Last night I watched "Resident Evil: Degeneration". I played the first one and a half games using cheat codes because I suck at these kinds of games, but love the atmosphere. So I'm not a hard core Resident Evil/Bio Hazard fan. But I do love a good zombie flick and sci-fi action rocks, so I knew I'd have to check this one out. It had a few good things going for it, but not enough to make it a purchase. Some great visual designs and creature stuff provided nifty eye candy and a few of the action sequences scratched the itch for me. Where the movie falls short is, like so many of its kind, in the motion capture. Now, I have to say very quickly and with great stress, this is not the fault of the mo-cap actors. I emphasize that because after watching the credits I discovered that the mo-cap actor for Claire Redfield was played by one of my and my wife's friends. I felt her performance was solid and one of the strong points of the film. Even before discoverin...

Last night, for the first time, I sat down and watched "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and today I went out to see the remake. The film has a suitable dark tone and while Keanu Reeves doesn't offer anything terribly new, his performance style fit the role of alien visitor "Klaatu" well enough. Jennifer Connelly plays a microbiologist recruited by the US military to help them understand what they are dealing with in Klaatu. Times have certainly changed and this movie is a constant reminder. The re-imagining of the deadly protector, Gort, draws heavily from the original film, but leaves behind the clunky "man in a suit" in favor of a streamlined massive CGI creature. Gort is a silent, powerful and eerie presence through most of the film and goes through an interesting change late in the film that is a departure from the original movie. In general the special effects work well, although they are unremarkable. This is true of the movie as a w...

Producers set out to create a Punisher movie with a "hard R" rating, and they succeeded. But did they do much better this time in overall movie making? Depends on what you buy your ticket for. Although I'm a huge comic book geek, I've never followed the Punisher. I know the basic concept. A man sees his family killed and so dedicates his life to revenge, utilizing lots and lots of guns. In a sense, the Punisher is a lethal take on the Batman concept, but without the theatrics. His psychology is more straight-forward than Bruce Wayne's, although my understanding is that Frank Castle has some religious background (specifically catholic, I believe) that makes for some interesting potential. My review of this movie is not from the perspective of a "Punisher fan" but from a comic book geek with limited knowledge of the source material. I can't compare it to the comics, but I can decide on whether or not I thought it was a good movie. Ray Steve...

Although I've read and enjoyed a few of Frank Peretti's books, I've never read any of Ted Dekker's all the way through and did not read the novel "House" before seeing this movie based on it. I went into the theater knowing the track record of "Christian" movies, and despite wanting this film to succeed I made every effort to treat it like any other movie of the horror genre (as it was marketed to be) without being too easy or too hard on it. In short, while this movie had some good points to make, its potential message is overwhelmed by poor film-making. First, the good. Despite having "Christian" origins, the costumes, make-up and coloring have a dark quality to them that fits the horror genre. The special effects do not attempt to set any records, but serve their purpose well and don't take anything away from the film. Rather, they add to the production value. Unfortunately, we are already set to move o...

This movie provides only a mediocre diversion to your afternoon or evening. Once again, a filmmaker fails to capture, in a movie adaptation, the elements that make the video game what it is. I've played and enjoyed the first and second Max Payne video games for PS2. What fan could forget the hallmarks of a Max Payne game? That dark, film-noir voice-over that takes you through the plot, a grizzled hero popping painkillers to avoid succumbing to his multiple wounds, and gunfights with bullet-time. Lots of bullet-time. This film failed to deliver on all three counts. The only narration we get from Payne is at the beginning and end of the film. Everything in between departs from this style of storytelling. Throughout the film, when Wahlberg speaks, you are reminded of how much he sounds like Mark Wahlberg and how little he brings to mind Max Payne. Don't get me wrong, Wahlberg did a fine job. They just cast the wrong guy in this part. As for painkillers, we don't see ...

