Last movie watched...

[edgeworthy]

So next up of course I had to put myself through Alien Vs Predator. I had no real desire to, but it was there and I was on a run, so what the heck I thought, maybe I'll have some fresh awakening about this one too.

I didn't.

Its dumb. Its like someone took all the dumb, threw it in a dumb bag and stuck it up until the dumb was all shaken and confused and made less sense. Then it tossed the confused and silly dumb out on the table in a confused and silly dumb mess.

The smartest thing it does is make sure you do don't have time to realise how dumb any one bit of the film is by throwing the next bit of dumb at you so quickly you haven't had time to digest the previous dumb.

Then cool alien vs predator fight in the middle. I mean damn that is really, really well done.

Then straight back to the dumbfest.

I don't hate the film, you can't hate the film. I just pity it.

But you know the dumbest thing of all. Yep you guessed it. I'm watching Alien Vs Predator Requirm next anyway... now that is dumb!

Dumb-dumb-dumb!

Its a movie where the highlight is the gratuitous butt-shot ... take what you will from that!

[Mister Pops]

Shite vs shite - Shite

I would have went with:

Excrement vs Predaturd - Feculence

[Colin YNWA]

Shite vs shite - Shite

I would have went with:

Excrement vs Predaturd - Feculence

More effort than than it deserves ... or seemingly went to writing the script!

[Colin YNWA]

End my revisits of Alien movies with Predator 2... which is only very, very loosely an Alien film - there is the skull, but I was lead there from AvP films and fancied reevaluating this after not really liking it as a kid.

So much like AvP 1 its as dumb as a box of bees, As with AvP Requirm its full of cliche. The characters are the very worst 80s actio cliches and based on that... I kinda really liked iot. Its shallow, horribly dated (except the Predator effects have they been redone? Looked really good) and cliche BUT damn it fun, shlocky nonsense. Danny Glover is wonderfully atypical - at least in his physical performance, if not in character, as an 80s action hero which is wonderfully refreshing.

Yeah - there's not much to say about it as there's not much about it. Just enjoyed it a lot more than I was expecting.

[Tiplodocus]

"Shit happens!"

[Barrington Boots]

Fuckin' voodoo magic, man!

Predator 2 is terrific. It has aged badly in many respects and almost every single character in it is pretty reprehensible: Harrigan is a brutal macho thug, Lambert is a complete sleazebag, Keyes is just Gary Busey - but it's manic pace and over the top antics make it hugely enjoyable. In particular Garey Busey, Bill Paxton and Danny Glover overact like crazy and the scenes with King Willie and the Predator on the subway are fantastic.
I also didn't like it when it came out as I wanted something more like Predator, but in later years have come to really love it.

[Tiplodocus]

Plus didn't they COMPLETELY steal the plot of Predator 2 for Batman vs. Predator?

[Tiplodocus]

I'm half way through a pretty lifeless Hallmark TV movie of KING SOLOMON'S MINES. Two handsome leads in Patrick Swayze and Alison Doody (though Swayze is phoning it in and Doody doesn't appear to know when it is set... to be fair to her, neither does the production team) and some pretty shots of Africa aside it has nothing to offer.

Possibly more relevant, by way of rabbit holes and connections, is "how did I end up watching it?".

I'd been looking at an old LXG comic and my Ray Harryhausen poster book last week. There was a great, if reductive,  poster for a ONE MILLION YEARS BC  and SHE double bill.

That got me googling SHE - a film I barely remember - and H Rider Haggard. I hadn't realised there was a SHE and Alan Quatermain crossover (coincidence with me looking at LXG) which took me to KING SOLOMON'S MINES wiki which mentioned this adaption and then when I saw it pop up on Amazon, I thought "This might be fun".

 I was wrong, obviously. Do other people arrive at film choices in terrible ways?

[Tiplodocus]

Actually, some of the supporting cast. (Quatermain's local guides and bearers who actually have names!) are good.

[Daveycandlish]

Worth checking out the 1930’s SHE produced by Merian C Cooper as a follow up to his production of King Kong. Great stuff!

[The Legendary Shark]

Total Recall. I haven't seen this since it came out in 1990 and now I remember why. Total piffle from start to finish.

[pictsy]

Total Recall was kind of ruined for me because of the whole "it's ambiguous" thing.  I never thought it was ambiguous to the viewer, only to the protagonist. 

For something like this to sell me on that premise the bare minimum must be that every scene has the protagonist present, so we are seeing it entirely from their point of view.  If I'm seeing stuff they aren't, I'm not sold.

Also don't show me a scene of an event that protagonist has wiped from memory.  If they don't remember it, we shouldn't see it.

If I am to respect the interpretation that within the film the events aren't real, then I can't respect the film.  At this point it's hard to watch because of that.

It's a shame because it was one of favourite Schwarzenegger films.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Total Recall was kind of ruined for me because of the whole "it's ambiguous" thing.  I never thought it was ambiguous to the viewer, only to the protagonist. 

For something like this to sell me on that premise the bare minimum must be that every scene has the protagonist present, so we are seeing it entirely from their point of view.  If I'm seeing stuff they aren't, I'm not sold.

Also don't show me a scene of an event that protagonist has wiped from memory.  If they don't remember it, we shouldn't see it.

If I am to respect the interpretation that within the film the events aren't real, then I can't respect the film.  At this point it's hard to watch because of that.

It's a shame because it was one of favourite Schwarzenegger films.

I always thought it was real, because when he is under - to have the implant - there is a conversation he cannot hear where the implanters say that the memory has not been implanted yet.

[pictsy]

I always thought it was real, because when he is under - to have the implant - there is a conversation he cannot hear where the implanters say that the memory has not been implanted yet.

Same.  If I'm recalling correctly that's also the scene where they wipe his memory of having been to Recall and send him home.

Nevertheless, Paul Verhoeven has given credence to the ambiguity stating it was his intention to make it that way.  Also that it's both real and fake at the same time.  I can't reconcile that with the movie I see and if he really intended that at the time then he failed in what he set out to achieve.

[wedgeski]

I long ago gave up trying to decide one way or the other. I still think it's incredibly fun.