Ed's Review Dot Com

Gloucester Place Films, International Pictures Three, Minds Eye Entertainment,

Christian Slater, Brendan Fehr, Amy Matysio, Michael Therriault

The crewmembers of a lunar space station are in trouble. They were hit by a meteor shower that did a lot of damage to the ship. Col. Gerard Brauchman (Christian Slater) locks down the damaged section of the station, and sends for help, but has shut down most of the non-critical processes to preserve oxygen since the air scrubbers are down. But the meteors brought some spores that have the ability to grow and adapt to the DNA of one of the inhabitants. They are on the way back to Earth to try to take over the planet in this low budget sci-fi adventure.

With Christian Slater at the Captain’s chair, I had high hopes that this might be a really cool space thriller. Instead, I suspect Christian took all the money they had for this movie, and they certainly couldn’t afford to write a script. So they just took from every other space film ever made. There is nothing new here at all, and it’s so derivative, they don’t even try to hide the fact that they are ripping off every other movie. Naturally the space station is filling up with Carbon Monoxide (they keep saying over and over) and the effect of that (due to the air scrubbers being conveniently out of commission) is to cause delirium and hallucinations. Of course the people who are seeing the monster aliens are believed to be just under the effects of the “carbon monoxide” and that gives us a convenient reason for nobody to believe them. Ho hum. By the way, nothing is burning, so there is no reason for “carbon monoxide” to be filling up the station. Now I think they mean carbon dioxide which is the output of breathing, and since they have no way to remove it, I would think carbon dioxide is filling up the station. But for the cheesy effects in this clinker, I’m not surprised it makes no scientific sense. Christian Slater is a decent actor, but his character here is really boring. He’s so annoying with him monotone attitude, and he keeps to his “office” speaking over the desk lamp that he uses for a “communicator”. He’s supposed to be the “incompetent” leader who won’t believe anybody, but he’s so monotonous doing it that I really disliked him for all the wrong reasons. Then they tried to put a twist ending on the thing, and to setup for the sequel that we all hope will never come. This is a poorly executed film. They started with a decent idea, and just didn’t go anywhere with it. I suspect you ought to simply skip this one!

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Black Bear Pictures, Treehouse Pictures, Killer Films,

Zac Efron, Heather Graham, Dennis Quaid, Clancy Brown, Kim Dickens, Chelcie Ross, Maika Monroe, Red West, Sophie Curtis, John Hoogenakker

Dean Whipple (Zac Efron) loves racing. He’s a good driver, and has his heart set on racing for a living. But his dad Henry (Dennis Quaid) is dead set against anything other than Dean taking over the families farming business. The Whipples have been a farming family for generations, and when we meet Henry’s father, we find out why he’s so tough on his son. But Henry also is trying to keep the business afloat by doing some shady business deals, and something they call “cleaning” seeds, which is saving some of the genetically modified seeds to resell, which is illegal under their contract. The family is in crisis and can lose their farm when the seed company sends investigators to check out Henry’s business practices. This film is mostly about the family and the pressures to stay afloat in very tough times as well as the relationship between 3 generations of Whipple men.

This is a relatively interesting film, although it’s ground that we’ve covered again and again. It’s son who doesn’t want to be “a doctor, a lawyer, a cop, a marine, a farmer) and wants to exert his independence from a dictatorial father who just doesn’t understand him. That part of it we’ve seen before. Then there’s the guy who has to be somebody who makes some bad decisions and risks his whole family for his greed. It is a familiar story, and is often blasted by the critics. But I did enjoy this movie, after all, and for several varied reasons. Dennis Quaid is pretty good here. He did an excellent job with his character, and I could really feel the pressures he was under to perform. He never says it, but we feel that he too, is making the best of a life that he had no choice in. His father is very rude, and is quite easy to hate, but I feel like he’s a product of his generation too, and probably his father as well. Choices were made for them, and they had no choice but to continue in the family business. That’s why it’s easy to see why he can’t understand why Dean is not at all interested in following in the predetermined plan. It’s true that the players brought their own problems on themselves due to really bad choices, but I think it’s understandable why they did what they did. Zac has a relatively dramatic role which he handles really well. He’s getting pretty good at drama and losing the Disney Channel image without naked twerking and raping Robin Thicke at the VMA rewards. He’s turning into a dramatic actor. All in all it’s a familiar story that isn’t extremely memorable or remarkable, but its a warm friendly old fashioned American tale of small town people. It was relaxing to watch, and enjoyable, and I had no trouble with the story. It was relaxing to watch.

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Paramount Pictures, De Line Pictures,

Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Ed Harris, Ken Jeong, Anthony Mackie, Rob Corddry, Tony Shalhoub

Based on the true story of Miami body builder Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) who felt like he was tired of just trying to get by. He looked at all the good stuff everybody else seemed to have and figured it was a good idea for him to get a piece of it. So he enlisted the help of two of his fellow body builders Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson) and Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) to pull off a kidnapping and extortion plan. Of course, nothing goes right for this bunch of inept guys, and everything that could go wrong does. But one thing you have to give these guys credit for is they’re persistent! The most amazing thing about this hilarious adventure is that it really happened. The statement about truth being stranger than fiction surely applies to this story.

This is a really funny story. I’m not a big fan of Markie Mark, but he really did a good job in this film. This film has a bit of a Monty Python feel to it, although if it was fiction I would probably be complaining that it was too unbelievable. These guys make the Marx Brothers look sane. This is a very funny story, after all. But The Rock is the big surprise in this film. This was something he could sink his teeth into, and here he is, an ex-con, now a Christian, and finally sober, and the other guys pull him into everything that is against what he’s trying to be. His loyalty is tested, and he has some troubling choices to make, but that just adds to the comedy. I think the secret to this movie is director Michael Bay. This is a bit of an unusual film for him, I think he must have enjoyed having this tiny budget, and such a dark story that is so damn funny, to play with, and seeing what he could do with it. Essentially, what he did was bring his style of directing to this comedy and turned it into an “action/comedy” where there is a lot of stuff going on in a really funny way. All in all, it was a funny movie, though these guys did some really sleazy things. It appears they are basically good guys, that got sucked up in this caper simply for a lack of good sense. If you like dark crime comedies, this is a good one, and well worth the time!

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