Film Review: Gladiator (2000)

Release Date: May 1st, 2000 (Los Angeles premiere)
Directed by: Ridely Scott
Written by: David Franzoni, John Logan, William Nicholson
Music by: Hans Zimmer, Lisa Gerrard
Cast: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed, Derek Jacobi, Djimon Hounsou, Richard Harris, Tommy Flanagan, Ralf Moller, Omid Djalili

Scott Free Productions, Dreamworks Pictures, Universal Pictures, 155 Minutes

Review:

“[removes helmet and turns around to face Commodus] My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions and loyal servant to the TRUE emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next. [Commodus trembles in disbelief]” – Maximus

I’m pretty disappointed in myself for having not seen this movie in twenty years. I saw it in the theater, when it came out, and I also saw it on DVD when that was first released. While I’ve seen segments of it, over the years, it’s been two decades since I’ve watched the film in its entirety. Granted, I can’t believe that this movie is now that old. In my mind, it still feels fairly recent but we’ve already passed the 20th anniversaries for the Harry Potter movies and Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

As I write this, it also looks like it will be my final review on Talking Pulp, as I am now forced to use the Block Editor, which I loathe because it functions like a fucking redacted.

Any-fucking-way, this movie is a masterpiece. It’s pretty damn perfect.

It’s well acted, well directed, has wonderful cinematography, solid action, a story that hits any real man’s man in the gut and it’s meticulously crafted and superbly paced, even though it’s closer to three hours than two.

You’ve probably already seen this. You probably already love it. If you haven’t seen it, why? Get on it!

While I’d like to say a lot more about the film, I can’t stand using this fucking editor so I’m going to sign off.

Rating: 10/10

Film Review: The Scorpion King (2002)

Release Date: April 15th, 2002 (Netherlands – Fantastic Film Festival)
Directed by: Chuck Russell
Written by: Stephen Sommers, William Osborne, David Hayter, Jonathan Hales
Music by: John Debney
Cast: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Steven Brand, Kelly Hu, Bernard Hill, Grant Heslov, Peter Facinelli, Michael Clarke Duncan, Tyler Mane (uncredited)

BT Film, Alphaville Films, Universal Pictures, 92 Minutes

Review:

“Let me tell you, after a hard day of looting and pillaging, there is no greater city than Gomorrah… except maybe Sodom.” – Arpid

This was the first ’90s Mummy-related movie that I didn’t see in theaters and that’s mainly because it just didn’t interest me, even though I love The Rock and I love sword and sorcery flicks.

I was just turned off from how bad the Scorpion King character was presented at the end of The Mummy Returns and the trailers for this looked terrible.

Visually, I thought that this looked more like a TV production that had more in common with The Beastmaster TV show than something epic and cool like 1982’s Conan the Barbarian or the original and awesome Beastmaster movie.

I wasn’t wrong, as the finished product does feel like a television level production and that’s just one problem with it.

Beyond that, the story is cookie cutter shit. You never care about any of the characters or their situations in the film and that’s kind of an amazing feat, as Dawyne “The Rock” Johnson is one of the most charismatic people on the entire f’n planet. But somehow, this made him come off as boring and uninteresting.

I also never liked Steven Brand as the villain, as he just didn’t look like a guy that could remotely be a threat to The Rock. In the movie, his character is smaller and he’s just a dude that’s really good with swords.

I truly wish that this would’ve been The Rock’s Conan and that we’d get sword and sorcery movies with him in it every few years. However, this is a dud in every way.

But hey, at least it was better than that third Mummy movie.

Rating: 4.5/10

Film Review: Kamen Rider: The Next (2007)

Also known as: Masked Rider: The Next (alternative English title)
Release Date: October 27th, 2007
Directed by: Ryuta Tasaki
Written by: Toshiki Inoue
Based on: Kamen Rider and Kamen Rider V3 by Shotaro Ishinomori
Music by: Goro Yasukawa
Cast: Masaya Kikawada, Hassei Takano, Kazuki Kato, Miku Ishida, Erika Mori, Tomorowo Taguchi, Goro Naya

Toei, 93 Minutes

Review:

As I stated in my review of the previous Kamen Rider film, I remembered liking this one a bit better. Well, seeing it for the first time in a long while, that’s still true.

