Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 action film “Point Break” was never really anything resembling a masterpiece, but one thing you could never call it was boring. It’s garnered something of a cult following over the years, for a reason. It’s a silly, goofy, and fun bromance where Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze bring their A game in one of the most sexless male romance action films of all time. It’s a camp classic despite its major failings. “Point Break” 2015 takes the 1991 original and saps out all of the fun and inherent camp, transforming it in to a tedious, overlong action thriller without a lick of humor about itself. Even “Fast and the Furious,” which copied “Point Break” shamelessly, had a sense of humor about itself and embraced its silly trappings and ridiculous plot line. Coming ten years too late, “Point Break” comes along after about fifteen retreads, and doesn’t really do anything except inspire the viewer to check out the original action film.
Category Archives: Collector’s Den
Species III (2004)/Species: The Awakening (2007) [Blu-Ray]
For the small fanbase that loves the “Species” series, they’ll be interested to see where the studio takes the original 1995 hyper sexual science fiction thriller. Set directly after “Species II,” Brad Turner attempts to connect the dots and further the mythos of the alien clone Sil. After her experience with her male alien counterpart and dying at his hands in an awfully weird manner in the ein of hentai, she is revealed to be pregnant. What happened to his millions of offspring, one only knows, but this time as Sil is being transported, she produces two female offspring of her own.
Species II (1998) [Blu-Ray]
Director Peter Medak follows up the somewhat tolerable original “Species” with a sequel that ups the ante in the narrative but doesn’t improve the story all that much. This time around Medak and co. completely abandon the idea of a genetically altered alien this time around for a much more traditional yet sexually charged alien invasion. When Commander Ross returns home from a space expedition with other astronaut explorers, the highly decorated man is revealed to have been taken over by an alien being. Said alien being is based around procreation. As Commander Ross slowly transforms in to an alien being, he begins scouring the city for sexual mates and turning them in to breeders for his army of off spring that begin populating the landscape.
Disturbing Behavior (1998) [Blu-Ray]
I’d be hard pressed to call “Disturbing Behavior” a stellar horror film, but as an artifact of the late nineties teen horror boom, it’s a worthwhile effort by an “X-Files” creative mind. “Disturbing Behavior” fosters a fascinatingly looney tone that works in favor of the premise, even when it strives for inadvertent camp. James Marsden plays Steve, a newcomer to Cradle Bay who has just move in with his family and little sister. Steve is instantly accepted in to the reject crowd of the school, as led unofficially by Nick Stahl’s character Gavin. Despite the strange rift between cliques in the local high school, Steve writes off the separation as simple pack mentality, but is told by Gavin that the popular crowd also known as “Blue Ribbons” are actually more sinister than they seem.
Creed (2015) [Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital]
The Rocky saga has always been about parental issues and how parenting and lack thereof define our characters. Rocky had no real parents thus he was always thought of as a loser who gained a dad through Mickey. Adrian and Pauley were each others’ parents, while Rocky’s own son is somewhat a distant memory by the time “Creed” rolls around thanks to Rocky’s own destructive quest for glory. Despite their bonding in “Rocky Balboa” Rocky is still a lonely hermit of a man who runs a restaurant and lives in Philadelphia, still mourning the loss of wife Adrian and best friend Pauley. His effect has had more of a profound effect than he ever realized, as director Ryan Coogler reaches in to the Balboa mythology to touch on another family within the fold of the series that we rarely visited.
Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales (DVD)
Ever since Disney bought “Star Wars,” the company has been working over time to put back the credibility in the series. Lego always has a knack for delivering some of the wittiest and most entertaining animated series, but they have a great time with “Star Wars.” Not only do they pinpoint the inherent wackiness of the universe, but they have a ball taking the piss out of the awful prequels. Set immediately after the climax of “Return of the Jedi,” C3P0 and R2 are asked by their friends to regale them with tales of the clone wars and fall of the Jedi. With C3P0’s memory conveniently in hand thanks to R2, they begin telling them the oh so inconsistent tales of how Anakin descended in to the dark side. Hilarity ensues.
The Good Dinosaur (2015) [Blu-ray/DVD/Digital]
It’s a shame that “The Good Dinosaur” will forever be regarded as one of Pixar’s black sheep titles. Because as a whole it’s one of their most original and unique tales that channels the modern Western to invoke a tale about family, getting over one’s own shortcomings, and learning that life is often senseless and unfair. Pixar uses the aesthetic of the dinosaur to help induce the idea of nature and how the environment around us is both an element we must fear and respect in the long run. As with most Pixar films, “The Good Dinosaur” doesn’t justify the idea of death with simplicity, nor does it coddle the intended target audience. It instead takes us through a large journey and tells us that yes, life is hard, yes life is very unfair, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop living.