Now and Then Blogathon (Now): Independence Day Resurgence (2016)

Independence Day Resurgence (2016)

Twentieth Century Fox, TSG Entertainment, Centropolis Entertainment, Electric Entertainment, USA, 2016. 

Participating the Now and Then 2017 Blogathon event, arranged by Realweegiemidget Reviews and Thoughts of All Sorts! This is part 2 (Now!) of 2 part post.

20 years have passed since the space alien attack was struck back barely saving the humans from extinction. The ex-President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) suffers from telepathic scars caused by the previous encounter. David Levinson (Jeff Glodblum) and his father Julius (Judd Hirsch) are still around but Will Smith's character is not so fighter pilot ace Steven Hiller had to die in a flight accident. However his son Dylan Hiller (Jessie T. Usher) continues his legacy.

New President Lanford (Sela Ward) and ex-President Whitmore

Dylan Hiller and Rain Lao

Of the younger generation are also President's daughter Patricia (Maika Monroe) and hotshot pilot Jake Morrison (Liam Hemsworth), and his teammate Charlie Miller (Travis Tope) and Chinese pilot Rain Lao (Angelababy). Dylan and Jake have a drudge, Patricia wants to help her father and Charlie wants a romance with Rain.

Patricia Whitmore

Jake Morrison

Dikembe Umbutu and David Levinson

New weapons based on alien technologies has been developed and David Levinson is now the Director of Earth Space Defense. Someday the aliens will return...

In Africa guerilla leader Dikembe Umbutu (Deobia Oparei) has been waging war against the remaining aliens. He has invited scientist Catherine Marceaux (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and David to nvestigate strange things happening at stranded spaceship. All points to that a new war is beginning. A continent-sized spaceship appears and uproots whole cities. How can humankind survive this time?

Catherine Marceaux and David

Don't park here

Whereas last time the on-screen desruction was still relatively limited, this time Roland Emmerich does so grand scale destruction scenes that physicists rip their hairs off. The alien spaceship has its own gravity and plows half of the Earth while landing. Spectacular, yes, but not very believable. Better to leave the brain out and just enjoy it as a popcorn movie. The story goes on the familiar path of last minute saves, adventures of the survivors, and some new and old friends making sudden appearances. There are some updates to the formula of "Independence Day", last time it was America saving the day, but now in the style of "Pacific Rim" the cast is a more multicultural team of heroes. Couple of budding bromances are there too.

It is nice to have many characters from the first film around, however overall the characterizations feel weaker, as the turbo-charged plot does not allow much character development and lacks the heart and bombastic fun that the prequel had. This is visually impressive with huge spaceships and bigger alien monsters, it is occassionally fun but sacrifices the plot to special effects. With the recent flood of big scifi/superhero films it fits in the trend, but it is just one more spectacular movie in the crowd. Also in the end it is clear that there will be at least a trilogy of these films.

Rating: Average

Starring: Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Jessie T. Usher, Bill Pullman, Maika Monroe, Sela Ward, William Fichtner, Judd Hirsch, Brent Spiner, Patrick St. Esprit, Vivica A. Fox, Angelababy, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Deobia Oparei, Nicolas Wright, Travis Tope, Chin Han, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Robert Loggia, John Storey, Joey King, Jenna Purdy, Garrett Wareing, Hays Wellford, Mckenna Grace, James A. Woods, Robert Neary, Joshua Mikel, Joel Virgel, Arturo del Puerto, Matthew Munroe, Jacob Browne, Ryan Cartwright, Travis Hammer, Lance Lim, Zeb Sanders, Donovan Tyee Smith, Stafford Douglas, Jade Scott Lewis, Beth Bailey, Mona Malec, Omar Diop, Ron Yuan, Grace Huang, Stephen Oyoung, J.P. Murrieta, Casey Messer, Ben Wang, Nicholas Ballas, Jonathan Richards, Ivan G'Vera, Michael Davis, Brandon K. Hampton, Sam Quinn
Director: Roland Emmerich 

Movie Review: Monster High: Great Scarrier Reef

Monster High: Great Scarrier Reef
Mattel Playground Productions, USA, 2016.

Thirteen is a number of ill omen and with the thirteenth film the original run of Monster High series also ended and the next one was a reboot. 

