Search

Search only in certain items:

Monster Trucks (2016)
Monster Trucks (2016)
2016 | Animation
7
4.8 (6 Ratings)
Movie Rating
It’s safe to say that movies nowadays are either remakes of beloved classic movies, based off a book, or are a sequel. Original ideas and story lines are few and far between. When I first heard about this so-called movie Monster Trucks, I thought it was going to be about those hug trucks you see at Monster Jam shows driving over cars with their loud engines entertaining crowds. This film is far from anything of the sort. It’s based off the idea from a 4 year old about monster trucks actually having monsters in the trucks.
Set in a small oil drilling town in North Dakota, Tripp (Lucas Till), a troubled high school student, befriends an extraterrestrial squid-like creature that takes up residence in the hood of Tripp’s truck. After an accident occurs at a nearby drilling site displacing this creature, it doesn’t take long for the oil company to realize if they don’t locate this creature, they will have to cease drilling which affects their bottom line. With the help of his friend Meredith (Jane Levy), Tripp realizes he must take his new friend back to his home before the villainous oil company CEO ( Rob Lowe) catches them.
If you take the movie for what it is: trucks, monsters, friends, and good guy/bad guys-it’s an entertaining film with some great laugh out loud moments that also attempts to tug at the heartstrings from a pair of unlikely friends. Dig deeper and try to analyze every piece of the movie, you’ll only see the outlandish, unrealistic, and far fetch concept with underdeveloped character relationships. All in all, I enjoyed the film. The friendship between Tripp and the creature he named Creech was similar to that of Elliott and E.T. with less drama. It brought me back to my childhood. It taught my son the meaning of friendship, sacrifice, and loyalty.
  
Four's a crowd
Twenty-sixth Godzilla movie (also eleventh Mothra movie, eighth Ghidorah movie and third Baragon movie, in case anyone's counting) recruits director Shusuke Kaneko, helmsman of the brilliant 90s Gamera trilogy; results are (perhaps inevitably) disappointing. A new incarnation of Godzilla threatens Japan, but a young tabloid TV journalist encounters a mysterious old man in an equestrian safety helmet who tells her of three legendary Guardian Monsters who will defend the country against this menace (Baragon is also a Guardian Monster but not famous enough to get his name in the title).

Some interesting innovations: first film to address (even obliquely) issues of Japanese culpability for events of the Second World War, first film where King Ghidorah is a good guy, first film with a scene set in Godzilla's intestinal tract. However, the end result is let down by a fatally uncertain tone - seemingly serious scenes of death and carnage are intercut with knockabout cheesy humour and in-jokes (in the English dub at least). The retro feel of the movie, hearkening back to the 60s films of the series, is not unwelcome, but its take on the formula is just plain weird. Most importantly it lacks the mythic grandeur of the Kaneko Gamera trilogy. Still better than the films which immediately preceded it, though.
  
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
1954 | Horror
8
6.7 (10 Ratings)
Movie Rating
The Last Classic Monster
Creature From The Black Lagoon- is the last monster of the classic universal monsters. And its sad. Its sad, to see the classic universal monster, last movie. This creature is scary, terrorfying and horrorfying.

The plot: Remnants of a mysterious animal have come to light in a remote jungle, and a group of scientists intends to determine if the find is an anomaly or evidence of an undiscovered beast. To accomplish their goal, the scientists (Antonio Moreno, Richard Carlson, Richard Denning, Whit Bissell) must brave the most perilous pieces of land South America has to offer. But the terrain is nothing compared to the danger posed by an otherworldly being that endangers their work and their lives.

Creature from the Black Lagoon was filmed in 3D and originally projected by the polarized light method. The audience wore viewers with gray polarizing filters, similar to the viewers most commonly used today. Because the brief 1950s 3D film fad had peaked in mid-1953 and was fading fast in early 1954, many audiences actually saw the film "flat", in 2D. Typically, the film was shown in 3D in large downtown theaters and flat in smaller neighborhood theaters.

For marketing reasons, a comedic appearance with Abbott and Costello on an episode of The Colgate Comedy Hour aired prior to the film's release. The appearance is commonly known as Abbott and Costello Meet the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Ben Chapman reprised his role as the Gill-Man for the program.

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

2001: AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – Nominated

2003: AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:
Gill-man – Nominated Villain

Iike i said a classic universal monster.
  
40x40

Awix (3310 KP) rated The Gorgon (1964) in Movies

Feb 10, 2018 (Updated Feb 10, 2018)  
The Gorgon (1964)
The Gorgon (1964)
1964 | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
5
6.0 (2 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Every Day a Bad Hair Day
Hammer horror from the studio's imperial phase, with the period setting and star names (Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing) that might lead one to expect something quite distinguished. However, the premise is such an odd one - a monster from Greek mythology is lurking in German-occupied Europe, petrifying the unwary - that the film-makers really struggle to know what to do with it, settling in the end for a story structure partly knocked off from the less interesting kind of werewolf movie.

Well-directed in parts, with some good imagery and set piece scenes, but the movie struggles to give the cast the material they deserve and the meandering and repetitive storyline can only charitably be described as a plot. All a bit bleak and cheerless; inevitably comes across as slightly misogynistic too.
  
King Kong (2005)
King Kong (2005)
2005 | Action
Audacious film-maker attempts to mount spectacular entertainment featuring giant ape, finds he's bitten off more than he can chew - handily, this covers both the plot of King Kong and the movie itself. The equivalent of one of those bloated Harry Potter books written when JK Rowling was so successful no-one was brave enough to say 'this needs an edit': movie is exhaustingly long with a lot of dead wood in every department.

Main problem is that Jackson and his co-writers seem to think they are making Titanic rather than a pulp monster movie: this film takes itself very, very seriously considering the subject matter; sorely needs a sense of humour. Only really comes to life in the big set-piece CGI sequences, most of which are original to this film - Jackson is obviously having fun during the sauropod stampede and the bit with the giant man-eating crabs, not so much the rest of the time. Technically superior in every department to the 1976 version, but still less entertaining somehow.
  
40x40

Justin (2 KP) rated Power Rangers (2017) in Movies

Feb 2, 2018 (Updated Feb 2, 2018)  
Power Rangers (2017)
Power Rangers (2017)
2017 | Action, Sci-Fi
Not much (0 more)
80% teen angst and 20% of what you wanted to see (0 more)
Meh
I dont get what this movie is trying to do. I kinda grew up with the original power rangers so the last thing i need from a movie based on them is loads of screen time taken up by character introduction. You could well argue that its targeted at a younger audience who might not have experienced the shows and latter movies first time round. But i would imagine they would have been as dissappointed and bored as i was by the majority of the movie being character intro and development and barely any of the fast action monster arse kicking that both us oldies and the younger generation would be expecting to see. Skip to the last half hour and you have a great high budget episode. Or just watch the trailer and see the last half hour condensed into a teaser that cons you out of your time/money into thinking youll get that throughout. Either way avoid like the plague.