The much anticipated sequel to Batman Begins delivers a ton of story for your dollar, clocking in at 2 hours and 30 minutes and not wasting any time. A combination of great performances, realistic special effects and solid writing bring another Batman experience grounded in realism, but still able to deliver some exciting thrills. Director Chris Nolan brings his gritty sensibility to the film again, although a little inconsistently this time. While the Joker has to wear make-up in order to assume his iconic look, there are some technological gadgets that stretch the suspension of disbelief further than the first film did. For my taste, I prefer a joker whose skin is stained white across his entire body, and stays that way. In "The Dark Knight", the Joker's make-up and hair-dye would fade from wear and tear on the character, resulting in a few moments where he didn't quite look like the Joker as much as a weird guy who just got home at 6am from ...

With a new cast, new director, new studio (Marvel Studios), new origin and new focus, "The Incredible Hulk" set out to re-launch the franchise for the Green Goliath. From the very beginning it's obvious that we're meant to forget that Ang Lee's film ever screened in theaters. Through fragmented flashbacks in the opening titles, supported by exposition later in the film, the origin of Bruce Banner's "anger issue" is revamped. While it's still possible Bruce had a bad childhood, the film doesn't spend the amount of time examining Banner's brain that the first film did, and thankfully so. The angst in this film is based much more on his relationship with Betty Ross. Character is given just enough attention to draw you into the story, but it seems clear that after Lee's film they wanted to spend more time on action. And the action is pretty good. Nothing mind-blowing, but more fast and intense than the first film. The down side ...

I revisited the previous three films before watching this one and found that they were much less interesting than I remembered, so take that into account. Because of this, I wasn't terribly let down by this movie, although it has it's flaws. First the good, though. Great performances by all involved. Ford seemed to need a couple scenes before he felt like Indy, but got into his groove soon enough. The film acknowledged the character's age with good effect, though Ford still seemed to do a very surprising amount of his own stunts. (That or the face replacement was REALLY slick!) Cate Blanchett was especially enjoyable as the stereotypical "communist Russian bad lady". The film was served well by modern special effects and the sets were great in number and textured in design. Some great visual material. On to the bad. As my wife pointed out, "no one ever seemed to really be in danger. It was like they were at an amusement park goin...

Andrew Adamson returns to direct this second adaptation of C.S. Lewis' classic fantasy series, with pretty good results. I've read and enjoyed all of the books, but it's been about 15 years. Since then, however, I've listened through most of the series in audio drama format in the series produced by Focus Radio Theatre. (I can recommend this series both for its production quality and faithfulness to the original books.) After seeing "Prince Caspian", I flipped back through my copy of the book to check my memory and verified that some pretty significant changes were made. I'll admit that I saw the changes coming. First, there were several action sequences added to the the first movie and second, the "Prince Caspian" story, like many of the books in this series, is not "action packed". It's driven by the exploration of events and ideas. It's not a thickly spread allegory, but is still undeniably an allegory. The original...

I'm so glad I avoided trailers for this movie like the plague. I'll just start by saying that this flick is impossibly cool. Robert Downey Jr. was perfection in the role of Tony Stark/Iron Man, bringing his sense of wit and charm to the screen that embody this character so well. Gwyneth Paltrow perfectly compliments Downey Jr., creating romantic interest and tension that plays well and fittingly never gets resolved. Jeff Bridges is another great choice for an antagonist in this flick. Watching his character's path is enjoyable throughout. The main thrust of the movie is as follows: Playboy Tony Stark's multi-billion dollar company produces weapons of war that find themselves in the hands of terrorists. After a very close call that leaves Stark with potentially fatal "scars", Tony turns around and designs the "Iron Man" suit to find and destroy Stark weaponry in the hands of terrorists. You won't find arch-nemesis "The Mandarin...

Ben Stein (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Win Ben Stein's Money, Visine Commercials) acted as front man for this documentary about the theory of Intelligent Design and the American scientific community. At 90 minutes, this film briefly makes its point clear, although wanders off center for a few minutes. Stein spotlights scientists with strong credibility who have been in some way shut out (fired, denied tenure, blacklisted) from the scientific community because of their desire to openly discuss the concept of Intelligent Design. Throughout the film we see scientists of all philosophical backgrounds (Christian, Jewish, Agnostic, Humanist) discussing the barrier they have experienced regarding a public dialogue over Intelligent Design. Demonstrating this trend is the film's strong point, since this entire, complex issue CANNOT be resolved in a 90 minute documentary. Although "Expelled" spends some time validating the theory of Intelligent Design and clearly dif...

