LEVIATHAN (1989)

"Say 'Aah.' motherfucker!"

For whatever reason, 1989 was a big year for underwater movies.  THE ABYSS, DEEPSTAR SIX, THE EVIL BELOW, LORDS OF THE DEEP, LEVIATHAN and god only knows what else.  Unfortunately, the only film (that I've seen) that ended up being any good was James Cameron's THE ABYSS.  The rest sucked.  The less suckiest of the remaining suckers was LEVIATHAN which is simply an underwater retelling of ALIEN mixed with THE THING, but with all of the tension removed and replaced with bigger flamethrowers.

One day, some deep sea miners are doing their deep sea mining duties when they discover a sunken Russian ship called Leviathan.  Stuff happens and before you can say "Oh god, I hope my penis doesn't fall off!" people are starting growing icky scales and weird stuff like a mouth on their hand.  That sounds really cool, but after the initial shock wears off, it just turns into your standard monster movie.

Overall, LEVIATHAN is an entertaining ride and a neat time capsule to the world of cheesy-looking 80's monsters.  A little blood, mildly scary monster, average special effects, awesome failed attempt at a catchphrase ("Say 'Aah.' motherfucker!"), good acting, what appears to be Luxo Jr. on a computer monitor, average monster movie pace, strong cast.  Not a horrible movie, but it's nothing to write home about either.  Honestly, I expected more from Director George P. Cosmatos, who also brought us RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II and TOMBSTONE.

Is that Luxo?!

JOHN CARTER (2012)

Civil War-era soldier John Carter finds himself on the run from some Indians.  He's holed up in a cave when suddenly a funny looking dude appears and tries to kill Carter with a knife.  Carter beats the crap out of the guy and accidentally transports himself to Mars with the odd amulet the man was holding.  Once on Mars, John finds that because of the difference in gravity on Mars he's now superstrong and can jump super fucking high.  Added to this, John gets himself involved with an ongoing conflict between the three biggest groups on Mars...mainly due to the fact that the daughter of the blue group is hot as fuck!

As far as entertainment goes, JOHN CARTER is a good watch, but despite all of the bizarre creatures and action-packed sequences I still just felt kinda "blah" about the whole thing.  The biggest things that could have turned this into something more promising would have been: 1) different director.  I love FINDING NEMO and WALL-E is one of the greatest films of all time, but Stanton was just not the man for this job. 2) don't make Carter so depressing. 3) make Carter less indestructible. 4) make the Tharks less cartoonish and more threatening. 5) streamline the script.  There was way too much stuff going on.

Not a great film or a bad film, just merely a mediocre one.  That said, the ending was the best part and I probably would watch a sequel just to find out what happened.