Reviews

I was a huge fan of the original Mighty Morthin Power Rangers TV show when I was growing up. I practically owned every action figure and Zord configuration available in the UK. So naturally when I heard about this Power Rangers special I was excited to see some of the original cast return for a reunion set in Angel Grove.

The Power Rangers TV show was a low budget kids TV show based on a Japanese TV series. The show used fight footage from the Japanese show mixed together with original scenes shot exclusively for a western audience. The show was very cheesy and very low budget with many of the actors being paid very little despite the shows increasing popularity.

This one off special was produced and financed by Netflix one of the leading online video streaming services in the world with enough money to make a half decent Power Rangers special with modern special effects. Unfortunately however this modern short film somehow manages to look even cheaper and low budgeted than the original low budget show from the nineties.

The special effects in this special are extremely cheap and underwhelming to the point that it makes the original nineties show look more futuristic and visually pleasing. The sound quality and ADR work in this special are abysmal many of the voices don't sync up properly with the actors in the suits actions on screen. The scenes of the characters standing around talking to each other sounds very echoey. I have seen fan made Power Rangers movies with better mic and ADR work than this and this is meant to be a multi million dollar Netflix special.

The plot of the special revoles around the death of the yellow Ranger Trini and how it affects the other Rangers. Rita Repulsa sorry "Robo Rita" uses this tragedy to her advantage to capture the remaining Power Rangers who are older, weaker and grief stricken to capture them, shrink them down to size and use a machine to extract their power essence. The Rangers gather their strength back through the power of friendship and let's face it nostalgia in order to find the strength to defeat robo Rita once again saving the world.

I actually found the scene of the Yellow Rangers death rather comical due to the fact that Rita had attempted to kill the Power Rangers so many times in the shows original run but failed every time but it's this time that she finally succeeds in killing one of them, not with a giant monster or one of her clever schemes, what finally works for her is just casting a simple death spell that one of rangers heroically dives in front of in order to save one of their comrades that finally lands her a kill.

This special relies heavily on the audiences knowledge of Power Rangers lore and not just the original Mighty Morthin Power Rangers lore but many of the other Power Rangers TV shows lores aswell. The ability for the Power Ranger's to talk and work together through multiple different dimensions and points in time is very clumsily and lazily explained leaving the audience asking eh "How does that work again?" But you just have to kinda role with it with a brief explanation of how it works.

There are a lot of little easter eggs and slight nods for fans of the series to enjoy but casual viewers will probably be thinking to themselves "Where's the action?".

The special isn't all bad it is enjoyable enough for me to recommend to fans of the original Mighty Morthin Power Rangers TV show and it does deliver in many ways. The action while not anything special is still fun and enjoyable with a lot of classic Power Rangers flips, kicks, punches and an excessive amount of "It's Morthin Time!" moments. The costumes aren't too bad and they do capture the spirit of the original show by having costumes instead of CGI which is nice. The Zords are cool looking and again look very similar to original show.

All in all this special is what it is a very low budgeted Netflix special that attempts to cash in on the nostalgia factor in the hopes that fans will tune in for a quick if rather underwhelming and uneventful Rangers reunion.

I went into this Evil Dead film with low expectations especially after being disappointed by other recent horror movie sequels like Halloween Ends, Scream VI and Hellraiser (2022). My expectations were apparently not low enough though as I was thoroughly disappointed by this movie.

This new addition to the Evil Dead universe is easily the most tame and least frightening of the franchise. The original Evil Dead trilogy starring (Bruce Campbell) was the perfect mix of horror, dark humour, excessive levels of gore and a likeable lead character who tied it all together with the help of his chainsaw and boomstick. Even the (2013) Evil Dead reboot movie had some fun and interesting ideas which while not anything particularly ground breaking still gave fans a ton of gory kills and passable enough characters that don't leave you with a headache between their deaths.

Evil Dead Rise fails to bring anything original or even of any value to the Evil Dead franchise. The main cast of characters are mostly teenagers who are written as mere plot devices to move the story forward. A good example of this is one particular character wants to become a DJ so he has a record mixing turntable set up in his room. This is the characters defining characteristic which exists so he has an excuse to play a record of a priest reading a passage from the book of the dead raising the deadites. That's all the character development there is for this character until he dies. The other main characters have very little back story or defining characteristics other than they are all related to each other.