The ghoul friends are practising a dance number under direction of Toralei(!). Toralei's choreography resembles what I look like when I'm dancing. Lagoona Blue is a great dancer but she has a serious stage fright making her freeze when there is an audience. After Toralei makes Lagoona's misfortune a meme, the feud between them intensifies. 

Lagoona

Dancing lesson

Freeze!

Usually friendly Lagoona gets angry and does the unthinkable. Lagoona uninvites Toralei from her own aftershow party. The energy of the fight opens a portal in the swimming pool and a group of ghouls get sucked in. Draculaura, Toralei, Lagoona, Clawdeen and Gil wake up as mermaids. Poseidon's daughter Posey invited them to help Lagoona to overcome her fears.

Party Party!

Fish friends

Kala Mer'ri

Lagoona's former friend and nowadays nemesis Kala Mer'ri humiliates Lagoona again in a dance contest. (In addition to the obvious Calamari-pun, the name is funny for the Finnish: kala means fish and meri means sea so her name would be "Fish Sea") Kala has a two-headed friend Peri (nice) / Pearl (naughty) and the nicer head feels sympathy for Lagoona. In the undersea town the fish ghouls meet Lagoona's family and her dad, the Creature from the Black Lagoon. For some weird reason Lagoona's accent sounds more Scottish than Australian.

Peri and Pearl

Lagoona's dad Wade

Posey likes dramatic announcements

Lagoona must meet her deepest fear to be able to return home. Does it mean facing the scariest monster of the deep,  the Kraken, is enough? (Hint: no).

Kraken

What is interesting is that the first trailer had a completely different premise. The original trailer had Lagoona getting a driver's licence and the friends going for a submarine ride. It feels that the script went through some serious rewrites.

After "Boo York" this seems to have had a lower budget and the reboot was already looming. As Audu Paden was increasingly more involved with Ever After High series, his involvement with this story was probably minor. This one has some inconsistencies compared to previous films or webseries and Lagoona's stage fright seems out of character. The lack of Audu Paden begins to show how much his ideas contributed to the original Monster High series. With the new people in charge the story doesn't flow so smoothly and the ending leaves quite a many loose ends and plot holes. For this film also Lagoona's voice actor was changed from Laura Bailey to Larissa Gallagher and the new voice actress continued with the reboot.

The story has a message of anti-bullying (common theme in the series) and message of accepting one's flaws so it is more of the same and that's ok. It has some entertaining parts and it is not totally bad but lacks something compared to the previous episodes.

There is an edited episode of Ever After High included.

Way Too Wonderland
There is something wrong in  Wonderland and Ever After Highers try to find a way to get there.

Rating:Average

Voice actors: Larissa Gallagher, Kate Higgins, Debi Derryberry, Salli Saffioti, America Young, Evan Smith, Lyndsy Kail, Rachel Staman, Cherami Leigh, Paula Rhodes, Piotr Michael, Erin Fitzgerald, Cam Clarke, Marcus Griffin, Audu Paden, Cindy Robinson, Julie Maddalena
Directors: William Lau, Jun Falkenstein

Monster High: Escape From Skull Shores

Monster High: Escape From Skull Shores 

Mattel Entertainment, Nerd Corps Entertainment, USA, 2012. 

It is Spring Break! First the students celebrate and go to a fun fair where they participate in carnival games. After that Lagoona Blue invites them to her home at Great Barrier Reef (renamed Great Scarrier Reef in later adventures). She wants to introduce her boyfriend Gil Webber to her family. 

Lagoona and Gil go American Gothic

The cruising and chilling gets a watery end when Kraken sinks their boat. Actually Kraken is very sorry about that. Greedy merchant Farnum and his sack headed helper Kipling save the students. Farnum plans to use them in his freak show and takes them to Skull Shores. Wooden Tiki-people live there and begin to worship Frankie Stein while Cleo gets no royal treatment. Those plebeians! 

Partying and cruising

Bartleby Farnum

Rescued at last

Farnum has a plan. A giant beast lives on the island so Farnum uses Frankie as a bait to catch him. The giant appears and kidnaps Frankie, King Kong style. However the monster's alter ego is a lonely hermit boy Andy, who escaped to the jungle because people feared him. The girls decide to take him to Monster High, but first they have to escape Farnum and the Tikis. 