Really, this is kind of more of the same but it picks up the story where Kamen Rider: The First left off.

That film was a reboot (or retelling) of the original Kamen Rider TV series. This film was a sequel to that but also a reboot of the second TV series, Kamen Rider V3.

Like V3, this introduces the third Kamen Rider hero and also has him work alongside the previous two. However, there are some very stark creative differences between the original story and this version of it.

The main thing that these films do is that they increase the violence exponentially to appeal to a more adult audience. This one goes even further than its predecessor, which seemed like it was more a test run to see what they could get away with in what’s predominantly been a kid friendly franchise.

I loved the villains in this, specifically Scissors Jaguar. Man, what a sadistic asshole that guy was but for fans of this type of stuff, he was fun as hell to watch.

The special effects and fight choreography in this are pretty much the same as the previous movie but I found myself enjoying the action more.

Rating: 6.5/10

Film Review: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)

Also known as: The Mummy 3 (informal title), Untitled Rick O’Connell Adventure, The Mummy 3: Curse of the Dragon (working titles)
Release Date: July 24th, 2008 (Moscow premiere)
Directed by: Rob Cohen
Written by: Alfred Gough, Miles Millar
Based on: characters by Stephen Sommers, Lloyd Fonvielle, Kevin Jarre
Music by: Randy Edleman
Cast: Brendan Fraser, John Hannah, Jet Li, Maria Bello, Russell Wong, Liam Cunningham, Luke Ford, Isabella Leong, Michelle Yeoh

The Sommers Company, Relativity Media, Universal Pictures, 112 Minutes

Review:

“I hate mummies! They never play fair!” – John Carnahan

Fuck me. This was damn near unwatchable and getting through it was a hell of a challenge. But I wanted to complete the trilogy for the sake of reviewing them all.

This was so bad and weird that Rachel Weisz passed on it after reading the script and not wanting to play mother to a twenty-two year-old son. I guess Brendan Fraser came back after they threw like fourteen million dollars at him.

The only other returning cast member from previous films was John Hannah.

Somehow, Rick O’Connell has a kid that’s in his twenties, even though Rick looks the same as he did in the previous two movies. If you remember, the son was like seven years-old in the previous film and he wasn’t even born yet in the one before that. But whatever.

This time Evie is played by Maria Bello. Generally, I like Maria Bello but man was she poorly cast for this role. She doesn’t look like Evie, doesn’t act like her and it just breaks the movie. It’s a situation where the film would’ve been better off having the character omitted, whether that came from being an offscreen death or divorce.

In this story, the heroes go to China and we get a new mummy played by Jet Li. I hope Li got a fat paycheck too because this utilized him poorly.

Additionally, the special effects seem like they’re worse than they were in the previous movies.

Man, this just shouldn’t have been made. It’s absolute shit and I probably would’ve hated it more had I seen it in the theater back in 2008.

At least now, I can say that I’ve seen it, reviewed it and can go on to forget it.

Rating: 3.75/10

Film Review: Kamen Rider: The First (2005)

Also known as: Masked Rider: The First (alternative English title)
Release Date: October 26th, 2005 (Tokyo Film Festival)
Directed by: Takao Nagaishi
Written by: Toshiki Inoue
Based on: Kamen Rider by Shotaro Ishinomori
Music by: Gorou Yasukawa
Cast: Masaya Kikawada, Hassei Takano, Komine Rena, Hiroshi Miyauchi, Eiji Wentz, Ryoko Kobayashi, Sada Mayumi, Issa Hentona, Hideyo Amamoto, Itsuji Itao, Kanji Tsuda

Toei, 91 Minutes

Review:

I haven’t seen this since around the time that it first came out on DVD in the US, which probably wasn’t too long after its 2005 theatrical release in Japan.

This also had a sequel, which I remembered liking better, as it leaned even heavier into the violence and edginess that this strange retelling of the original two Kamen Riders origin introduced.

This plays much darker and more like horror than the standard Kamen Rider television series. It’s a reboot but it was made for an older audience that had grown up with the shows but found them to be too kiddie for typical adults.

For what this set out to do, I think it achieved its goals fairly well. This isn’t in any way superior to the source material but it definitely respects it and still homages it in a good way that captures the aesthetic and vibe. It looks and feels like a modern tokusatsu production but with a bigger budget and without having its hands tied by the creative limitations of a children’s show.

