sides try to vanquish each other completely instead of trying to find a compromise.. He even brings in the Mech suits and the planet-destroying bomb fans of the books wanted in the first film.

It takes some time to understand the tone of Marauder, it keeps jumping from over-the-top, comedic propaganda broadcasts to the bloody reality of war, but as we progress the propaganda clips build a more and more ironic view of the Federation, as we see both the glossy outward image, and the behind-the-scenes scheming.
I really appreciated that the movie took its loss and combat seriously, keeping the comedy in the dialogue and non-life threatening parts. There are of course weaknesses to the movie - the budget is low, some of the actors really struggle to pronounce their lines and the dialogue in itself is trying a bit too hard to be cool (also Casper Van Dien plays one scene great - the meeting his old friend/bar struggle is really well done - and then he sort of phones it in for the rest of the movie), and the movie flounders revealing the (by then) rather obvious plot twist - but everything is alleviated by the amazing over-the-top performances of Stephen Hogan as the Sky Marshall and Amanda Donohoe as the wannabe new sky marshall. No matter what the rest of the movie had been, I would probably have recommended it anyway just for those two. You need to see Hogan's slow reveal of his character's true motivations, it's masterful.

I still do not understand why this one isn't a more well-known cult film, it seems like it should appeal to people who like movies like Stranger than Fiction, Thank you for Smoking, Cradle will Rock - subversive films that deal with human motivation and how we can be manipulated.
One theory is that the movie can be read as both highly pro-religion -and- highly anti-religion. I'm still not sure what the writer/director was going for, but I'd say it's pretty safe to say the movie is anti-organized religion, and it can definitely be read as anti-military - all highly controversial subjects a lot of movie viewers seem to react negatively to (at least that's what I've concluded from reading IMDB comments over the years. People hate both religious films and anti-religious films, and don't you dare say anything negative about the military).
It is not being subtle about it either. In fact, it is being so unsubtle about its symbolism that it is rather genius, culminating in two of the main characters getting engaged in front of an exploding planet.
In the end the humans won a small victory, all our main characters have been subdued into new positions, and the Federation is ready to keep fighting the "righteous", never-ending war, now with a new weapon in their arsenal, in the most depressing happy ending I've ever seen.

It. Is. Glorious.

"In related news; peace terrorist Elmo Gonif and 51 of his closest friends where hung this morning, in what many believe to be the all-time record for executions in a single day since the 21th century!"

Also, it has boobs.

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.

Ice Twisters review

Ice Twisters is a 2009 Canadian made-for-TV movie that can best be described as an episode of Castle - if the episode was a low-budget disaster movie set in one of Castle's books.
Main protagonist Charlie (Mark Moses) is a former scientist turned disaster novel writer, who's coincidentally doing a book signing/film interview in the same general area that the FSF (Federal Science Foundation) is testing their weather drones, that revolutionary can generate rain clouds, not just seed them. Of course, the experiment generates a freak storm at the book signing, and Charlie runs into his former love-interest/assistant Joanne (Camille Sullivan) - now the main scientist behind the weather drones - and forces himself onto their investigation. After another storm Joanne wants to pull the plug on the experiment, but we soon find out that the government official in charge and the other scientist have conspired and locked them out of the drone control program. The heroes go rogue, trying to stop the drones while battling worse and worse storms threatening to destroy the entire Portland area.

"We just need to shoot through at the right angle"

The first half of the movie has a surprisingly plausible set-up, with pretty well-written dialogue. Most of the actors both do and say things you could actually accept real people doing (bear in mind I'm comparing this to movies which often have plot-synopses like this: "Stunned, scientist David Koch discovers evidence that it was a shift in the Earth's polarity that triggered the last Ice Age.. In just 24 hours." (from my newly bought 10 disaster movies DVD collection. No I don't know either if it's the ice age or the realization that only took 24 hours..)), and pretty much every scene with the main protagonist (Charlie) is laugh-inducing because of his snarky, arrogant attitude.
The one discrepancy is the government official - Frank, played by Robert Moloney - who apparently decided to show up on set ready to play the main villain in a Bond movie, and nobody dared tone him down. Which is fortunate, because his performance is by far the best thing about the movie, to such a degree that you don't even care that the movie goes off the deep end during the second half.

