With the sequel on the way it's time to look back at the first movie.
Gladiator is a historical epic, that was produced by DreamWorks Pictures, Universal Pictures, Scott Free Productions, and Red Wagon Productions and distributed by DreamWorks Distribution. It's written by David Franzoni, John Logan, and William Nicholson and directed by one of my many favorites, Ridley Scott.
The story is, Roman general Maximus has lead a successful victory, but when he's demanded loyalty to the self-proclaimed new emperor Commodus, he refuses. His punishment is the death of his beloved wife and son. Now reduced to being a slave and fighting as a gladiator, Maximus now plans to work through the ranks and get his revenge.
Negatives
I've got nothing.
Mix
Now despite how much I love this movie, there is one tiny but forgivable issue, the pacing. Yeah even though the movie is overall awesome, it does drag in some areas.
Positives
Alright now to the good stuff. One of those being Ridley Scott's directing. Like I said before, he's one of my faves and no matter the genre or quality of the movie, Ridley always delivers when it comes to the look of his films. And Gladiator is no different. It looks gorgeous.
In all honesty, I don't know what I can say about Russell Crowe's performance that hasn't already been said. He delivered and earned his Best Actor award, and I think that's all that needs to be said.
Since this is an epic, how's the action? Well folks the action is pretty sweet. I loved it. Whenever it's go time I go so excited. The action is thrilling and can be very brutal.
Now to move onto the dialogue. Yes we've got the "Are you not entertained?", but there are also other great bits of dialogue like, "At my signal, unleash Hell". But my personal favorite is "I knew a man who once said, Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back."
The last thing I'll praise is our main villain, Commodus. If you plan to watch this just before the sequel comes out, be prepared to absolutely hate this guy. Sure he's creepy and ruthless, but he's also such a childish and cowardly little weasel you're just waiting in anticipation for Maximus to beat the hell out of him. Seriously, you're gonna love to hate this guy.
Gladiator was a tremendously great film back in 2000 and it's a tremendously great film now. It's strongly recommended for you to see this. Yes, I did mention some pacing, but it's forgivable.
My final rating is, A MUST WATCH!
Boy that was fun. Come back on Thursday, Nov 21st, for a brand new Raiders of The Lost Media (yes I still do those), with that one I'll be going over the original idea for Gladiator II. And oh boy is it a crazy one. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.
Red One is a Christmas action comedy fantasy movie. Production was done by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Seven Bucks Productions, Chris Morgan Productions, and The Detective Agency, with Amazon MGM Studios being the distributor. The movie is written by Chris Morgan and directed by Jake Kasdan.
The story is, Santa Claus has been kidnapped! Now his head of security Callum Drift is on a mission to find him, but the only person who can help is hacker Jack O'Malley. As they continue their search they soon discover there's something bigger at play.
Initial Reaction
Now in full honesty I was fully pumped for this movie, didn't even make it on my most anticipated list. I went to see this strictly out of curiosity and maybe get some decent or good material out of it for a review.
Cons
I've got nothing.
Middle Ground
There's three slight issues. One, the CGI. Sometimes it looked pretty good, nothing mind blowing but still good, other times, no. It wasn't good. Then there's the pacing. Most of the times the ball's move just fine, nothing to complain about. But there are scenes were you almost get the feeling of the long runtime. Then lastly there's the dialogue. It's either just okay nothing to get bent of shape over or it's predictable. You know exactly what someone's gonna say before they say it. That aspect really needed more polishing. And because of this slightly unpolished dialogue, sadly some parts of the acting isn't good, although that could also be blamed on directing but I think you get the point.
Pros
Now there are some good things from Red One, at least from my perspective. One being the humor. Somethings didn't work, but nine times out of ten I was having a good time. Second is the take on Santa and how he operates. I really dug it and it was also pretty funny too. It was like Santa and his elves were a spy or black ops team, only you know, much more wholesome.
Now I didn't hate this movie like everybody else does but, I do believe you don't have to rush to see this. It would be best to sit and wait for this whether as a rental or something to stream.
My final rating is, Okay.
Well this was probably one of the more easier movies for me to review. Anyways, come back on Monday, Nov 18th, for my A Look Back at review of, Gladiator. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.
That's right, got yet another Road to, onlyinstead of superheroes it's all about karate. Where as per usual I'm doing cause of the newest Karate Kid movie coming out next year. So let's get to it.