Kipling

The Tikis

Giant kidnaps Frankie

It is the first Monster High special that takes the characters outside the school to a jungle adventure. Whereas the previous part was syrupy, this feel more balanced with right amount of humour, adventure and some romance. Some of the funniest moments happen when Abbey and Ghoulia team up. And Tikis are comical too with their rotating mouths.

Andy & Frankie in the cave

Andy gathers some admiring looks

Consistent with the theme of the series, the plot handles how people shun different people and consider them as freaks. But in Monster High everyone is accepted as they are. Andy as a beast is inspired by King Kong, and perhaps also Beauty and the Beast. I wonder if Kipling's character is a tribute to Elephant Man.

It is a fun little adventure that expands the monster universe a bit.

Some trivia: Bartleby Farnum's character is based on showman, politician and scam artist P. T. Barnum (1810 – 1891) who founded the Barnum & Bailey Circus that was later merged with Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows that was briefly owned by Mattel Company in 1971.

Rating: Good

Starring: Laura Bailey, Ogie Banks III, Cam Clarke, Malcolm Danare, Debi Derryberry, Erin Fitzgerald, Kate Higgins, Jonathan Lipow, George Newbern, Audu Paden, Cindy Robinson, Salli Saffioti, Keith Silverstein, Evan Smith, America Young
Directors: Steve Ball, Andrew Duncan

Movie Review: Big Man Japan (Dai-Nihonjin)

Big Man Japan (Dai-Nihonjin)
RealProduct, Yoshimoto Kogyo Company, Japan, 2007.

Masaru Daisatô (Hitoshi Matsumoto) a.k.a Sato has an unusual job. He seems to be a regular unhappy middle-aged man but when necessary he is powered up and he turns into Big Man Japan battling monsters threatening Tokyo. His family life has suffered because he has to be always on alert. His Manager Kobori (Ua) takes care of PR and sells ad space from his skin. She also rips him off. The public does not like him because the battles cause damage to infrastructure and he is fat. Someone paints insulting graffiti on his house walls. Also a TV show about his fights gets poor ratings. In the old days monster fighters were respected and celebrated. 

Masaru Daisatô

Lisää kuvateksti

Manager Kobori

Sato's Grandfather (Taichi Yazaki) was also Big Man Japan, but the continuing electric shocks caused dementia. When mysterious North Korean monster appears and beats Big Man Japan, the ratings of his show suddenly surge. Then series of monster-related scandals eat away the popularity again.

Strangling monster

Ad space for sale

Leaping monster

Presented in pseudo-documentary style the movie is quite slow, it is kind of anti-Marvel movie. The hero is not young or energetic but a downbeat middle-aged man who is just doing his job and continuing the family business. The rituals performed before his transformation are more for keeping up the old customs than really necessary. The origin of the monsters are never explained but they ascend to heaven when they die. There is also satire about the historically troublematic relationship between USA and Japan.

Yayyyy!

This is the Spinal Tap of the superhero movies. Although advertised as hilarious comedy this is actually quite tragic comedy. The humour is dry and deadpan and it is easy to miss the subtle comedy. This is contrasted by the monsters who are absurd and surreal, "only in Japan." Also the ending takes an absurd turn spoofing Japanese superhero shows and America saving the day. "We're all living in America, America ist wunderbar."

The Super Justice Team

Part of The 2016 Movie Watching Challenge (#24. Movie that is located in a place you have always wanted to visit: Japan)

Rating: Good

Starring: Hitoshi Matsumoto, Riki Takeuchi, Ua, Ryûnosuke Kamiki, Haruka Unabara, Tomoji Hasegawa, Itsuji Itao, Hiroyuki Miyasako, Takayuki Haranishi, Daisuke Miyagawa, Takuya Hashimoto, Taichi Yazaki, Shion Machida, Atsuko Nakamura, Daisuke Nagakura, Motohiro Toriki, Keidai Yano, Junshirô Hayama, Kôichi Kitamura, Norio Nakayama, Toshihiro Koike, Atsuo Tanaka, Yoshio Takahashi, Yoshihiro Kasuya, Yumiko Ise, Roselyn Yoshio, Kaho Okajima, Jeong-Suk O., Yoshihisa Shimazaki, Katsumune Ônuki, Norihito Kobari, Masayuki Sekine, Takumi Matsumoto, Ryushin Tei, Tatsuya Ôba, Salam Diagne, Yasuhiro Roppongi, Yutaka Mishima, Hidetoshi Ito, Ai Nagano, Kiyozumi Honda, Satoya Ishii, Seijirô Nakamura, Yûki Baba, Shunsaku Yajima, Hiroko Toda, Tetsuya Kume, Yuka Kamebuchi, Hiroko Nohara, Miho Silica Nakajima
Director: Hitoshi Matsumoto     

