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ryanthewebber
Reviews
Twenty Years Later (2014)
Fun flick
Twenty Years Later is a pretty fun story! It made for a great weekend watch on Amazon Prime. Josh tends to work with the same cast, so I walked into this anticipating who and how the characters would deliver. In my opinion, it's Joshua Courtade himself who really shines. His portrayal of Kevin really shows what great range he's capable of. Pretty amazing, especially since he tripled as actor, writer and director for the feature. The rest of the main cast rounds out perfectly with solid deliveries from Scott Merriman and Robert Ford.
Ford, with perfection, brings his inner child to life in this outing. He carefully and humorously brings two childhood friends back together to hunt for treasure they buried twenty years earlier.
Scott Merriman plays the most relatable character here. He navigates the typical 30-something life..wife, kids and job...with dead dreams from an earlier life floating around his core.
Actor, Writer and Director Joshua Courtade arguably plays the main protagonist here, he's billed here 3rd, but his story shows the most evolution and study in this outing. Kevin had a great job, but on the flip is facing a nasty divorce and somehow is banging a hot model all at the same time. Kevin, understandably, has grown up like most of us do. So his reaction to Glen's quest to find buried kid treasure is the most relatable. He's distanced himself over the years from Glen and doesn't really want to lower his standards and start digging in dirt. His reaction to this sudden reconnection makes the best character study moments in the film, especially as Kevin slowly evolves and allows himself to loosen up.
Overall, this film is fun and very entertaining. Especially if you're looking to disconnect from the world for a bit. Brief moments are over-the-top, but they're quickly put to rest with a fun story and great acting. This film reminds us that we can still have fun, be kids, and reach for the stars. Great job to the cast & crew.
Encarta IV: Dark Hope (2008)
One Crew's Epic Journey Comes To An End...
SCIFIpulse.net Film Review- By: Randy Hall
One of my favorite episodes of Star Trek: Voyager was a two-parter called "Year of Hell." In that story, the ship and its crew struggled to survive and maintain the status quo with no help from star-bases or Starfleet Command to back them up.
Apparently, the people who put together the Star Trek: Encarta fan film series also wondered about that, too, and the result is a movie-length fan film epic called "Dark Hope." One of the first problems in making the film was explaining how the Encarta was even there since it looked like First Officer Gregory McKnight (Chris Elliott) hit the self-destruct button, and it looked like the ship and its crew had gone to the big Enterprise in the sky. Not quite. The crew learns that the Rift is a temporal anomaly which undid the annihilation of the Encarta but trapped the Federation vessel within it for two years when the story in "Dark Hope' gets underway. In addition, Lynch pulled together a rag-tag fleet (sorry, just couldn't resist) and try to defeat the bad guys (called the Syndicate, who love to lord it over the Encarta by appearing when they please and demanding a ship system, like the replicators).
Now wait a minute! I just found two Clint Eastwood hats, and I know there was only one before. Curious
The Good: Another great film from the Encarta folks. I like it when the group takes the "what if" factor farther than many other Trek series do..
I know we're all intelligent folks here and should not be swayed by special effects, but I was really impressed with the Encarta, which lost a nacelle and also has pieces of the ship fly off when it's landing or taking off from the planet.
This episode's got to have the record of debris coming off any or all Starfleet vessels—even when you include the ships that got time warped and appear to have constantly been returned looking all spit and polish.
I'm also concerned about the reputation Lynch is getting. I'm not sure I'd want to be on a vessel he's the captain of, but I suspect (and hope) that will be addressed in another episode or film.
The Bad:What is it with Captain Lynch? He's apparently just got out of a court martial, and he strands several of his crew on an alien planet? If he's not careful, he's going to have enough infractions of Starfleet code to rate up there among the likes of Captain James Kirk.
The Ugly:I understand the need to stick to a budget, but I keep seeing Starfleet officers duking it out and rolling around on the ground with standard issue uniforms with just one thing that takes me from being on an alien planet with danger all around, but suddenly being back in the couch of my living room.