I thought that the acting was decent. None of it as particularly great but also, none of it felt overly hokey or cheesy like typical tokusatsu shows often times deliver.

I thought that the special effects were good. The costumes were top notch and looked impressive. My only gripe in that regard is that I felt like the Shocker foot soldiers would’ve looked a lot cooler if they kept their classic costumes and lucha libre style masks.

Ultimately, this was a really interesting experiment. I think it paid off for what it was and it didn’t do anything to diminish the legacy of the intellectual property unlike just about every Hollywood reboot and remake over the last decade or more.

Rating: 6.25/10

Film Review: The Mummy Returns (2001)

Also known as: The Mummy 2 (working title)
Release Date: April 29th, 2001 (premiere)
Directed by: Stephen Sommers
Written by: Stephen Sommers
Based on: characters by Stephen Sommers, Lloyd Fonvielle, Kevin Jarre
Music by: Alan Silvestri
Cast: Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo, Oded Fehr, Patricia Velásquez, Freddie Boath, Alun Armstrong, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Imhotep Productions, Alphaville Films, Universal Pictures, 130 Minutes

Review:

“[to Rick] My friend, there is a fine line between coincidence and fate.” – Ardeth Bay

Let me start by saying that this is not as good as its predecessor, 1999’s The Mummy. That’s probably not a shock, though, as generally everyone agrees with that, critics included.

However, I will also say that this was better than I remembered it being and I think that fun adventure movies were in such abundance in this era that I may have taken it for granted.

My only big gripe with this movie is how atrocious the CGI was on the Scorpion King character at the end of the film. It looks like they took The Rock straight out of WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role for the PlayStation 1 and added pinchers to his hands. Man, I remember it being atrocious in 2001 and it looks even worse now. What’s really odd about it, is that most of The Mummy effects looked pretty good and held up fairly well. Even the worst CGI effects are still somewhat passable.

I thought that the story was just okay but I did like that Patricia Velásquez actually had a bigger role and I liked the material they came up with for her past connection to Rachel Weisz’s Evie. I also like that this allowed Evie to hold her own in the action sequences and that she was no longer just a typical damsel in distress.

I wasn’t crazy about the kid being added to the proceedings, as kid actors can wreck a movie and honestly, his scenes are mostly annoying. I’d hate to blame the kid, specifically, and I think it has more to do with the script and Stephen Sommers’ directing.

One takeaway from this and the previous movie, as well, is the fact that Oded Fehr’s Ardeth Bay is such a cool f’n character and even though The Rock became a massive star, I think that the producers should’ve probably given Fehr his own spinoff movie first.

Anyway, this is mostly more of the same but it does feel like it’s happening on a much larger scale. However, for some reason, when Imhotep is resurrected in this film, I guess the Ten Plagues of Egypt aren’t a factor anymore.

One doesn’t watch these sort of movies to be overly picky about details, though. This is just supposed to be fun, mindless escapism, which is something I praise a lot. This movie really works in that regard until the finale where we get PS1 graphics Dwayne Johnson.

Rating: 6.5/10

TV Review: The Staircase (2004-2018)

Original Run: October 7th, 2004 – June 8th, 2018
Created by: Jean-Xavier de Lestrade
Directed by: Jean-Xavier de Lestrade
Written by: Jean-Xavier de Lestrade
Cast: Michael Peterson, various

Canal+, Netflix, 13 Episodes, 44-55 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

I heard people rave about this documentary series a few years back. Since I’ve recently been binging the shit out of Netflix true crime documentaries, I figured that I should finally give this one a watch.

Well, I was really underwhelmed by it and I think it’s just another case of hype blowing something up to an unrealistic level.

I will say that the story here is damn compelling and there are a lot of holes in the investigation or so it would appear, based on how this documentary reveals the details.

However, it’s the presentation of this series that made it somewhat of a bore to get through.

This follows the investigation and spends a lot of time in the court room during the trials. However, most of the show is shot and presented reality TV style, following around all the members of the family and legal team, as they constantly pontificate on that day’s activities and developments. It’s just not that interesting when you realize that all of the accused killer’s kids (minus one) are going to believe his innocence no matter what.