Movie Review: Boa vs. Python

Boa vs. Python 

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, Unified Film Organization (UFO), Blaze Productions LLC, BUFO USA, Bulgaria, 2004. 

Mr. Broddick (Adamo Palladino) has ordered a giant python (green snake) for a weekend hunt. It is wonderful what you can order from eBay. The snake escapes and the truck explodes. Sensationalist reporter Kent Humphries (Jeff Rank) suspects terrorists. Laconic Agent Sharpe (Kirk B.R. Woller) finds a snake scale. Outstanding. 

Mr. Broddick and Eve

Kent Humphries

Agent Sharpe

In Philadelphia the snake attacks water power plant. Navy diver Monica Bonds (Jaime Bergman) and snake expert Dr. Emmett (David Hewlett) are called for help. Dr. Emmett has a giant boa named Betty (red snake). Sharpe wants to use the boa and Monica's bionic implants to track the other snake. 

Monica Bonds

Dr. Emmett

Meanwhile Mr. Broddick, his girlfriend Eve (former Playboy-model Angel Boris Reed) and business partners cowboy Tex (Harry Anichkin), Tom Berenger fanboy sniper Mr. Foley (Atanas Srebrev), redneck father and son team Danner (George R. Sheffey) & James (Griff Furst) and fake Indian crossbow hunter Littlefield (Ivo Naidenov) are going to hunt the snake. The fools do not know that the snake is invulnerable to bullets. The hunters hunt in the forest and the scientists in the sewers. Soon the two groups meet with catastrophic results. 

The hunting party

Python vs. Tex

Mr. Broddick likes to burn things

Before that the boa gets out of control even though there is a remote control for putting the snake to sleep. Cool, I have a lighter that looks like Dr. Emmett's remote control!

Dr. Emmett's remote control

My cool lighter

The action climaxes in nightclub that is also a subway station (?). The DJ plays The Prodigy- style knock-off music before the python complaints against the loud music. Mr. Broddick decides to have a barbecue party.

"Boa" and "Python" have both had their own movies so, this time both of them meet in the battlefield. For a giant monster movie they get quite little screen time though. Most of the action time is spent on watching some braindead characters getting eaten (usually off screen due the budget constraints). The snakes are made with cheap CGI à la "Anaconda." There is even a CGI subway station! Many scenes feature girls with or without bikinis. The deadpan actors deliver absurd one-liners. The dialogue has moments that are so stupid that it is fun. 

Boa vs. Eve

In the beginning there is a wrestling match with wrestlers Boa and Python. The outcome of the match symbolizes the result of the giant snake battle. There is also some "deep social criticism" with pokes directed at sensational press, expensive bottle water, big game hunting and snake phobia. This is a Syfy-distributed movie that is a bit too self-conscious trash movie. Phillip J. Roth was one of the producers (for some of his highlights see "Hyper Sonic" and "Dragon Fighter"). Someone has called this movie a rip-off of "Alien vs. Predator" (why not "Freddy vs. Jason" or "King Kong Vs. Godzilla") but the comparison would give it too much credit (!). The DVD cover has a spectacular image of helicopter firing missiles at the snakes. Not going to happen.

Rating: So bad it is good 

Starring: David Hewlett, Jaime Bergman, Kirk B.R. Woller, Adamo Palladino (as Adam Kendrick), Angel Boris Reed, Marianne Stanicheva, Griff Furst, Ivo Naidenov, George R. Sheffey, Atanas Srebrev, Harry Anichkin, Jeff Rank, Assen Blatechki, Velizar Binev, Jonas Talkington, Nikolai Sotirov, Ryan Spike Dauner, Dessi Morales, John Hansson, Uti Bachvarov, Edward McDermott, D.J. Johnson, John Klimas, Andres Rojas, Michelle Llorens, Shero Rauf 

Director: David Flores