Romantic sub-plot development, shot by hiding in the grass..?

None of that however explains the weird creeper camera work, where the camera man is often laying on the ground or hiding behind furniture/buildings during exposition or character development scenes. It's like Mark Moses and Robert Moloney thought they were doing a comedy, most of the side-characters thought they'd act somewhere between a biopic and a (poorly acted) drama (besides the aid, who was obviously playing in an action-thriller terrorism movie..), while the cinematographer was making a slasher-movie.

Saving the earth at the University's HAARP facility, framed by the background shelves

The movie ends with the heroes (the ones who survived) walking into the sunset(rise?) and the villain being confronted with his actions - sitting by his desk silently realizing that his job and life is over.
It is cliché-ily beautiful. His performance combined with the Castle-like attitude of Moses' character and the insane disaster shots/deaths in the second part makes most of the movie genuinely entertaining to watch.
If you're looking for a realistic disaster movie, you won't find it here (let me know if you -do- find one), but if you're looking for a silly, low-budget disaster flick, this one is definitely worth considering.
For me the biggest "quality" sign for these types of movies is "would I watch it again?" and for Ice Twisters, that's a definite yes, in fact, it'd probably be one of my pics for a disaster schlock night.

"Good luck in prison"

And Robert Moloney is definitely making my list of  "Ooh, it's that guy again, yay!" actors..

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.

Impressions: I Am Omega

I've been positively surprised by these 2007 era Asylum movies, there's some genuinely good ideas hidden behind the low-budget and shoddy editing/acting, and I am Omega was no different.

First half of the movie details Renchard's solitary life after a zombie/mutant apocalypse, trying to retain as much normality he can - shopping for groceries, keeping up routines, communicating with his "companions" and pretty much pretending everything is okey, while the second half deals with an independent military group who kidnap Renchard and force him to help them get hold of a girl, who might have the "blood"cure to the outbreak.

The second half is a lot weaker than the first half (possibly because it doesn't just directly follow the book? I haven't read "I am Legend", just watched the meh movie), with Geoff Meed (Vincent) interpreting his role as "the most insane, evil, horrifying asshole possible", but even this part has some (terrifyingly, creepy) unique ideas with Vincent almost raping the girl with the corpse of his friend.
(I know. But genuinely unsettling scenes in an Asylum movie? That's worth something)

I'm disquieted just looking at this image, that's how much these scenes stuck with me

It's marred by the same zombie-mutants reappearing after having been killed, repeatedly, but most of all it's lacking a sense of time.
I have no idea how long it's been since Renchard lost his family (seen in the intro) and the zombie apocalypse began. Renchard acts like he hasn't seen a human in a decade when he's first contacted, but that doesn't match the soldiers, who state they used to be part of the military when the outbreak started, and Mike is so young this can't have been more than 5 years ago.
There's also no way to judge how many days passed since Renchard first heard the "skype call" until he finally answers.
And the bombs that're supposed to go off after 24 hours fluctuate wildly in time, lasting at least three nights after the first we see activated.


Best part? Peek-a-boo zombies who inexplicably hide in the sand or wait around out of sight for the best moment to scare the protagonists.

Sharknado has been seen!

So, we finally sat down and watched the “cult B-movie that attracted a whole fan base of not really b-movie fans” and it was.. much better than I expected (in a bad B-movie way). 
I think it manages to straddle the line between wink-wink and just low budget necessity really well, and while there’s some scenes that try too hard, I felt enough of the movie was trying genuinely to make its idiotic script work for it to be entertaining in the “bad B-movie” way. 

Ian Ziering does a surprisingly good job, playing his role totally straight - loving family guy estranged from his wife, and Cassie Scerbo does a passable job as Nova, the action hero of the group. Minus points for killing off the best character in the movie early (George - John Heard!). 