The Karate Kid is marital arts drama movie, where not only is it the first movie of the franchise, but for a fun fact also popularized karate in the U.S. Delphi II Productions and Jerry Weintraub Productions handled producing, while Columbia Pictures was in charged of distribution. The film was written by Robert Mark Kamen and directing was done by John G. Avildsen.
The story is, along with his mother, Daniel LaRusso was moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles. At first, Daniel gets new to the new environment and is living peacefully. This changes when known bully Johnny and his buddies use their karate skills to beat up Daniel. Being feed up with the bullying, Daniel wants to learn karate from Mr. Miyagi.
Negatives
I've got nothing.
Mix
The gray area is the music. A lot of the pop songs while fun, do make the movie slightly outdated. However, I'm not gonna diss "You're The Best". If you don't feel like delivering a good crane kick after hearing, then there's something wrong with you. There's also Bill Conti's score. It has a nice blend of west and east music, while also being very heartfelt. It's some of his best work.
Positives
One point of praise goes to Ralph Macchio & Pat Morita's performances. Ralph captures Daniel perfectly. He brought out the character's nice side, while also showing the chip on Daniel's shoulder. Then there's Pat Morita. He was amazing. When Miyagi is talking about the tragedy that happened in his past, Pat delivers. Delivers so much the Academy agreed because they nominated him for Best Supporting Actor. And to think, Morita almost didn't get the role because of his comedy background. Thankfully they didn't pass up on him.
Then there's our villain, Kreese! Oh, did you think I was gonna say Johnny? Don't get it twisted, Johnny still did some bad things, but Kreese is way worse. He encourages all of the bad behavior, and also tells his students to purposely injury both Daniel and other competitors. So yeah Kreese, a great villain you'll love to hate.
Now for my biggest praise, that being the story. So many great aspects about it, starting with the karate side. It tells us about the philosophy of karate, and also shows us both the good and bad of the marital art, mainly demonstrating the way Miyagi and Kreese go about their teachings. Speaking of Miyagi, there's a good father and son story with him and Daniel. It's properly built up too. First they're totally strangers, then teacher and student, and so forth. That story is truly the heart and soul of the movie. Then there's the bullying storyline. What makes it great is you can relate. Karate or not, you can relate to being bullied and getting to the point where enough is enough and you start defending yourself. And who knows maybe one thing or the other happened. Your bullies stopped picking on you, or in Daniel's case you earned their respect.
Despite the slight criticism, I love The Karate Kid. It's not only an essential 80's movie to watch, but an essential movie in general to watch.
My final rating is, Great.
That's going to do it for me. Due come back on Saturday, Nov 16th, for my review of Red One. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.
Showgirls is an "erotic" (and you'll find soon enough why I used quotation marks) drama movie that's produced by Carolco Pictures, Chargeurs, and United Artists with distribution by MGM/UA Distribution Co. Showgirls was written by Joe Eszterhas, with Paul Verhoeven directing.
The story is, a female drifter is heading to Las Vegas to go after her dreams of being a professional dancer and showgirl. But as success comes her way, she sees the darker side of her dreams.
My Thoughts
Let's start off with our main character, Nomi.
1) What kind of a name is that? Sure it's not her real name, but as far as fake names go, that's probably top ten worst.
2) What is this character? Throughout the movie people just like Nomi. In various degrees too. They either want to befriend her, promote her, f*ck her, or some sort of combination. Which I don't get because she's a horrible person. She's got some serious anger issues, inconsiderate of others, or she does horrible things like deliberately injury people to get ahead. And when she's not those things, she's just an idiot.
Now let's talk about the actress behind the Nomi character, Elizabeth Berkley. Her performance is amazingly over the top. I mean it, it's hilarious. But funny enough, she's not to blame for her acting. Paul Verhoeven took full blame. He said and I quote, "I asked Elizabeth to do all that -- to be abrupt and to act in that way, but people have been attacking her about that ever since. If somebody has to be blamed, it should be me". Gotta give him credit, not many directors own up to their mistakes. So yeah folks, go blame Paul.
Now to get into the plot. After wowing the audience, Nomi is offered a job at 'Goddess'. Which is funny, because Nomi can't dance! I mean, just look at this gif.
