Despite the fact that the season finale was nothing but build up and hype leading in to a basic goose egg of a final scene, season six of “The Walking Dead” was pretty damn great. What with Rick and co. earning their place at Alexandria, they finally cemented their spots as important pieces of the town and made it their business to help the towns folks master surviving the world of the walking dead. Despite some of Rick’s harsh methods, he aims high to bring Alexandria to new areas of development, which include a humongous plot to derail a massive onslaught of the dead from leaking out of a local quarry. Though the plan fails thanks to an attack by the vicious clan of the wolves, Rick and co. do their best to bounce back from the botched mission, and everyone pretty much evolve, learning something new and defining about themselves.
Tag Archives: Action
Space Cop (2016)
The team from Red Letter Media, a small group of some of the best online movie critics and comedians finally get together to put the superhero movie through the wringer. “Space Cop” is a mixture of superhero movies, crime noirs, and classic Golan Globus stinkers where our hero is a testosterone junkie prone to shooting a lot of people and then asking questions later. In this instance we follow the futuristic space cop from 2058 who spends his time shooting down bad guys and royally destroying his city in an attempt to halt operations from disgruntled criminals. When he’s home, he indulges in an addiction to hot dogs and beer.
Antigang (2015) (aka The Squad aka The Sweeney: Paris)
Paris, the anti-gang squad does things their own way, causing much in collateral damage and related costs. A group of highly organized robbers is hitting banks and jewelry stores around the city. The squad goes after them but is stop when a change in management benches them in favor of a more by the book squad. As things are escalating, the original squad decides to go after the robbers even though they are banned from doing so. All kinds of action film goodness ensue.
Howl (2015)
A train breaks down in the countryside only a few miles from its departure point. The few passengers on board are getting restless as the train staff attempts to figure out what is going on when all of a sudden, a beat howls outside. The train becomes under siege by a beast who wants to snack on its passengers like canned food. The setting and premise here are simple: People in one location, being attacked, needing to escape. Co-written by Nick Ostler and Mark Huckerby, both of whom mostly have children tv show credits, the script works within its limited setting. They build the characters just enough which is to say, most characters are fairly basic, but they work as beast fodder that the viewer care enough about to have a reaction to their demise.
It also means that the last survivors are easy to spot as they are the most developed characters, which is fairly par for the course with horror movies like this one.
Enragés (Rabid Dogs) (2015)
A group of four bank robbers run into trouble while attempting to escape. Their simple plan of robbing a bank and getting away goes terribly awry when one of them is killed and the others take hostages. They eventually get on their way to possible freedom with a father and daughter as well as a woman; however, the road to this freedom is littered with obstacles and violence. Enragés is a new adaptation of the short story “Man and Boy” by Michael J. Carroll which was previously adapted by Mario and Lamberto Bava in 1974. Here the screenplay is written by Yannick Dahan, first time writer and director Eric Hannezo, and actor (yet not in this film) Benjamin Rataud.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
Zack Snyder’s “Batman v Superman” is a prequel to “Justice League,” a spiritual reboot for his version of Ben Affleck’s love child iteration of Batman, and just one big amalgam of “Watchmen” and “The Dark Knight Rises” in one big messy unpleasant plate. Basically, Superman is Doctor Manhattan and Ozymandias, while Batman is Rorschach and Nite Owl. Snyder doesn’t really have to pull much footwork with his clashing of the titans, as he just instills a lot of the same themes and ideas from Alan Moore’s graphic novel, while spending the duration of the movie riffing on Moore’s work, along with Frank Miller, Alex Ross and everyone else he can. This results in a tonally uneven, and virtually fun free movie that has no respect for the Superman lore and an obsession with Batman’s, and it’s apparent from minute one. Did we really have to see Batman’s origin again?
Point Break (2015) [Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital]
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.