“Not my dad! There’s no way he could do that! I know my dad!”

“Did you know he had gay sex with male prostitutes?”

“What? I didn’t know my dad was gay! But he could never kill my mom! I know my dad!”

I also feel like this documentary was obviously biased towards the family and towards the sentiment that author-possibly-turned-killer, Michael Peterson, was innocent. Looking into that after watching this for myself, there are a lot of other people that feel like this was a biased documentary and that it omitted things that didn’t support its narrative.

In the end, I was initially captivated by the story but from a production standpoint, this wasn’t as polished and well-paced as the more recent Netflix true crime documentaries. I also don’t feel confident in the details provided by this documentary.

Rating: 6/10

Film Review: Halloween II (2009)

Also known as: H2 (working title)
Release Date: August 28th, 2009
Directed by: Rob Zombie
Written by: Rob Zombie
Based on: Halloween by John Carpenter, Debra Hill
Music by: Tyler Bates
Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Scout Taylor-Compton, Tyler Mane, Sheri Moon Zombie, Brad Dourif, Danielle Harris, Chase Wright Vanek, Brea Grant, Howard Hesseman, Angela Trimbur, Bill Fagerbakke, Richard Brake, Dayton Callie, Margot Kidder, Richard Riehle, Mark Boone Junior, Caroline Williams, Octavia Spencer, Chris Hardwick, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Sean Whalen 

Spectacle Entertainment Group, Trancas International Films, Dimension Films, 105 Minutes

Review:

“[yelling outside her house, drunk] Hey, world! Guess what. I’m Michael Myers’ sister! I’m so fucked!” – Laurie Strode

Yay! More white trash!

Rob Zombie really outdid the awfulness of his first Halloween movie with this fucktardedly executed turd biscuit!

So Michael Myers obviously isn’t dead but this time around, he just wears a large hooded trenchcoat and looks nothing like the character that has been burned into the public’s psyche for three decades, upon this movie’s release. In fact, he looks more like Tyler Mane’s other most famous role, Sabretooth from 2000’s X-Men. Granted, he does wear the famous Myers mask but it barely matters as the rest of his look is so drastically different.

Anyway, I remember when this came out and people were like, “Oh, yes! Now that the ‘remake’ is done, Rob Zombie can give us his vision of what Halloween should be!” Seriously, you people wanted to see Zombie’s full take on these characters after his diarrhea-brained alterations to the original film?

So here we are, dipshits, as Rob Zombie fumbles the ball harder than a drunk Browns player with the flu in a Superbowl-clinching game.

What’s the problem? Well, this is basically more of the same with a heavy emphasis on all the bad shit that wrecked the previous film. Also, Loomis is stripped down and made into a terribly shitty character.

The absolutely worst thing, though, was Rob Zombie bringing his wife back as a fucking ghost lady with a white horse and the ghost of little Michael even though big Michael is still alive. I can only imagine that this was done because god forbid Zombie doesn’t give his wife a job. In this movie, though, she solidified what I’ve always known and that’s the fact that she’s an atrocious actress. She legitimately makes Zombie’s movies worse just by being in them.

Additionally, I was kind of indifferent to Scout Taylor-Compton’s vanilla interpretation of Laurie Strode but by the end of this movie, I hated her too.

At the end of the day, fuck this movie and fuck Rob Zombie.

Rating: 2.5/10

Film Review: Halloween (2007)

Also known as: Halloween: Retribution (working title)
Release Date: August 31st, 2007
Directed by: Rob Zombie
Written by: Rob Zombie
Based on: Halloween by John Carpenter, Debra Hill
Music by: Tyler Bates, John Carpenter (original themes)
Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Scout Taylor-Compton, Tyler Mane, Sheri Moon Zombie, Brad Dourif, Danielle Harris, William Forsythe, Daeg Faerch, Richard Lynch, Udo Kier, Clint Howard, Danny Trejo, Lew Temple, Tom Towles, Bill Moseley, Leslie Easterbrook, Skyler Gisondo, Kristina Klebe, Dee Wallace, Ken Foree, Sybil Danning, Sid Haig

Spectacle Entertainment Group, Nightfall Productions, Dimension Films, 109 Minutes

Review:

“His eyes will deceive you; they will destroy you. They will take from you your innocence, your pride, and eventually your soul. These eyes do not see what you and I see. Behind these eyes one finds only blackness, the absence of light. These are the eyes of a psychopath.” – Dr. Samuel Loomis

Fuck, this movie is such shit.

