“Specimen” is one of those late nineties relics that has to be seen to be believed or else you’ll be sure it never existed. A TV movie and straight to video film, “Specimen” is by and large one of the many blemishes on its stars filmographies that acts as merely a vehicle and some work during their down time and serves as nothing more than filler. A rip off of “The Terminator 2,” “Firestarter,” and “Fire in the Sky,” Douglas Bradshaw’s film is one I discovered in the 1999 and have yet to get over. It’s a cheesy knock off and one that prides itself in being a shameless carbon copy, but I love it just the same at the end of the day.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Superheroes (2011)
Director Mike Barnett’s chronicling of real life superheroes wants to ultimately have it both ways. It’s at times very exploitative and mocks its subjects relentlessly with tricky editing and bloopers that depict the subjects as lunatics in costumes, and by the second half Barnett tries to depict his clan of costumed lunatics in to something of a do gooder bunch with well meaning intentions that will undoubtedly get them killed one day. You can do nothing but feel pity for these people who have taken to creating ridiculous costumes and using Power Rangers as their inspiration for patrolling streets and risking being murdered rather than take up admirable trades like EMT services, law, and so much more that they can contribute society.
Black Scorpion (1995)
Only in a Roger Corman inspired film can you see a super villain who is asthmatic and base their entire gimmick around being asthmatic. But that comes with the territory with this mid-nineties made for Showtime Television movie that I fondly recall re-watching over and over. If only for the brief nudity. But in reality I would have watched anything with superheroes and “Black Scorpion” was right up my alley as a blossoming movie buff showing love for the cult. This Batman-esque trashy crime thriller stars the sexy Joan Severance as Darcy Walker, a cop born and raised who has had enough of the law. Especially when her dad is mysteriously killed by a town politician in cold blood before her eyes.
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Fourth time’s a charm for Marvel who have finally stopped trying to retrofit their banner first tier character Captain America and just outright accepted that for better or for worse their most iconic superhero is meant for his time period, a time during world war II where Cap Am could mostly come to use to bring down the Nazis and the evil Hydra. Who better to bring this retro character to the big screen than Joe Johnston, a man who successfully brought us “The Rocketeer” in the early nineties? Much of that same child-like enthusiasm and movie serial aura is carried over in to this new version of Captain America where Marvel finally gets it right.
I Am Number Four (2011)
Flawed and by no means a masterpiece, I sense “I Am Number Four” is a film that will become one of my favorites that I’ll be defending for years to come. I won’t sit here and claim this is a flawless piece of science fiction action cinema, but for what it promises in the beginning, it works wonders in delivering what’s essentially a teen oriented action film. “I Am Number Four” touches on my weak points in fiction concerning teens realizing their destinies and aliens from another world battling it out on mid-west suburbia confronting each other in a war that neither of us can fathom.
The Fantastic Four (1994)
Say whatever you want about 1994’s guilty pleasure “The Fantastic Four” but I’ll take it any day over the god awful big budget films released in 2005 by director Tim Story. There may not be much of a budget to draw on, but at least there’s Dr. Doom in all of his glory and much of what made the comics so readable back in the early nineties. Plus, while much of it is generally in line with the kid friendly tone of the big budget films, director Oley Sassone opts for a darker tone that works much more than the big budget successors in the next decade.
The Surge (2002)
I guess it’s too much to ask for a good time from a film from The Asylum, but I’m an ever so optimistic movie watcher. Some would say naive, in fact. “The Surge,” also known as “The Secret Craft” also known as “The Source,” has a relatively good idea on its shoulder that could be turned in to something of a magnificent low budget epic if it really had some talent in its corner. Alas it doesn’t, thus we’re subjected to what is primarily a really bad rip-off of “The Craft.”