Reviews

In the opinion of many, the original Mortal Kombat held the distinction of being the first movie-to-vide game conversion that didn't suck.

However, where the first one succeeded, MKA one failed miserably.

With the first movie, though being a fan of the video game series helped you identify more with the characters, it wasn't absolutely critical to be able to enjoy the movie, especially if you were a martial arts fan. This is probably the biggest flaw of the second movie. A character appears seemingly out of nowhere for a fight scene and although MK fans know who they are, the general audience has no clue. Most of the characters that appear like this are either killed off in the single fight scene or disappear and are never heard from again. In a couple of instances, the names of the characters weren't even mentioned. It was a bad attempt to try and squeeze every single character from the video game into the movie. (And it's still missing some character - Kintaro and Kung Lao come to mind.)

Another huge problem with the movie is that a sequel should not require that you have watched the original in order to enjoy it and understand everything that's going on. This movie picks up the second that the original one left off and spends only about 30 seconds explaining what happened the the first movie, but someone who hasn't seen the original has no way of identifying with the characters at all, who are never really introduced because the very first scene starts with Shao kahn invading the earth.

Probably the next biggest fault of the movie is that it's missing Christopher Lambert as Rayden. Though the new guy that played Rayden tried hard, it just wasn't a good casting decision. And the other actors were pretty bad as well. The original MK certainly didn't win any awards for its acting, but the acting in this one is just plain bad for the most part.

Another problem with the movie is continuity and other such issues. A good deal of the movie revolves around Liu Kang searching through the desert trying to find a character named Nightwolf in order to 'find his animality', which is supposed to prepare him for a final battle with Shao Kahn. However, all of this was totally unnecessary, since learning his animality had no impact whatsoever on the outcome of the final fight scene. Also, we have Shao Kahn's father who is trying to destroy the earth .. we are told nothing about him, except that he is an elder god. Heck, we don't even learn his name. He says that breaking the 'sacred rules' of the elder gods to invade the earth could have dire consequences if they ever found out, but we learn later in the movie that they already know about it in the first place. WTF?

People say there's no plot in this movie, but I disagree. It's about an evil emperor of a place called 'Outworld' who tries to merge his world with ours, therefore destroying the earth in 6 days. A group of humans have to keep this from happeneing. Even though this movie is bad, I think saying it has no plot is a little unfair. (If you really want to see a movie that has no plot, watch Forrest Gump.) As for the special effects, I've never been one to judge, but they seem ok to me *shrug*

In the end, though I did enjoy parts of this movie, I thought it paled in comparison to the original. If you didn't like the original, you definitely won't like this one. If you loved the original, well .... you still probably won't like this one.

But it's still pretty good. I remember seeing Critters in the theater when I was about 12 and a the time, I was blown away by it. The movie is about a handful of "critters" (little creatures that resemble gremlins in personality) who escape from a prison spaceship and crash-land on earth, where they terrorize a family living on a farm. Meanwhile, two bounty hunters are sent from outer space to dispose of the critters. The critters themselves are hairy, ugly little creatures with very sharp teeth. They can curl into the shape of a ball and roll around. They shoot poisonous darts and eat anything that moves - they are much meaner than gremlins and it only takes one to eat somebody alive.

After watching this movie for the first time in years, some of the flaws stand out a little more. The acting (except for the mom) is definitely of B-movie quality. Also, the overuse of the "Power of the Night" video might irritate somebody who hates anything that's 80's .. this movie is definitely vintage mid-80's. If you happen to like the 80's, you will probably enjoy the soundtrack.

Despite the flaws this is definitely much better than your average cheesy sci-fi/horror flick. The movie starts off kind of slow but once the critters land on earth (about 20 minutes into the movie) and eat a couple of people, the action is almost non-stop and very rarely lets up. There are a lot of tense and scary moments in this movie and the critters are just ... well, MEAN! If you liked Gremlins, you'll almost definitely like this. However, if you're looking for a gorefest, you will not find it here. This movie is more on the comedic side (in the spirit of Gremlins) than it is a true horror flick, but it's still very good.

Oh, and a word about the sequels. There are 4 parts to this series, with each sequel being progressively worse than the last. If you liked this one, you should probably watch Critters 2, as it is watchable and somewhat enjoyable, but nowhere near as good as the first. Critters 3 is just plan bad and Critters 4, well .. don't even waste your time.

I didn't think this movie could possibly be any worse than Scary Movie, but alas .. I was wrong :( At least Scary Movie had a few laughs. This one had none whatsoever. I know you're supposed to suspend disbelief watching a movie like this, but it just went too far. Having students drinking alcohol out of whater fountains at school or having the killer (fully dressed) racing a teen on a track with the crowd cheering on is just waaaaaaaaay too much over the edge. Scary Movie pretty much relied on 'penis' jokes for its humor. And although this one has some of that, a lot of the intended laughs in this one are what you hear and see in the background. Heck, you could probably watch this movie several times and not catch everything but the problem is that none of it is funny. And since the plot is so stupid and unbelievable and the background props and gags don't generate any laughs either, this movie falls flat on its face. Probably the worst movie I've seen since The Avengers.