The deadites in this Evil Dead movie are tame in comparison to the previous Evil Dead movies and the TV series. The lead deadite shown in all the trailers for the movie is the mother of the child characters in the movie and we watch as she becomes possessed and hunts her family down to turn them into deadites aswell. Unfortunately however the lead deadite spends most of it's time on screen screaming incoherently, falling over or saying cheesy one liners. When the killing does begin there are some moments that are fun and gory such as a deadite eating a guys eyeball out of his eyesocket only for it to be followed by something as stupid as her spitting the eyeball out and it just so happens to land in another characters mouth choking him to death in a shot that looks less Evil Dead and more Tales from the Crypt. This was clearly an attempt to copy a similar scene from Evil Dead 2 only without the dark comedy that made the scene work in the first place.

The special effects range from practical effects mixed with CGI that look surprisingly well done if not entirely original in design to a CGI mess that looks so unrealistic and fake it takes you right out of a scene that's supposed to hook you in with its suspense.

The absolute worst thing about this movie however is that it takes place in a run down appartment building filled with other tenants but only the people on the top floor of the appartment building are attacked by the deadites or are even aware of the chaos that goes on in the building over just one night. In the span of a few hours the building is affected by a significant earthquake that literally cracks a hole in the buildings foundations, the elevator gets filled with blood and destroyed flooding the elevator shaft and the ground floor with mass amounts of blood, the stairs in the building are completely destroyed, there are screams and even gunshots in the building at least ten people die and through all of that the other people in the building just simply don't let it interrupt their fine evening at home. This might seem like an odd thing to point out but the movie even shows a character who lives in the building the morning after the massacre saying they had trouble sleeping due to a thunder storm that night nothing else just the thunder not the mass murder or anything.

I really don't recommend paying to watch this movie in cinemas it really isn't worth the price of a ticket to watch a movie that is only worthy of being on a streaming service like Hulu or Shudder at best. The movie insults Evil Dead fans by simply doing just the bare minimum necessary for it to qualify as an Evil Dead movie.

The reviews for Evil Dead Rise say things like "Overwhelmingly scary" and "The best Evil Dead since the original" whoever wrote these reviews have either been paid to praise this movie or they have never seen a horror movie in their entire life and are the kind of people who would get scared watching a Paranormal Activity movie.

Scream 6 is exactly what you think it is an awful continuation of an already outdated slasher movie franchise.

I loved the first three Scream movies but they were products of the time, a time when twists in movies were still somewhat inventive and could actually surprise you. Scream 4 and 5 both had incredibly predictable plot lines with twists so weak they make Scooby Doo twists look like a Sherlock novel by comparison.

Scream 6 follows the same group of failed attempts at characters from the previous movie only this time the entire movie is focused on them in a weak attempt to make these new characters the lead protagonists of the new Scream franchise.

The plot is basically just Scream 2 with a few minor changes to the script. The villains who take up the mantle of ghost face also have the same motivation for killing people as Nancy Loomis in Scream 2.

The absolute worst thing about this movie is the "writers" of this crapfest bring back a character from Scream 4 who was dead at the end of the movie and not even referenced in Scream 5 it's just incredibly lazy writing and a cash grab attitude to the entire movie.

Neve Campbell didn't want any part in this movie and I can't say I blame her for not wanting any part in yet another retred of a movie she did over 20 years ago. Courtney Cox returns as Gale Weathers only for her character to be made even more unlikeable and hated than she was by the cast of Stab 3 in Scream 3.

The only saving grace is the gore in this movie is actually pretty decent with a heavy focus on stabbing to an almost excessive amount. The only downside is the stabbing is made kinda pointless when almost every character walks off their stab wounds like it's nothing. There is one scene in particular where a character is stabbed around twenty times with two knifes but he still survives and makes a joke while being put in the back of an ambulance at the end of the movie.

At this point I'm so sick and tired of horror movies that think by simply following the nostalgia of the original movies makes their crappy sequels good when in reality they really aren't.

I wouldn't recommend paying to watch this movie in the theatre. The reviews online say that this Scream movie is the best since the original keep in mind they said this about Scream 4 and Scream 5 so take that for what it's worth.

