Review – Tarantula

Here’s the beast that put Leo G. Carroll over a barrel. Honestly, aside from the mention in “Science Fiction Double Feature” there’s little here to distinguish this giant bug from all the other radioactively-enhanced critters that menaced the desert southwest back in the 1950s (though I guess technically this one’s a chemically-treated arachnid rather than an irradiated insect). There’s still animal violence and bad blue screens aplenty. If you’re into this sort of thing you should get a kick out of it. Mildly amusing

Review – Tanya’s Island

This soft-core study of sexual themes first explored in movies such as King Kong might have been a better picture with a bigger budget, a better script or at least some moderately-talented actors. Sadly, this effort lacks all the elements that might have saved it. The acting is probably the weakest of the three, particularly the talent-free performance mailed in by the female lead, D.D. Winters (a.k.a. Prince protégée Vanity). Setting the inscrutable bracket aside, the central plot is the tale of a woman frolicking on a deserted island with her painter boyfriend, a neurotic loser by the name of Lobo. The pair discovers that they’re sharing their Eden with a burly primate of some sort (created by gorilla-master Rick Baker’s former student, Rob Bottin). As our heroine’s affection strays from Lobo to ape, the former gets more and more savage as the rival for his girlfriend becomes progressively tame. The final result is a parade of rape and savagery as boring as it is offensive. On a good day this might be just bad enough to be sorta funny, but it would have to be a pretty good day. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Astronaut’s Wife

I’ll bet Rod Serling could have told this same story (a sci-fi reheat of Rosemary’s Baby with aliens stepping in for Satan) in his usual 22 minutes. The film-makers here fill the additional 80-ish with a whole lot of meandering and useless art direction. The cast does what they can with it, but there just isn’t enough script to work with. See if desperate

Review – The Mean Season

Kurt Russell and Mariel Hemingway star in this run-of-the-mill thriller about a newspaper reporter who receives calls from a serial killer. Though David Berkowitz’s notes to Jimmy Breslin clearly provided at least some inspiration for the drama, this movie goes in entirely different directions from the Son of Sam killings. For openers, it’s set in Miami rather than New York. And the killer and journalist end up a lot more closely involved. Overall this isn’t terrible, particularly as psycho thrillers go, but it does rely heavily on the less desirable facets of the genre (particularly the repeated, graphic victimization of women) without providing a lot of compensating rewards for enduring the experience. Mildly amusing

Review – Virtuosity

Russell Crowe appears to be having way too much fun hamming it up as the virtual villain of this otherwise lackluster visit to cyberspace. Denzel Washington plays a cop-imprisoned-for-homicide who is freed so he can hunt down a virtual serial killer who has somehow escaped into the real world via some expensive computer effects. Why do we need Washington? Because the psychological profile of the terrorist who killed his family is part of the inner workings of the new psycho’s programming. In other words, don’t ask. Crowe’s playfully insane performance is worth a look, but otherwise this effects vehicle is missable. Mildly amusing

Review – Final Destination

Gee, as if teenagers weren’t already sufficiently obsessed with death. The premise here is an odd mish-mash of recycled horror plots, including guy-who-can-foresee-disasters and teens-stalked-by-a-supernatural-force-with-a-grudge. The plot launches with a small group of kids saved from a doomed Flight-800-esque experience by a psychic premonition. But after that it devolves into the usual stalker plot (though at least this time the antagonist is an amorphous “death” rather than a personified evil like Freddie or Jason). Some of the editing is clever, but a lot of it ends up wasted on elaborate deaths that frequently seem more contrived than a Rube Goldberg device. Further, the deleted scenes available as extras on the DVD make it fairly apparent that the filmmakers originally had a much different ending in mind and that something a bit more cheerful had to be cooked up after audience testing. Mildly amusing

Review – Run Silent Run Deep

As I’ve admitted elsewhere, I’m a sucker for submarine movies. Even so, this is one of the finest examples of the genre and just generally a good war movie. Clark Gable plays an Ahab-esque Navy captain given command of a submarine that by rights should have gone to his executive officer (Burt Lancaster). The captain uses unorthodox tactics to pursue a Japanese destroyer responsible for sinking his previous sub. The script is good, and the acting equal to the task. Those with no affection for the submarine sub-genre of the war movie may not get much out of this production, but if you can even vaguely tolerate such movies then you should find this one rewarding. Worth seeing