Saying that this movie was better than FDTD2 may be giving it too much credit. Since it is generally agreed (by those of us who are sane) that #2 pretty much sucked, it really doesn't say much for this third entry of the series. I'm not saying it's a bad movie. It doesn't come close to the original though and I would say it was just 'ok'. The main problem here is that we've seen it all before. You take a group of people who meet by circumstance, stick them in a senario full of vampires about halfway through the movie, witness the blood and carnage that takes place, and then see who comes out alive ... blah blah .. same old story. In the original, I was drawn into the movie and the characters and was interested to see who survived. That didn't happen with FDTD3. The characters this time around just weren't that involving. Although I liked the sequences with Madrid, I got bored when the story would switch to Bierce and the married couple. The characters this time around also were not very likeable at all .. almost all of them were bad guys and the ones that weren't (with the possible exception of the hangman's daughter) were pretty annoying anyway. And where the characters in the first movie put aside their differences to fight the vampires, the characters in this one fought with each other til the very end. Since this third installment doesn't really introduce anything new to the story, I can't understand why it exists. While it's true that you get to see what the Titty Twister looked like about 100 years ago and you get to find out the origin of Santanico Pandemonium, it still doesn't justify this one even being made. I'd say if you've seen the first two (or even the first one for that matter), this one is definitely passable unless you're a hardcore fan of the series, in which case you've probably already seen this movie anyway.

Screwed really didn't start off all that promising. The two lead characters kidnap a dog in a scene that played out kind of like a 'Something About Mary' ripoff screne (where dog attacks character) and things didn't really get much better from there at first. However, about 30 minutes into the movie as I was about to give up on it, things really started to pick up and it had me entertained, only to be let down somewhat by the ending. This definitely is along the lines of a 'stupid' comedy and nothing intellectual about it, but I still found it very funny in parts (especially Dave Chappelle and the second desk lamp scene). The two lead characters are so stupid and the plot itself has so many holes in it, but I think in the end, these two factors work in favor of the movie. I would recommend this as a rental, but only if you enjoy these types of comedies .. and stay with it until at least 30 minutes into the movie!

I remember going to see this one in the theaters. It is the only movie that ever had me (literally) rolling on the floor. I laughed til it hurt and at times, the laughing was so intense that I remember wishing that they'd stop the movie for a minute so I could catch my breath :) The reason I think this one worked so well (and the reason why pretty much all movies of this type after it sucked) is because a lot of the situations were believable. For example, when Drebin is at the press conference and goes to take a leak and forgets to turn of his mic (hehe), something like that could actually happen. Compare this to some of the sequels in this series and those that came after it which have situations that are just *way* out in left field. Not that this movie doesn't have some of those, but it just doesn't seem so obvious. Some people compare this movie to Airplane, but I personally think Naked Gun is much better - a masterpiece. I haven't seen a movie nearly as funny as this and I don't imagine I ever will. If you like movies like Airplane, Hot Shots, and Wrongfully Accused and have never seen this one, shame on you :) Rent it today!

I think the title for this review speaks for itself. One thing I wanted to add is - why do so many directors think it's necessary to use toilet humor (literally) in comedies? (Deuce Bigalow was also guilty of this.) I usually watch movies while eating pizza or take-out and seeing that kind of stuff is more like disgusting to me than funny. I also disliked David Arquette in this movie. Though I don't really have a problem with his acting skills, I just didn't think he fit the part well at all (guess I've seen Scream too many times). On the plus side, I think a lot of the wrestling action was really well done. I also like the character of Jimmy King and the fact that the movie shows us that just because someone may be a hero in wrestling, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're not a bum in real life. And if you think that it is not possible for someone (Jimmy King in this movie) to be a wrestler and be so messed up outside of the ring, rent Beyond the Mat and see the profile on Jack the Snake Roberts.

I have always had a fascination with science fiction films .. inparticular, those that deal with the afterlife and/or the mysteries of life in general and evolution. When I saw the preview for this movie, it looked promising, but I found the actual movie to be quite a disappointment. I think the main problem I had with M2M is that it tried too hard to get the audience to care about the characters .. and I just didn't care at all. I was only interested in the 'discovery' and was extremely annoyed by the character development scenes. There are scenes where it is revealed that the character of Gary Sinise is actually a widow and is still coming to grips with the loss of his wife, and there is another scene where one character loses their own life to save the life of another. Perhaps in any other movie where the plot was more character-based, this might have worked. But this is sci-fi here, and I just wasn't moved at all. I wish they would have entered the strange place at the beginning of the movie and spent the rest of the time really focusing on the main theme of the movie. But instead, we end up wasting about an hour and 20 minutes actually getting to that point. Once we do get to that point, things start to get interesting, but just not interesting enough to make up for the time that was wasted getting here in the first place.