Although to be fair it's not just Nomi, nobody in this movie can dance! You would think that when you're making a movie that involves a lot of dancing you would make sure the dancing is perfect. I should be making fun of the choreographer, but come on, his or her name is attached to Showgirls. I think that's enough punishment.
Oh and somewhere during this movie Nomi is now addicted to drugs. I bring it up because through a good portion of the runtime, she goes on and on about how drugs are bad and how she doesn't do drugs, and all of the sudden she's into a drugs. It comes right of nowhere with absolutely no build up. It just happens.
Then afterwards we're introduced to James and James is...James is......I don't know who James is. He just comes into the picture, disappears for awhile, then he's back. Come to think of it, that's a running thing in this movie. Characters and subplots are introduced, on screen for a bit, and then they're gone. One of which involves monkeys. I'd go into more detail but I can't, the movie doesn't explain, so neither can I.
This line.
Well there you have it folks. Everybody got aids and shit. 😂
Now at the very beginning I made a smart remark about this being an "erotic" drama. The reason for the quotation marks is because this has got to be the least sexiest movie I've ever seen. To draw you a picture, imagine Elizabeth Berkley having sex, but instead of something sensual, it looks more like she's flopping around like a fish out of water, all the while the guy looks like he's rubbing his stomach against her cooch, as suppose to properly being inside her....if my description sounds even slightly funny to you, go watch the scenes themselves. Trust me, you and your girlfriend are gonna be more in a laughing mood then a horny one. What's even funnier than this is Joe Eszterhas and Paul Verhoever made Basic Instinct! A movie that was labeled "perhaps the quintessential erotic thriller of the 90s". So how in the blue hell did they make one of the best erotic movies, to what some might argue is one of the worst?
Let's move forward to the dialogue, it's weird. Women are either talking about sex, which I am not against a matter of fact, hell yeah! Then when it's not sex, they talk their nails, food, or make sexist jokes about women. Now despite what the woke police will tell you, that's not a bad thing. Hell, us guys make jokes about ourselves all the time. But with this movie the ladies are just brutal, and not in hilarious way, more like of "damn take it easy" way.
I don't recall when, but somewhere, we're introduced to Cristal and she's a big deal for some odd reason. No seriously, when she's in the starring role for Goddess, there is numerous reporters getting interviews with her. They even mentioned how she beat out major stars like Janet Jackson. I'm making a big deal out of this because there's no reason for the movie to make a big deal out of it. It's strippers putting on a show! Had this taken place in an age where stripping was starting out then I'd get it, but this is the mid-90's, I'm pretty sure these kinds of shows were a very common thing. Oh, and going back to Cristal's bizarre status, when she's injured, which is caused by Nomi pushing her down a flight of stairs. Once again, Nomi is terrible woman, her injury and being unable to perform is treated as a major conflict. The guys are absolutely shocked and terrified because now they have to use the understudy [Nomi]. This doesn't make sense because this is why you have an understudy. In case your star can't perform for one reason or the other. Does the movie want us to believe this kind of thing has never happened before?
Moving on, Nomi being the star wows the crowd despite terrible dancing. Soon, her and her friend Molly (a character Nomi befriended at the beginning) go to a party in celebration of the show being a success. Where Molly meets and is head over heels for her musician idol Andrew Carver. Afterwards Carver brings her to his room, where he proceeds to sexual assault her. Now I'm not gonna be up in arms about the sexual assault story. That kind of storytelling has been used multiple times and can be used effectively, what I will say is it doesn't make any sense. They had Molly so consumed with desire for Carver, that you would have thought she just do him anywhere if he asked.
Afterwards, Nomi is naturally pissed about what happened so she of course wants revenge. So she meets up with him back at his place, where she's now a taekwondo expert! No seriously, she just starts spin kicking him like it's going out of style. It's freakin' hilarious.
And so our movie ends with Nomi leaving Vegas and Molly, yeah Nomi doesn't even bother to stay with her during her recovery, she's a nice friend like that. And she also faces no consequences for injuring Cristal, The End.
While the assault scene will make you uneasy, everything else about Showgirls is amazing. If you're a fan of movies that are so bad they're good, Showgirls is an essential.
My final rating is, So Bad, It's Good.