Review – I Married a Strange Person

Animator Bill Plympton’s wife must say this on a daily basis. Here Plympton isn’t even constrained by the normal restraints of working for clients such as MTV or an insurance company. So he lets his imagination run wild, with the result being, well, wild. If nothing else, this feature-length animation includes a lot more graphic sex and violence than the artist’s more famous, shorter work. The plot, to the extent that there is one, loosely follows the exploits of a man who ends up with psychic powers that he uses in the pursuit of strangeness. But if you’re in the mood for a little absurdist comedy, this will more than scratch your itch. Mildly amusing

Review – Demon Knight

“Tales from the Crypt” presents Attack of the Men in Rubber Suits. Despite the addition of a chunk of fakey theology and a bunch of filler, this movie seldom if ever succeeds at any level higher than an extra-long episode of the HBO series based (more or less) on the legendary EC horror comics. You’ve got to figure that any film where Billy Zane is the high point, as the villain no less, that the rest of the picture is one long low point. See if desperate

Review – Demon Keeper

Is a demon keeper like a bee keeper, only with a hive full of demons rather than bees? And if bees make honey, do we really want to know what demons make? Actually, for all I know they might have made a better movie. Instead we get an unimaginative bit of nonsense about a group of losers who accidentally summon Asmodeus (Latin for “guy in a cheap rubber devil suit”), who proceeds to do them in. Added bonuses: the world’s cheapest rabid dog puppet, a lesbian demon mud-rasslin’ rape scene, and Dirk “Starbuck” Benedict chewing as much scenery as he can cram into his hammy maw. See if desperate

Review – U-571

As two-fisted tales of men and the sea go, I’ve seen a lot worse. As the title suggests, the plot revolves around a German U-boat. A cast headed by Matthew McConaughey capture the sub in question and attempt to get it (or at the very least its valuable Enigma encryption device) back to friendly waters. Occasionally the plot skips over holes or leaves motives unexplained in order to keep the action going. But that’s probably for the best, considering that the action and effects are the real stars of the show. Some of the depth-charge-damage sequences run a little too long, but other than that this is a fine piece of mindless violence. And hey, I’m a sucker for sub movies. Mildly amusing

Review – Fatherland

The basic concept for this drama is somewhat intriguing: what if D-Day had failed, the United States had made peace with Germany, and the Holocaust had never come to light? A German cop and an American reporter end up on the trail of a mid-60s plot to kill high-ranking officials who know too much about the Final Solution. Our heroes end up in a race against time to uncover the awful truth before President Joseph Kennedy Sr. concludes a treaty with 75-year-old Adolph Hitler. Despite workmanlike performances by the cast, particularly grand Teuton Rutger Hauer, the high point of the movie turns out to be the art direction. The what-if creation of a 60’s era Nazi Germany ends up being more interesting than the twisting, turning plot it’s supposed to support. Mildly amusing

Review – Army of Darkness

Though it’s firmly established that I really don’t like intentionally funny horror movies, this one’s even more awful than usual for such efforts. Imagine a cheap latex Satan as the fourth member of the Three Stooges, and you’ve got a general idea of what you’re in store for here. The not-very-special effects are as dreadful as the script, a boring bit of hack work that relies mostly on violence punctuated by “snappy” comeback lines that wouldn’t amuse an average twelve-year-old. The biggest insult is that this is the second (and with any luck the last) sequel to Evil Dead, a classic of low-budget fright film-making. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Any Given Sunday

A long time ago, back when I was in grad school, I encountered a group of drunken frat boys outside a bar. Two or three of them had one of their brethren pinned up against a car, and they were loudly trying to persuade him to do something (or not to do something; I wasn’t exactly clear which). “Does honor not live forever?” one of the guys kept screaming at his buddy. The feeling I got listening to these intoxicated idiots talk about “honor” is the same feeling I had after watching this movie. Oliver Stone seems to get more frantic with every new production, which means that this one spends a considerable amount of time bordering on hysteria. Somewhere behind an endless parade of amateurish editing and other visual rah-rah is the story of pampered, overpaid glory boy football stars, their corporate taskmasters, various hangers-on, and how hard the whole crowd has it. The intense, overwhelming male bonding ultimately comes across as gay in a really unpleasant, dysfunctional way. The cast, including Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx (in a rare non-comedic role, or at least this time around he’s intentionally not being funny), and a galaxy of other supporting-cast stars never have much of a chance against Stone’s relentless, heavy-handed direction. And to top it all off, the conspiracy nonsense from JFK continues to linger, showing up in odd places such as the logos of opposing teams and the numerological significance of scores (for example, watch to see just how many times games end up at 17 to 21 at one point or another). See if desperate