Don’t get me wrong, the movie is bad; stock footage with only passing similarity to where the movie is shot, obvious stationary studio shots when in the car/helicopter (where we spend most of the movie), inconsistent editing, bad dialogue (nobody knows each other’s background/history even though they’re friends/work together), horrible CGI, reused shots (so much repeating!), sharks acting like mindless killing-machines (and shark species from all over the world all fall down in California)… But it’s fun. 

My 2 favourite scenes are: 1. the guy who has his arm bit off by a fly-by shark, falls to the ground and has his leg chomped by another shark, and then, after he’s dead, he’s hit in the face by a Hammerhead shark that fell out of the air. That’s jumping the shark so highly that it works again. 

2. The ending. Not spoiling, but it was exactly what we wanted and where the movie should have gone. It was campy, it was ludicrous and excused everything else. I’d recommend the movie just for that scene. 
Though it should have ended on the “I fucking hate sharks” line. 


We watched “Into the Storm” before this, a high-budget tornado disaster movie, and Sharknado was a lot more enjoyable and memorable. Into the Storm couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a “ramp-up” disaster movie or a character driven lower-budget disaster movie, and ended up being neither. Its storms just don’t have any impact or show any signs of actually being “the biggest tornado ever” (ex: it only uproots specific trees to then throw towards our cast), and there’s no character development to speak of. A camera man who wanted to quit his job does a 180 and decides to sacrifice himself for a dangerous shot and his camera, and the conflict between the father and the youngest son never reaches a climax or solution. 
There’s just nothing there. 

For all of Sharknado’s faults it at least has charm. It feels like it had something to build off of, it’s just that the end result is a mangled mess with “funny because they’re bad” scenes. I’ll take that over big-budget “meh” any day.

Arctic Outbreak/The Thaw review

Arctic Outbreak, or "the Thaw" (real name according to movie and Imdb, no idea why it's been renamed) is... Err.. Hmm. 
The first 40 minutes are bad. Really bad. A boring, preachy drek that insists on not showing you anything that's going on, and skips 2 days forwards over what could have been the most interesting part of the story. 
The second half is too filled with shiny cgi to actually be scary, and the "shock twist" is blatantly obvious if you bothered to stay through the first half. 

And yet.. I kinda like it. The second half is almost a psychological thriller, and even though it falls into some of the common disaster movie tropes (no one ever knows even basic first-aid), it also subverts several of them. 
You so seldom see people willing to take the difficult choices, willing to maim themselves to get rid of infection or sacrifice themselves to save others, and here most of the main characters do, they even react rationally and efficient in crisis situations. The action hero of the story is the most unlikely one, and she makes a choice in the end I've never seen a woman make on film before. 

Most of the actors give decent performances too, notable exception being Val Kilmer, who just couldn't be bothered. 

I just.. There's so much wrong, the editing is bad, the score is manipulative bleh, the movie has no idea if it wants to be a disaster movie, a gross-out horror, a psychological thriller or an environmentalism warning, and yet.. 

I think I like what this movie could have been. If the first half had focused on the 2 days we skipped over; showing the beginning of the infection and them slowly figuring things out, if they'd not had a cgi-budget and had to do everything with props, puppets and prosthetics, if the bug threat had been turned into an invisible horror instead of a overwhelming, always visible thing, and the whole "epidemic as scare that'll finally convince people of the reality of global warming" plot-line had been dropped.. 
There's some really good ideas in there, and good acting performances too, I just wish the final result was something I on good conscience could recommend to others (it's not). 
:S

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)

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: 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: 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..

Bit-size impressions: Mongolian Death Worm

It's not even a B movie, it's a C movie! 
I like Victoria Pratt, but it's almost like they've been asked to act badly. Maybe they only had one take?

World Invasion: Battle LA

So, World Invasion: Battle L.A:

U.S military film with the alien invasion really just being an excuse for fighting in America. Immensely American, patriotic and arrogant (America only country managing to fighting back of 20 cities/countries attacked).

Way too big cast of indistinguishable marines and few known/good actors.

Main role - the staff sergeant carries the film; kamikazes himself through the plot, and is the only one showing some initiative to learn about the aliens.

Token though girl (Michelle Rodriguez) having to prove herself as a worthy soldier.

Not the worst military film I've seen, bot not very unique or creative either.