Reviews

While waiting for production of Freddy vs Jason the Friday producers decided to make a new film and do something different with it. Great idea, but what possessed them to put Jason in outer space? A move like this makes the franchise look desperate for new life and it looks embarrassing when you compare it to the early films which were well done suspenseful horror films. Now the idea of mixing Jason with science fiction could have worked with the beginning of the film having Jason captured and examined to see what makes him keep regenerating. Mix that with an X-files type feel and it could have been interesting. With that said, I can see how this film can be a guilty pleasure and it does have its' campy entertainment value. Still a move like this really makes the franchise look weak and tired.

Okay, first off Derek Mears was a great choice to play Jason and is probably the best thing in this film. His Jason is cunning and fast, and the idea of making Jason into a territorial creature was interesting. You can tell from the interviews that Mears had a lot of passion and energy for the role and it showes. With that said the rest of the film is pretty standard slasher fair. The cast of campers are by in large unlikeable and half the time I was rooting for Jason to kill them. To be fair the actors only delivered what was required of them but the way the characters were written made them come off either as unlikeable or weak and bland. In the early Fri films the campers were likable characters who just wanted to have fun and relax and you were interested in what would happen to them. Another problem is that this film really doesn't feel like a reboot. The opening sequence feels more like a recap of Jasons' origins and not the launching point for a new version of the character. The film is just a rehash of most of the previous films, albeit with well done special effects and stunts. Maybe if they had had Derek Mears play the role without make up and the hockey mask and focused on Jason himself and his point of view and delved into his motivations more it would've worked better. Overall though this is an entertaining Friday film, but not the shot in the arm the series needed for a long term resurgence.

Back in 1994 the Power Rangers had become a huge franchise and t.v. executives at the USA Network were hoping to get in on the action and came up with the Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills, in which the evil Emporer Gorganus, who looks like he's wearing a home made Darth Vader costume, and his talking bird, that looks like a rubber dog chew toy, come to earth to invade it using giant monsters that look like rejects from a 1970's Godzilla film. Fortunately Nimbar an alien that looks like a giant piece of clear jello recruits four teenagers to defend the earth, Nimbar gives them each a tattoo of a different star constellation that allows them to transform into buffed up superheros who look like dancers from an eighties tech no music video, they could also combined into a giant knight. Forty episodes were made. The USA Network clearly did not have the money to try to adapt a show from Japan like Power Rangers did, and made up this show on their own using the budget of a 1950's scifi film. The fights scenes are generic, the special effects are poor, and some of the sets look like they could fall down. The actors pretty much realized how ridiculous the show was and pretty much ham it up and overact. I can only imagine their shock when the show was cancel led.