It should come as no surprise that Uwe Boll's latest "video game to movie" effort has fallen short. I'm not looking to pound on him. (If you feel like doing that, more power to you. There's an interesting petition floating around the net you might want to search for and check out.) No, I want to try and figure out the mystery behind him a little. Why do producers keep giving him movies to direct? With consistently poor reviews, you would think that producers would choose a different director if they want to make some money. Then again, does anyone know if his movies are making money? I went over to IMDB to try and solve the mystery. The website gives production budgets and box office sales for nearly every movie listed, but without knowing the exchange rate for various countries around the world, I wasn't able to figure out how well Boll's movies did in the end. I suppose it's possible that he's able to make enough money from reluctant b...

The internet makes communication easier than ever before. But is it always productive communication? We've got a ton of news programs filling timeslots on CNN and Fox news, but how much is opinion/commentary and how much is actual cold hard facts? Political talk shows will bring exciting guests on to discuss hot-topic issues, but the time-slot is so limited that people compete to talk over each other. Both hosts and guests seem less interested in discussing and learning, and more interested in figuring out their next come-back. On MySpace, YouTube and any given forum on the web, it's very much the same: People spitting out assumptive statements and oversimplified answers to issues that deserve lengthy and repeated examination and discussion. Are we really interested in the truth, or have the most important issues for conversation in the world become nothing more than opportunities to feel smart? Sometimes I'll read a post or watch a video that flies in the...

Relativism strikes another blow to pop culture in "Countdown To Mystery" from DC comics. I love the Spectre. One of my favorite character concepts. The Wrath of God bonded to a human soul. John Ostrander's run with Tom Mandrake doing artwork was a critical success, but since they stepped down, the character has gone downhill. First with the J.M. Dematteis "Spectre the Friendly Ghost" series, where the character suddenly became the "Spirit of Redemption", going on all sorts of touchy feely journeys with people who "really aren't so bad after all." Now don't get me wrong. I'm all about redemption. I know my own heart, and I'm certainly deserving of some wrath. But there are people in this world who are completely given over to evil and they will never seek redemption. Granted, we don't want to be judgmental and pretend we know who those people are, but history has demonstrated that plenty of peo...

If you like fantasy that's dark and gripping, but is more than just a hack-fest of blood and gore, I'd highly recommend investigating Terry Goodkind. A few years ago, I picked up a cheap promotion-priced copy of "Wizard's First Rule", the first book in this epic series. It wasn't blazing with wonder and fantasy from the first page, but there was something about the writing style that interested me. After a few chapters in, I was very interested, and by the end of the first book, I was hooked. The series revolves around two main characters: Richard and Kahlan. Richard is a man from a quiet "medieval-type" town devoid of magic or wonder, who discovers another world full of danger and plenty of the mystical. Kahlan is the last living "Confessor", women with the power to turn anyone into a mindless babbling fool that will forever-more think only of pleasing her. Over the course of the series, Richard learns mor...

After the mediocre offering provided by "Terminator: Rise Of The Machines", I wondered what the future held for this franchise. Luckily, the future seems potentially bright. The series stars Lena Headey ("300") as Sarah Connor, Thomas Dekker (Claire's friend from season 1 of "Heroes") as John Connor and Summer Glau ("Firefly", "The 4400") as the Terminator programmed to protect John and Sarah. It's clear almost immediately that "Terminator 3" has gone the way of "Highlander 2", "Highlander 3" and... well, various parts of the first Highlander movie. In other words, it's being ignored and considered no longer a part of continuity. I almost thought that maybe the timeline of "Terminator 3" was changed by the presence of Glau's Terminator, but the Pilot starts out in 1999, while Sarah Connor's grave in "Terminator 3" clearly indicates that she died in 1997. Oh...