[EXPRESSO] Black Widow (2021) | Velvet Assassins, Inc.

Marvel movies are back into theathers, a fact of life made accidentally more intriguing after the pandemic stopped the torrent of Marvel theatherical releases, and saturation gives way to acceptance and wishing to return to the “pre-Covid 19” habits.

At the very least this particular movie had already plenty of delays and issues behind the scenes before, but the Black Widow “origins” movie is here.

Not exactly my favourite of the Avengers, i will say this upfront, but still, easily more intriguing that anything they could come up with Hawkeye (at least judging what the Marvel movies did with him), i’d say. Like the previous movie hinted at, she had a troubled upbringing, was a KGB, and here we see her momentarily leave the Avengers team (in a timespan between Civil War and Infinity War) to meet up with her old “family”, leading her to take on the villain Taskmaster and confront a figure from her past youth as a selected trainee for the “Black Widow” program.

As Natasha Romanoff is simply human, her origin story uses this to give the movie a more “realistical” feel (though don’t worry, there’s the usual Marvel bombast), and aside from some of the inevitable mentions of the other Avengers, the movie does want to stand on its own and distinguish itself by tackling darker (and a bit more “grounded”) themes than usual, as this action thriller about child soldiers raised -at all cost – to be the most efficient assassins and spies, the new characters are good, there are some fun moments (alongside the usual, obligatory Marvel self-jab).

The cast is pretty dang good too (it has Florence Pugh), and while not sensational, it’s quite entertaining and willing to not really rely on other Marvel movies to tell its own story. Fun one.

Empire Of The Sharks (2017) [REVIEW] | Fury Boat

As you might remember, i frankly hated Planet Of The Sharks, so i post-poned the review of Empire Of Sharks, which i also incorrectly described as a sequel.

Because it isn’t: completely different cast, completely different characters, no continuity, you know the drill by now.

It still kind of a follow up to Planet Of The Sharks, as in this is The Asylum trying again to make work the ill-conceived- and under budgeted – mash up of Mad Max, Waterworld and a shark movie.

I don’t why exactly they felt the need to try again, since i’m not even sure it raked in much profit for the Asylum, but i guess Mark Atkins wanted another go at the concept, so this time he directed but also wrote the script himself, which is not necessarily encouraging piece of info.

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Shark Killer (2015) [REVIEW] | Diamond Jaws

Given the ludicrous amount of shark movies, we gotta specify is this isn’t an alternate title for 2001’s Shark Hunter, which i haven’t yet seen, but seems very similar to the 2000 movie Megalodon, with a bit of Moby Dick style obsession from the lead to the megalodon shark/whale substitute. This one is a different movie, but i don’t blame anyone confusing the two, with the ultra confusing alternative titles these movies get, especially when you have seen hundreds of shark movies, they kinda start to blur and mesh into each other in your mind, and probably there’s also a movie you don’t know about that’s exactly the “plot blend” your brain accidentally brewed.

This one, directed by Sheldon Wilson, is about Chase “action hero name here” Walker, the titular shark killer, as he gets called for a job by his criminal step-brother, Jake, the head of a crime ring, and wants Chase to kill a black finned shark that accidentally swallowed a diamond during a transaction. He also enlists his subordinate-love interest Jasmine to keep an eye on him, but things get more complicated as a rival eastern europe-y crime boss, Nix, wants to get his hands on the diamond as well, and kidnaps Jasmine to ensure Chase doesn’t try anything funny….

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Mega Piranha (2010) [REVIEW] | Rider (Bycicle) KICK!

No, it’s not a spin-off of the “Mega Shark” series, nor a companion piece to Mega Python VS Gatoroid, despite being all produced by The Asylum. It’s that other type of Asylum movie, a mockbuster, but one incredibly desperate, in a way.

As in, the usually try to fool people by chasing after popular big budget production with cheap, fast features titled in a similar way to the movies they’re trying to indirectly rip-off, the plot is usually quite – if not completely – different.

Which is why we ended up with Transmorphers and stuff like Age Of Tomorrow, among many others. But, as i said, they usually do this with huge Hollywood productions, to feed from the crumbs left by the “actual movies” people went to see in theathers.

In this case, it just happens in 2010 we got a very loose remake of the original Piranha from 1978, Piranha 3D, handled by one of the better modern directors for horror and genre cinema, Alexandre Aja, and he definitely crafted a good modern B-movie in the spirit of old Roger Corman creature features, quite good, quite fun, which a direct sequel, Piranha 3DD, which went completely for total exploitation (almost Troma style), and was also quite fun in its own right.

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Blue Demon (2004) [REVIEW] | El Tiburon Pasa

It’s both banal and amazing how many shark movies exist, you’d figure there are plenty, but that’s not the case, there is an entire ocean of them. An ever-expanding ocean.

So much that some are pretty much to accidentally “fall through the cracks”, even if you own dozens upon dozens (almost thousand) of shark movies, and this one of them, found it at flea market. After triple checking i don’t already own this on DVD under a different name or it’s available to stream on Netflix or something, that is.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

But no, Blue Demon is just called Blue Demon pretty much everywhere in the world, and somehow i didn’t even heard about it. Or maybe i did and my brain removed it to store some porn, i dunno.

