10 CLOVERFIELD LANE (2016)

Meh.

Well, the good news is Mary Elizabeth Winstead didn't get kidnapped by Dr. Heiter from THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE.  The bad news is the guy (John Goodman) she did get kidnapped by is almost as equally insane. Unfortunately for the viewer though, this is a major studio release so naturally it's rated PG-13 and neutered as fuck.

The emasculated fun begins with Mary being run off the road and then waking up shackled in a basement.  I like where this is going!  Soon enough though, the already low amount of suspense drops to nothing when Mary and this other dude simply accept their being held captive by fruitcake Goodman.  You see, according to Goodman, there's been a worldwide disaster and he's "saving their lives" by holding them captive down in his underground bunker.  No television, no internet, no emergency broadcast radio signals, not even a goddamn periscope!  No proof at all (except for one predictable scene with highly convenient timing).  Things proceed in a predictable manner...well, for the entire movie.

Mediocre pace, okay acting, zero mystery, crap ending, zero gore, zero nudity, mild cussing, promising premise that goes nowhere.  I was actually excited when I sat down to watch this film, but as the it dragged on and on and hit every single predictable story point, my excitement faded into disappointment.  John Goodman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead both deserve better than this.  Worth a watch, I guess, if you're easily impressed, really bored and have zero imagination.

Same universe - Cloverfield (2008)
Same universe - The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)

Is this a reference to "Left 4 Dead"?

PRETTY IN PINK

THE THING (2011)

I'm not a filmmaker, but I would think the main reason that you would go through the trouble of making a prequel to a movie that you love (I assume the filmmakers here love John Carpenter's THE THING) is to expand the story and challenge yourself to try to make an even better movie. That's just my thinking, maybe I'm a fucking idiot. I'm using ALIEN and ALIENS as my scale of reference. So with those thoughts calculating into my expectations of this new THE THING I was really, really dumbfounded as to why this movie feels more like a remake than a prequel. In fact, if I didn't already know this was a prequel the only thing that would have clued me in while watching it was at lame tacked on ending during the closing credits. Other than that it felt like a remake...an unimaginative one at that.

A Norwegian research team accidentally discovers a huge alien spaceship in Antarctica. They call in a group of American paleontologists so they can stop talking in subtitles. A large alien "survivor" is excavated out, still encased in a large block of ice. The dogs start getting all upset, then suddenly the alien jumps straight up out of the ice like he's a goddamn acrobat and flies through the roof! Before you can say "Well, that was silly." out come the flamethrowers and everybody's in the wreck room getting tested to see if they're an alien. Yawn.

If James Cameron had gone this route, instead of Marines fighting an army of aliens and their mother on LV-426 he would have just told the Nostromo story over again, but with a CG alien. As far as I'm concerned, such a lack of imagination is inexcusable. I've seen more thought put into a porno parody than this movie.

Despite all that, I didn't hate THE THING remake, I mean, prequel . It was mildly entertaining, the pace was good and it wasn't blasphemous towards the 1982 version, but I'll never watch it again and after awhile I found myself admiring how attractive Mary Elizabeth Winstead is more than really caring what happened to the characters. Worth a single viewing, but that's about it.

Original - The Thing From Another World (1951)
Remake of original - The Thing (1982)

FINAL DESTINATION 3 (2006)

The series hit the wall a little with this one. Instead of an airplane crash or an awesome highway pile up, we get a lame looking roller coaster crash. On the bright side, the girl who has the premonition and saves everybody is hot. I guess they learned their lesson when they killed off the hottest girl at the beginning of the second film. Anyway, she sees everybody dying and freaks out. Other people miss the ride because of her freakout, which ends up saving their lives.  Naturally, Death comes looking for them.

Everything you would expect happens.  The deaths are amusing, but the entire thing kinda was not as much fun as Part 2. Maybe that's just me or maybe it's because there was only two main characters whereas in Part 2 the entire group hung out a lot together at the same time and it kept you guessing as to who was going to die next. This time around the two leads went around visiting people right about the time that they died. That's weak and leads to zero suspense. But whatever, it's still a entertaining watch and Mary Elizabeth Winstead is nice to look at.

Worth a viewing, but it's nothing to get overly excited about. Oh yea, here's the topless chick at the tanning salon.

Part 1 - Final Destination (2000)
Part 2 - Final Destination 2 (2003)
Part 4 - The Final Destination (2009)
Part 5 - Final Destination 5 (2011)

Fate of the two survivors from Part 2.

SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD (2010)

Twenty-two year-old George-Michael Bluth is dating a hot girl who's 17. For some unknown reason, his cockblocking hipster friends constantly badger the living shit out of him over this. Then, one night at a party he sees a really cute girl (his age) with pink hair. He dumps the younger girl, hooks up with this new girl and now must "battle" her seven "evil" ex's.  He does, he wins and he gets the girl. The End.

I liked this movie for what it was (at least it tried to be somewhat original), but I was still disappointed. I'm not sure what I expected, but I was really wanting to be blown away and taken for a wild ride. Instead, it's just a bunch of hipsters sitting around talking like they're way down on Quaaludes. Finally, we get to the fight scenes and they're just ehhhh. I never got any since of danger from them. All kinds of violent shit would happen to George-Michael, but none of it ever hurt him. He'd get slammed through a wall or bashed in the face repeatedly and he's still be standing there with those intellectually disabled puppy dog eyes and adorable stroke victim mumble-stutter talk that he always does.

What would have been cool is if, instead of being just one step above "The Power Rangers", SPVTW would have gone for an dark R-rating and thrown in some gritty, blood soaked violence. But, I guess, that's not what the filmmakers were looking for. Oh well.

Mildly interesting watch, but with absolutely zero tension and terrible music I felt disconnected from the entire thing. Worth a watch, but that's about it.