That's going to do it for me. Come back on Thursday, Nov 14th, where I'll begin the Road to Karate Kid: Legends with my review of the original 1984 classic, The Karate Kid. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and remember, everybody got aids and shit.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a comic book movie, that slightly adapts the comic book storyline of the same name, and it's a sequel to The First Avenger. The movie's also the ninth entry in the MCU. Marvel Studios was in charge of production while Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures did distribution. Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely wrote the story and Anthony and Joe Russo directed.
The story is, it's been two years since the events of The Avengers and Steve now works for the spy organization S.H.I.E.L.D., while still adjusting to the modern world. Then one moment Nick Fury tells Cap that S.H.I.E.L.D has been compromised which leads to discovering a huge conspiracy. Now, Captain America must stop this, but not before needing to survive The Winter Soldier.
Negatives
I've got nothing.
Mix
Nothing here either.
Positives
Wow, there's quite a lot to say, so let's start with the humor. I'll keep this brief because I'll just be repeating what I said in my First Avenger. Basically yet again, this is how humor in comic book movies should be done. Used sparingly and not what feels like every other scene.
Then there's the CGI. The special effects haven't really worn off, it's clear that the VFX team was given more time unlike what the current CG artist are given.
Now for the action. Jeez, it's really hard to pick an exact favorite because they were all done so well. There's the opening hostage rescue mission, the Nick Fury chase scene, Steve Rogers first fight with the Winter Soldier, or the incredible elevator fight scene. Just so much to choose from. And while I'm not picking this has my favorite, I do praise the final fight. I thought with all the fights with the helicarriers would make things bloated, but no. That action sequence went by real smoothly.
Moving on from action I do want to give credit to the Russo Brothers' directing. One of the many problems facing the current MCU is that most, not all, but most of the time it's hard to tell who directed the movie. That's not the case with the Russos. While not as flashy as other directors, I can tell it's there's because of a strong focus on storytelling and some exciting action.
The last praise is the story. One thing that's great about is that character arcs come to a satisfying conclusion, and the fact is while at the end of the day this is still very much a superhero flick, but you can't help but get a spy thriller vibe. Also one of the two most important parts is The Winter Soldier himself. He was a great villain. He felt like an actual threat and was a perfect opponent for Captain America. Lastly and the all time best aspect was how our heroes were always on edge because they don't know who they can trust. We don't even know who's a good S.H.I.E.L.D. and who's with the villains until we're nearing the end. Which in return makes for some great tension.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier is one of my top favorite MCU movies and it was a blast revisiting this.
My final rating is, A MUST WATCH!
That wraps everything up. Come back on Monday, Nov 11th, for my Cinematic Disasters review of Showgirls. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.
Before I review the movie for my Road to Captain America: Brave New World, I thought it'd be a great idea to review the comic. And if you're wondering why I'm not including this in the Road to like I included a comic review for the Road to Superman (2025), it's simply because this comic arc had no influence on Brave New World's story. But enough of this, onto the review.
The Winter Soldier was a 2005 to 2006 storyline that was published in the 2005 volume of Captain America in issues #1-9 and 11-14. The story arc was written by Ed Brubaker (one of my faves) and primarily drawn by Steve Epting, with Michael Lark helping out with issues #2-5, 9, and 12 and John Paul Leon filling in for issue #7.
The story is, Captain America is being attacked by an assassin known as The Winter Soldier. First he sees him as just another enemy ,but after being briefed by Nick Fury he learns that he's someone from his World War II days. Now with this shocking revelation, Cap wonders if he'll be able to take him down.
Negatives
I don't have a single negative thing to say.
Mix
Got nothing here either.
Positives
First off, let me start off with Steve Epting and Michael Lark's art. It's astounding. Many Christmases ago, when my uncle bought me the first volume of this series, I couldn't look away from what Epting and Lark drew, I was awestruck. I thought it looked like a movie but in a comic format. Which funny enough seven years later, it came true.
My next praise is how this was the relaunch that Captain America needed. A couple of years before this volume, back in 2002 to be more precise, Marvel did relaunch Cap for their Marvel Knights imprint. For anybody that doesn't know, that imprint was for more mature stories but not fully adult like their MAX imprint. Basically the story was John Ney Rieber (the writer) had Steve Rogers go fight the war on terror directly in the aftermath of 9/11. Now I can't comment on the quality of those stories, because I haven't read them. But what I do know is they did slowly move away from that and went back to Cap fighting supervillains. So luckily for Marvel and us fans, Ed Brubaker gave us that post-9/11 espionage. And that was a really great time to do it because during the mid-2000s that's where a lot of entertainment was. There was realism, but still bits of entertainment to be had. In other words, while it had political themes, it wasn't political. Something a lot of current year comic "pros" can't seem to get a grasp on.
