I love how studios assume that just because you stuff a moderately funny man like Ken Jeong in a hip moderately entertaining show like “Community,” you’re destined for comedic greatness. They thought they could work Jeong in for easy laughs in “Vampires Suck!” and they failed. And lo and behold he shows up in the first five minutes of “Big Momma’s” playing–what else–a crazy Asian man who happens to be a disgruntled postal worker. No one in “Big Momma’s” acts like an actual person you’d see on the street. No one would actually chase down and violently tussle with a mailman but hey, Martin Lawrence is grasping at straws in the final film series he really seems to be holding on to for dear life.
Tag Archives: Sequel
Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legends – The Movie (2009)
Normally this would be the point in my review where I start off warning that unless you get seizures, “Mega Monster…” might not be the movie for you. But then I grew up watching “Power Rangers” religiously, and played Super Nintendo non-stop so I’m two steps ahead of the game. For folks who have yet to really be exposed to this sort of content, “Mega Monsters” will serve as a pure sensory overload. It’s colorful, loud, bright, vibrant, loud, explosive, loud, incoherent, often times breakneck paced, and did I mention loud?! But seriously, while a film like this has little story, you really have to pay attention to know what’s happening with the narrative and I mean you really have to pay attention.
Species: The Awakening (2007)
We’re told in the first two “Species” movies that once the alien/human being begins to mature in to a woman of sexual charisma, she becomes a predatory monster. She wants to and has to pro-create. We’re also told in the sequel that the male has also the urge to breed and pro-create. So why our protagonist Miranda has no idea she’s part human and part alien until she’s told, is a major plot hole. This is of course only one part of the bigger problem in “Species: The Awakening” the final part in the “Species” series that continues to drive the film franchise from Hollywood fodder to DVD to fodder. Did no one noticed Miranda went from a child to an adult female in a day? Did she never figure out that she wasn’t given a teenage life by the lack of pictures? Why didn’t she ever ask questions about her parents?
Species II (1998)
I never actually understood the appeal of the first two “Species” film. The first film basically piggybacked on the revelation of sex bomb shell Natash Henstridge who incidentally ended up being a one note actress, and then the series inevitably fizzled out in to obscurity. Natasha Henstridge looks about as incredible as ever, and as Eve she presents a surprisingly significant change in personality and demeanor. This is a new shade of the monster where as Sil was much more “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” based around its predatorial habits, Eve is The Creature in “The Creature Walks Among Us,” still vicious but much more vulnerable and open to humanity, for better or for worse. It’s easy to buy that Sil and Eve are different entities, and Henstridge carries this career making role well and looks dynamite with shorter hair.
Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008)
I really don’t care that Ed Neumeier is behind this. I applaud his history with science fiction cinema and Robocop, but as a sequel and standalone film “Starship Troopers 3” is a terrible film. The satire I can often stomach since it was so much apart of the original film, but the fact that the satire is much too obvious to even call it respectable satire is just much too clumsy at times. “Marauder” is that film in the series many fans were anxious to watch mainly because it’s much more loyal to the novel, but that doesn’t entirely promise entertainment.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
“The Lost World” is one of the very few movies I’ve seen more than once in theaters, and gladly it was a rich experience every time. “The Lost World” doesn’t hold up as well as the original film since the 1993 film ventured in to the realms of gene splicing, DNA research, and the philosophy of man vs. nature, and natural selection. When natural selection chooses to snuff out the most primal animals of nature, we stand no chance when they’ve been revived and refined with modern predators. “The Lost World” however is a much less sophisticated and much more raucous sequel.
Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996)
It’s Pinhead. In space! With his cenobites. In space! Someone opens the puzzle box. In space! And people are tortured and turned in to cenobites against their wills. In space! The aspect about “Bloodlines” is that even though it closes the original continuity, there’s still a host of questions never answered for the fans. One of them being, if it’s indicated in the original film that becoming a cenobite is based primarily on the subjects own sado-sexual desires that transforms them in to beings of unbridled sexual pain and pleasure, why is Pinhead still just a stock slasher who turns people in to cenobites against their wills? In space? It’s a surefire sign you’re in for a thrill ride when you see director Alan Smithee at it again.