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Airplane 2 - The Sequel (1982)
Airplane 2 - The Sequel (1982)
1982 | Comedy
Some of the William Shatner stuff is funny, apart from that mostly sucks. This is just the same exact movie as the first one almost beat for beat, but worse. Recycles umpteen jokes from the first film, recycles jokes from itself, then recycles jokes that it already recycled from the first film again... time. and. time. again. Take a shot every time this reuses a joke (which mostly consist of bad 'lol sex funny' gags which wouldn't plague American comedic cinema for at least 20 years after this), rips off the first movie, brings in a previous cast member who clearly doesn't want to be there, or says/does something unfunny - you'll be blackout drunk within 15 minutes, tops. Doubly impressive how this manages to be so limp and forgettable considering it's a supposed sequel to one of the most hilarious and memorable movies of all time. Raw cringe.
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) in Movies

Feb 13, 2018 (Updated Feb 13, 2018)  
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
1982 | Action, Sci-Fi
A Mid-life Crisis, but Not as We Know It
Easily the best of the Trek movies. Made with half-an-eye to concluding the franchise, it ended up revitalising the series for another quarter century.

Old enemy from the TV show is rediscovered, vows revenge on Kirk; many rousing space battles and well-handled character moments ensue. Ricardo Montalban really goes for it as Khan; William Shatner gives a proper movie leading man performance. Relatively low budget is artfully concealed.

Benefits considerably from being willing to acknowledge that everyone has aged since the original TV show; Kirk has to confront the consequences of choices he made as a young man (later movies disregarded the fact the crew were becoming increasingly geriatric). The essential Trek philosophy of optimistic liberal humanism somehow gets a bit lost along the way, but you really don't care as the rest of it is so much fun. Almost unreasonably well-written when you consider the script was done in less than a fortnight.
  
Star Trek Generations (1994)
Star Trek Generations (1994)
1994 | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Seventh big-screen Trek has a kind of contractually-obligatory, cobbled-together feel to it: everyone was expecting them to do something where the old lot met the new lot, so they did, even if it seems like they couldn't come up with much of an actual story to go with it. Various attempts are made to give this story added significance - Data gets his emotion chip, the ship blows up, Worf gets a promotion, recurring characters are killed off - but it all boils down to putting Picard and Kirk together, which happens late on and only quite briefly (that said, the two of them don't exactly have chemistry, so maybe this is for the best). William Shatner is oddly subdued as James T and the writers don't have the best handle on the character, either.

Still, looks nice and Malcolm McDowell is always good fun as a scenery-gobbling bad guy. But it adds to the impression that, as far as Paramount are concerned, the Trek movies in particular are more about maintaining a profitable franchise than actually doing something creatively interesting.
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated Halloween (2018) in Movies

Nov 2, 2018 (Updated Nov 2, 2018)  
Halloween (2018)
Halloween (2018)
2018 | Horror
Tenth Halloween sequel is the eleventh film in the Halloween series and the third to actually be called Halloween; I'm sure there must have been a less confusing way of organising this but clearly no-one could be bothered to find it. Anyway: this film disregards all the previous sequels, allowing them to bring Jamie Lee Curtis back from the dead (again) and ignore all that stuff about occult curses and long-lost siblings in attempt to take the film back to the core notion of an unstoppable force of pure evil with a big knife and a William Shatner mask.

And it works rather well, although the decision to essentially turn Laurie Strode into Sarah Connor from Terminator 2 inevitably shifts the tone of the film somewhat. Many pleasingly tense sequences, and some clever and respectful call-backs to the original film. The ongoing characters are effectively presented although most of the new ones don't make much of an impression. In the end this feels much more like a reverent act of homage than the kind of horror film we usually get in 2018; whether this is a good thing or not is probably a matter of personal taste. I imagine this will keep most people quite happy until the next sequel or reboot comes along.