The last praise I'll give is the story. Now I never read any of Ed Brubaker's previous works, but after reading this I just had to read what else this guy wrote and what he's writing both during and after Captain America. One praise is how he did a great reveal for Winter Soldier. Earlier issues of this storyline had brief teases. We actually don't get a full reveal until the end of issue six, and his full origin unit issue eleven. So unless you already seen the movie, you have this anticipation and you're guessing who could it be? There's also some great retcons. Once again, for anybody who doesn't know, a retcon is basically a story device that offers new information from a previously established part of a story, mostly for dramatic purposes. Or to try to make sense of an inconsistency. But we got the more dramatic one, which is great. Especially since Brubaker made Marvel's World War II much like ours. Yes we had some truly brave men fighting, but there was a lot of complexities that happened during that time. My last praise for the story is how Captain America is really put through the ringer in this. He is being messed with both psychologically and emotionally. He's more than likely has some form of PTSD and just to add even more weight on his shoulders, he has to confront his guilt. Because of these hurdles, you feel bad for Captain America, you're hoping he gets redemption and hopefully in typical superhero fashion save the day. These aspects are what made this story one of my favorites.
The Winter Soldier is the story arc that changed Captain America for the better, and no matter how many times I've read it it still thrills me.
My final rating is, A MUST READ!
That's all for now. Come back on Thursday, Nov 7th, for part two of the Road to Captain America: Brave New World, with my review of the movie version of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.
Wolfen is a crime horror movie, that's based on Whitley Strieber's 1978 book The Wolfen. Orion Pictures did production with distribution duties going towards Warner Bros. Wolfen was written by Michael Wadleigh and David M. Eyre J. and directed by Michael Wadleigh.
The story is, there's been a series of bizarre, vicious murders which are first thought to from wild animals. Because of the odd nature, former NYPD captain Dewey Wilson is called in to solve the case. But the more Dewey uncovers, the more he realizes these are animal attacks, but they're by no means simple.
Why It's Underrated
The movie, much like many others, is just not well known. It really goes under the radar especially since when people think of a 1981 wolf film, the first ones that'll come to mind are either An American Werewolf in London or The Howling.
My Thoughts
Now I do want to slightly criticize some things. First off, Wadleigh is a very talented director. He did a fantastic job with handling the movie, for 99.99% of the time. Where he slightly lost me was his overuse of the "Wolfen Vision". Basically it use seeing this from the wolves' point of view. But sometimes we'll get a pov that'll leave us confused on how many wolves there are or point of views where the wolves really shouldn't be able to see anything.
The there's the story. Don't get it wrong, the murder mystery is fine, the creepier points are pretty good, and the message was fine, but the ending dialogue really shouldn't have been included. All it does is tell you exactly what the message, and in a very ham-fisted way even though you already put the pieces together.
Alright now let's talk about the truly positives aspects, with the more interesting spin. Let me state that this isn't a werewolf movie, that's a misconception. It's more in line with nature attacking, but with a very subtle element put into it. I would tell you what that is, but when it comes to this segment, I prefer if you guys go figure it out yourselves if you want to give the movie a try.
Then we move onto the cinematography. Michael Wadleigh and Gerry Fisher did a tremendous job with the look of the movie. New York looks decayed, creepy, but yet still has a beauty to it.
The last thing I'll credit is the suspense. This movie really takes it, but it felt worth it because it's only a matter of time before the tension finally breaks. Which it does in a very fun finale battle.
Wolfen has flaws but there's still a lot of good in it. However if you prefer the previously mentioned An American Werewolf in London or The Howling well I'm not gonna argue. Those are some pretty sweet movies.
My final rating is, Good.
My not have ended this Halloween season with a huge bang, but hey, it's better than ending with some hugely disappointing like Exorcist: Believer. Anyhow, that's all for now. Come back on Monday, Nov 4th, for my comic book review of, Captain America: Winter Soldier. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and have a HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 🎃
