14 Blades ( 2010 )
Donnie Yen is a law official in the late Ming dynasty who is given a mechanical box containing 14 different blades, 10 which are different style blades to be used in battle, three to be used to execute anyone guilty of treason, and one to be used on himself should he ever fail a mission. The box can also shoot out spikes, and shoot out tiny grappling hooks on the end of wires that can be used to pull the box and Donnie up onto walls and ceilings like Spiderman. Donnie uncovers a plot by a powerful eunuch and the emperor's uncle to overthrow the thrown by stealing the royal seal. He is framed and ends up on the run as an outlaw, while at the same time trying to steal the seal back before the villains can use it to overthrow the emperor. It does work well as an adventure film, and even the romantic subplot is decent. But the action is mostly confusingly shot. Out of the 14 blades, Donnie uses just one throughout the entire film. Occasionally we see a shot of gears moving inside the box, and occasionally the box flips open and fans out a selection of blades. But you always see the same rectangle blade throughout the film. You see more blades from the supporting character Eagle of the Desert who has both a regular saber, and a double bladed saber he throws like a boomerang at his enemies. Seems like a colossal waste to have a premise of a box containing 14 different blades and only using one of them.
Brightburn ( 2019 )
A couple of weeks ago I watched a film that was part of a trilogy that formed a cinematic universe featuring superheroes. I wont mention the films in that trilogy as the fact that they are tied into each other is a spoiler. But ever since the MCU, cinematic universes have been popular. James Gunn was part of the MCU, until Disney fired him for old tweets. Suddenly finding himself with some free time, he decided to create his own cinematic universe. A horror film that ties into his 2010 film Super where a divorcee decides to become a superhero despite having no powers. ( Nice companion piece to the Kick-Ass films and worth seeing. ) It's not really a spoiler to say this ties into Super because you can't really tell it is from watching the film. A post credit sequence shows a crazy guy and his conspiracy theory YouTube channel talking about the character from Brightburn, then mentioning it's no different from the half man half fish and witch he mentioned on his other shows, after which briefly we see a bunch of photos behind him that include a blurry image of the Brightburn character, a blurry image of the fish-man, a drawing of the witch, a drawing of an alien, and a photo of Crimson Bolt from Super. Except it looks more like Daredevil than crimson bolt. Only die hard James Gunn fans would have surmised that Crimson Bolt was tied into Brightburn. Which doesn't really matter. Shortly after beginning work on Brightburn, Warner Bros. snatched James Gunn up to write and direct Suicide Squad II, and more recently the stupid pills the Disney executives wore off and they rehired Gunn to write and direct Guardians of the Galaxy III. Directing duties on Brightburn went to David Yarovesky who took over for Gunn. In a recent online post, Gunn admitted that the ending credit sequence was a set up for a cinematic universe that would have included the other characters mentioned, but is currently mothballed because he is now busy working for both the MCU and DCU.
So what is Brightburn?The easy answer would be that it is the opposite of Superman. A spaceship containing a baby crashes near an isolated farm, and the childless couple living there adopts it. Ten years later the boy discovers he has super powers, but instead of becoming a hero, he becomes a psychopath who uses his powers to put on a costume and kill anyone he doesn't like. Or put it this way. Think of it as a mix of the 1978 Superman film, The Omen ( 1976 ), and just about any 1980's horror film. In fact, there is definitely a late 80s splatter film vibe here, especially when the unnamed antihero makes his kills, which are often cringingly gory. This was extremely low budget, so there are a lot of shortcuts, a lot of stuff happening off screen, and sometimes the special effects are not exactly up to par. But at 90 minutes, it is actually a fun film. Well, the sort of fun you got from those 80s horror films.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ( 2018 )
Perhaps the only problem the Jurassic Park franchise had was explaining why people kept going back to the island where the f&%king dinosaurs lived. This film seems to solve that problem for future sequels, although you would probably doubt that as it was promoted as a film about the dinosaur island being ravaged by a volcano, and all the dinosaurs about to be cooked. Actually, the volcano story is only the first half of the film. The second half does something wise that will open the door for more original stories in the sequels. No more of the stupidity of smart scientists doing something stupid like making an island of dinosaurs, then continuously going back to it even though every time humans step foot on it they get eaten. A big deal was made about Jeff Goldblum returning to the series, but basically he is only on screen for about a minute. Even though this is more or less a retread of everything from the first film, as were all the sequels, the Jurassic Park franchise is still thrilling.
Topic: What was the last movie you watched? (Read 1787031 times)