I recently was asked to watch this film by my girlfriend after a conversation about romance movies. I have never been a big fan of romance films or rom coms but I have a soft spot for some classic romance novels such as Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice and Jane Erye. I reluctantly agreed to watch this movie which she claims is her all time favourite romance movie. In my opinion this film is about as romantic as forgetting your anniversary and buying a bunch of half dead flowers from the local garage on the way home from work to make up for it.

I honestly wasn't expecting much going into this movie as it's plot revolves around a woman who after being disappointed that her boyfriend doesn't propose to her after four years together gets the idea to propose to him instead. Anna (Amy Adams) travels across Ireland with a handsome stranger Declan (Matthew Goode) who she has just met so she can make it to Dublin just in time to propose to her boyfriend. Anna and Declan get into various situations that delay Anna from reaching Dublin and of course the two fall in love on this wacky journey and she leaves her boyfriend for Declan and they all live happily ever after.

This film was neither romantic nor funny. Amy Adams character is written the same as every other stereotypical female rom com character. She lives a charmed life, has plenty of money, a career and a boyfriend who she seems happy with at first until she meets Mr Charming Aka stereotype character number two Declan (Matthew Goode). Declan is the charming and handsome stranger who behaves like an immature man child who only cares about money until Anna melts his heart and he becomes tolerable at best. Nothing about these characters is original or even relatable they are basically just the stock characters that come with every half assed rom com movie.

I don't understand how any woman could find this movie romantic or heart warming if anything it's insulting to woman as it portrays the main character of the film as helpless and lost without the aid of a condescending, egotistical man in her life to insult her and treat like a lost puppy. There are far better romance films out there than this pile of rubbish there are far better rom coms aswell such as (A lot like love) and (When Harry Met Sally).

If your looking for a simple minded rom com that focuses more on handsome strangers falling madly in love for no other reason than because it's written in the script then Leap Year is the movie for you. However if your looking for something genuinely heartfelt, romantic and sophisticated then avoid this movie at all costs.

World War Z (2013) is a somewhat ambitious zombie action movie that had a lot of potential to become a genre defining movie but sadly falls short in the movies third act.

World War Z follows a former UN field agent named Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) and his family who on a seemingly normal day find themselves fleeing a city wide zombie outbreak. The family just barely escape the city when Gerry is contacted by the UN Deputy Secretary General who arranges for Gerry and his family to be evacuated by evac chopper. There's just one catch, that Gerry go back to work for the UN and help investigate the origins of the zombie virus in the hope's of finding a cure. In return Gerry's family will be kept safe as long as he makes himself useful. Gerry agrees and once he and his family are rescued and secure he goes back to work investigating the origins of the now global zombie virus. This leads Gerry on a chase for information on the origins of the virus which takes him across the globe to Korea, Jerusalem and England as he fights for survival against innumerable hordes of zombies.

World War Z is primarily an action film that focuses it's attention more on how many CGI zombies are on screen at one time more than it focuses on it's characters and plot. Brad Pitt gives a great performance but his character is sadly lacking any real personality or backstory. All we really learn about his character Gerry is that he's a family man who gave up his job to be with his family and this all information learnt within the first ten minutes of the film. It's hard to get invested in a film where the main character has about as much personality and charm as one of the rotting zombies trying to kill him.

The first hour and a half of the movie are almost completely action oriented containing explosions, hordes and hordes of zombies, plane crashes, soldiers fighting off zombies everything you would expect from a blockbuster zombie action movie. Then during the last thirty minutes the movie suddenly turns into a Resident Evil film when Brad Pitts character has to slowly and quietly make his way through a research laboratory. The movie's ending is very disappointing and anticlimactic, leaving many unanswered questions in favour of a lazy voice over by Brad Pitts character.

The most disappointing thing about this movie is it's lack of blood and gore. In order to keep the film PG-13, the films overall violence and gore is toned down considerably when compared to other more adult zombie films like 28 Day's Later or the Dawn of the Dead remake. There's still plenty of action to enjoy in this movie but just don't expect to see anything particularly graphic or bloody because you will be disappointed.

World War Z is by no means the best Zombie movie ever made by it's certainly not the worst so I would definitely recommend giving it a watch to find out if your a fan or not.