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[EXPRESSO] Voyagers (2021) | In observation, I analyze

It’s the future, and a group of young men and women, raised to be intelligent and obedient, are sent into space on a mission to colonize a distant planet. But they discover some of the expedition’ secrets, and then rebel to the mission in order to explore their less intelligent, more primitive and irrational side of themselves, resulting in a chaotic struggle with their own fears and lusts.

I want to clarify right away that Voyagers (written and directed by Neil Burger) isn’t a bad movie, it isn’t, but it’s also one of those movies that might come across as incredibly frustrating, the kind of frustrating born not of lazyness or lack of energy and vision, but of ambition too vast for the script own’s good, and – more to the point – its quality.

The premise is intriguing and ripe with potential, the themes are there, there’s clearly a vision, but the execution is incredibly predictable, underwhelming, and some of the more original details of the plot that make it stand out end up unadvertly working against it’s own overall message, coming off as dumb mistakes on part of the program, or contrived excuses to create more conflict.

Like, why the teens are asked to maintain the ship for a mission they themselves simply won’t live enough to carry out ? Why not cryogenically put them to sleep, instead? And yes, they’re teens, so they can be fuck up or be swayed regardless of their IQ or education, sometimes they come off as both incredibly intelligent AND dumb as a bag of bricks (or incredibly naive), somehow, and it never feels natural, just arbitrary bullshit.

There is definitely something to like here, like the good cast and performances, but the overall result it’s an overly ambitious mixed bag. Pity.

Don’t expect a review of Godzilla Battle Line

I planned to play and review this one like i did for the other mobile Godzilla titles Toho unleashed on us this year, as in via the EXPRESSO format, but the game just refuses to work on my iPhone, regardless if i reset the device, uninstall and reinstall it, remove other apps to make space in the phone’s memory storage, i have tried for 2 weeks by now to make this damn thing working on my device, but it ALWAYS, without fail, immediatly crashes after being launched.

Despite the app being constantly up to date and my device being compatible with it.

I have no clue why, the updates didn’t change a fuckin thing, and unless the next one magically fixes the issues (which seems to affect other uses with more advanced iPhones), i’m never gonna be able to play the damn thing, and hence i will never be able to review it. And i kinda wanted to do that, for completition’s sake if nothing else.

The review might happen, and they might just update the game to make it work immediatly after i post this, and tomorrow i will be able to play with no issues at all.

But until that happens, the review isn’t either.

Sorry, but that’s the situation, so expect other EXPRESSO reviews coming from tomorrow onwards, today is a forced review-less day.

Mad Max PS4 [REVIEW] | Down Undah

Yeah, remember the debacle and the case of divisive reception on this title?

I do, but it feels like it happened so long ago, despite this being a 2015 release. Such is nature of online discourse on social media, after all, doesn’t matter what the subject is.

I will keep that in mind, but since 6 years are a lot for videogames, i’d say it’s the time to revisit the Avalanche Software’s interpretation of George Miller’s australian apocalyptic world of holy motors and highly stilized weirdos, while i think of the burning coast sands during this city bound and holiday-less summer season.

Let’s see exactly how chrome this game is!

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Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Calamity – Expansion Pass PART 1 [REVIEW]

I did it for Pirate Warriors 4, might as well do it for Age Of Calamity, since it’s also structured in two part as the Season/Expansion Pass for Breath of The Wild was… and since Nintendo itself didn’t really promote it in anyway, revealed this thing was gonna exist and when to expect the content of the pass to arrive, the price, just a couple of images and text. ….Kinda odd.

As promised in the announcement bullet points, this first part of the Expansion Pass won’t add stories or story content, but new types of weapons, new playable characters, and intriguingly new enemies. Alongside the pass immediate bonus of a new costume and weapon (NOT a new weapon type) for Link, which it’s just them giving you something for buying the whole expansion.

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[EXPRESSO] Monster Hunter (2020) | Isekai Hunt

Yeah, we just got this one in theathers now, once again delayed due to the pandemic.

Preface: i know a bit about Monster Hunter, but not that much, as the franchise it’s one of those i should be really into, but somehow it never clicked with me.

But still, you should know what to expect: it’s another big-budget live action adaptation of a Capcom IP directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, as the Resident Evil movie series did bring a lot of buckaroos, so let’s do it again, and of course cast Milla Jovovich as the lead, i would be surprised if the director didn’t cast his wife for these roles.

And let’s get this out of the way: yes, it could have took place in the fantasy world alone and still deliver on the monsters and action, but nope, so in order to make it more “palatable” to all audiences, let’s have a US military unit get isekai’d into the Monster Hunter world, finding the guns useless on these giant monsters, and having to adapt to dual blades, maces and more “primitive” weapons that actually can damage these things. All while roaming a mostly desert land, searching for a way home.

And sequels.. that WILL probably be made.

To be honest, while the plot is a shining example of Hollywood cowardice and spineless scripts, the movie itself it’s not that bad. It’s dumb as a brick, written as such, but the CG for the monsters looks good, there’s a bit of horror, it adapts fairly ok a lot of elements from the games, preserving the basic gist of the thing, and it’s entertaining.

Not good, not smart, but entertaining enough, like MOST of the director’s Resident Evil movies. Also, it has Ron Perlman with a hilarious “afro Meatloaf” hairdo. XD