I’d say it’s the worst Halloween film ever made and it actually was until, for some reason, Rob Zombie was allowed to make an even worse sequel.

This movie sucks because it completely destroys the mystery around Michael Myers the second it starts. It shows him as a kid and it shows his terrible white trash family. In fact, it’s this white trash family that made me realize that Rob Zombie has a terrible obsession with white trash without fully understanding it. It’s like he fetishizes what he thinks it is and then turns the volume on all of his characters up to thirty-one. Huh… maybe that’s why he made another white trash movie called 31.

Anyway, it also doesn’t help that Michael Myers is a hulking beast and he can literally flip a car over in this film series, as he does in the second one. Now I generally like Tyler Mane and he should definitely play slasher characters but for the role of Michael Myers, his level of mass was just too over the top. It’s almost like Zombie wanted Myers to be a suped up Jason Voorhees like the version from Freddy vs. Jason.

Back to the origin bullshit, it’s completely unnecessary, as Michael Myers is just a mysterious force of nature. All we know is that when he was the small child of an apparently normal middle class (not white trash) family, he murdered his older sister and was then sent away to a mental institution. Frankly, that’s all we’ve ever needed to know because the films have never been about who Michael is.

The film is also ridiculous in how the Myers family is this blatantly white trash family with thick but poorly executed Southern accents while the rest of the town is a normal middle class, Midwest neighborhood without Southern accents. Well, some characters have accents but it’s kind of random who does and who doesn’t but half the population doesn’t sound like people from rural Illinois.

The second half of the film is better than the white trash heavy first half, however, it’s just a retread of the original, far superior, John Carpenter Halloween film.

There are only two things I liked about this movie.

The first was Malcolm McDowell as a very different version of Dr. Loomis. However, like many of McDowell’s roles, he provides a solid performance in a film that is far below his level of talent.

The second was all the cameos from horror legends I love. Although, most of them disappear as quickly as they show up and it just feels like cheap fan service.

Rating: 4/10

Film Review: The Benchwarmers (2006)

Release Date: April 7th, 2006
Directed by: Dennis Dugan
Written by: Allen Covert, Nick Swardson
Music by: Waddy Wachtel
Cast: Rob Schneider, David Spade, Jon Heder, Jon Lovitz, Craig Kilborn, Molly Sims, Tim Meadows, Nick Swardson, Bill Romanowski, Reggie Jackson, Terry Crews, Dennis Dugan, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Rachel Hunter, Doug Jones (voice), William Daniels (voice), James Earl Jones (voice)

Happy Madison Productions, Revolution Studios, 85 Minutes

Review:

“My wife is the only one who gets to twist these man titties.” – Gus

This is both a bad and a dumb movie. Still, I like the hell out of it because sometimes bad and dumb are just what you need to mindlessly escape from an increasingly shitty world.

Also, this is the type of movie that can’t be made today. When I say “type of movie” I mean “comedy”. We’re not allowed to laugh at things anymore because it could offend a small portion of the population who go through life like Howie in this movie. Although, Howie finally faced his fears and went outside where he made real friends and learned how to overcome his irrationality and begin to heal.

The Benchwarmers is the same sort of movies as Grandma’s Boy and, in fact, it’s made by some of the same people. Unlike Grandma’s Boy, though, this doesn’t focus on smoking dope and programming video games, it focuses on standing up to bullies and playing baseball.

While most of the characters in this are borderline ridiculous and way over the top, this is also the writers and actors poking fun at themselves for being nerds and non-jocks that probably just wanted to be able to hang with the dudes that picked on them growing up. This just takes the concept to the extreme because it’s easier to laugh at ourselves when it doesn’t hit super close to home.

This isn’t particularly well acted and many of the nerd tropes are way overdone to the point of cringe but in some way, it works for this movie. We really shouldn’t take this movie too seriously just like most of the things in our lives.

I get that a lot of people will hate this movie while watching it. But ask yourself this, “Are those people fun? Or are they just boring snobs thinking that they’re above a fart joke or shitty pun?” Basically, fuck those people.

Rating: 5.5/10