Review – Deepstar Six

Of the two attempts to steal thunder from The Abyss, this one is by far the worst. Well, okay, maybe not by far. But it’s still a cheap, cheesy excuse for an underwater remake of Aliens. The film-makers wisely decided to make as little use of their rubber monster as possible. Unfortunately, they fill most of the time the monster isn’t on screen with long, drawn-out, un-suspenseful suspense sequences typically provoked by unbelievable plot twists predicated on the thinnest of character motivations. Or, put more briefly, this is one of those horror thrillers that barely keeps you upright in your seat, let alone on the edge of it. See if desperate

Review – Pale Rider

Normally I steer clear of most westerns, but when it’s a Clint Eastwood vehicle I’ll generally make an exception. And this one is classic Clint, with a man with no name inflicting plenty of violent revenge on the bad guys. This time around wealthy strip miners are abusing a poor community of gold panners. Enter a mysterious preacher, the apparent answer to the prayer of a girl whose dog was slaughtered by the strip miner’s goons. No man of the cloth ever kicked this much ass since Kung Fu went off the air, especially after the collar comes off and the gun comes out. Stir in a dose of environmentalism and just a little apocalyptic religious allegory, and you have the makings of a fine action movie. Worth seeing

Review – Fantastic Voyage

I loved this movie when I was a kid. Like many other youngsters, I was fascinated by the notion that people could be miniaturized. And of course this production takes the miniaturization concept to its logical extreme, shrinking a team of scientists down so small that they can use an equally small submarine to navigate through a man’s bloodstream and perform laser brain surgery on him from the inside. The production has all the trappings of 60s-era science fiction, from the ultra-clean, plastic fantastic vision of future decor right down to Raquel Welch in a tight-fitting white wet suit. And though the special effects look a little clunky by today’s standards, at the time the visualizations of the insides of a human body blown up to sound stage proportions were radical stuff. Mildly amusing

Review – True Romance

True crap is more like it. This movie (and several others of similar ilk) are why I danced the dance of evil glee when Quentin Tarantino’s 15 minutes finally ran out (may he never come back, knock on wood). Once again he’s trying to make a script out of pointless profanity and empty-headed macho aggression. The plot is pure Tarantino: a guy who works in a comic book store (Christian Slater) pulls an Elvis (Val Kilmer) – inspired Travis Bickle to save his new girlfriend (Patricia Arquette) from a killer pimp (Gary Oldman). They steal the pimp’s coke, setting a mobster (Christopher Walken) hot on their tails. Et cetera. Every character in the whole thing talks with the same nowhere-near-as-clever-as-it’s-supposed-to-be sardonic patter that passes for wit in these things. At the end of this gritty, cameo-studded but nonetheless largely uninteresting debacle, most of the characters are killed in a gun battle that looks like someone has seen a lot of John Woo movies and is trying unsuccessfully to re-create them. The final result is the one thing a dark comedy slash action movie can’t possibly afford: it’s downright boring. What a waste of a good cast. See if desperate [And wow was I ever wrong about Tarantino not coming back, more’s the pity]

Review – Hollow Man

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates recounts the fable of Gyges, a morally-bankrupt man who could make himself invisible. What would one do with such a power? Slip into Fort Knox and make off with a fortune? Sneak around the White House and find out what the President really gets up to at night? Go get sushi and not pay? Apparently the answer mad scientist Sebastian Caine (Kevin Bacon, who as usual does a craftsman’s job with the role) has to this intriguing scenario is “rape my neighbor and brutally slaughter a cute dog.” I admit neither of those ambitions had occurred to me, so maybe I should give the screenwriter points for originality. The production features some impressive effects and a small handful of mildly entertaining gags (including Bacon delivering the classic Invisible Man joke we all thought was so funny back in fifth grade, even tossing in the phrase “Wonder Pussy” for good measure). Together that might have been enough to carry the film despite the dreadful script loaded with loathsome characters. Sadly, the excessive, pointless animal violence was enough to catapult the movie to the bottom of my ratings scale, and no other aspect was able to dig it out of the pit. Overall, it was enough to make me wish I was invisible so I wouldn’t have to pay to get into garbage like this. Or at least I could sneak out without anybody noticing (not that there were many people in the theater when I saw it). Wish I’d skipped it