12 Days Of Dino Dicember #42: Caveman (1981)

Ah yes, the caveman movie with Ringo Starr, that was a thing, and honestly anything with actors or people that are actually known in the wider sphere of interests… it’s a welcome break from a lot cheap ass dinosaur flicks done with nobodies and with the cash of a ham sandwich, i’ve said this before but i’ll repeat myself since the 30 cents trash is by far the more numerically abudant.

Especially as it’s kind of ambitious for what’s conceptually just another cavemen comedy, as the main appeal is the cast, with Ringo Starr, Dennis Quaid, Barbara Bach, but it’s almost completely recited in “caveman language”, and in some theathers they even gave out a translation phamplet for 30 words in caveman lingo, which isn’t a complete gimmick since there is a sort of caveman dialect-vocabulary that’s recurring through the film, so no subtitles will ever be needed to watch it.

There is a plot of sorts, with Atouk, a caveman a bit too thinky and curious for its tribe, getting kicked out and joining a merry band of outcast cavemen, and with them they basically go on to improve themselves, invent fire, weapons, learn to walk not hunched like a baboon, all that stuff.

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember #41: One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (1975)

Enough of these dinosaur films with no goddamn budget, and enough with any semblance of sensitivity, we’re going Disney.

Old school live action Disney, with One Of Our Dinosaur Is Missing, the penultimate film directed by Robert Stevenson for Disney, and one of his last movies, after the success he brought to the company by directing well loved (and successful) films like the Herbie movies, The Love Bug, and more importantly Mary Poppins and Bedknobs And Broomsticks.

Yeah, we’re not doing such obscure and cheap ass dinosaur films made by some randos in his garage for 20 bucks, for a change.

That said, this i feel it’s a forgotten film by Stevenson… and it’s most likely also bound to never show up again anywhere, especially on Disney +, if the spineless rats never managed to find some backbone and put Song Of South on there, this one ain’t gonna fly either, for similar reasons.

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember #40: Planet Of Dinosaurs (1977)

Yep, without the “The”, because dinosaurs in space don’t need proper grammar or explanation.

More sci-fi dinos, but this time with more of a budget, kinda, thought it’s one of those cases where the movie just will never be able to live up properly to it’s theathrical poster, which i love, it’s such a perfect sum of late 70s/80s cheese that’s kinda glorious.

I’m not even kidding, that theatherical poster kicks ass, ironically or not, it does.

The movie is actually a fairly typical mash of sci-fi and dinosaur flicks, set in a generic “future” where space travel is a thing, with the crew of the starship Odyssey forced to crashland on a planet that looks a lot like Earth, despite being many light-years away, and a prehistoric sort of Earth, ruled and inhabited as it is by many kinds of dinosaur.

The surviving members, lead by Captain Lee, try to survive in the hope of being rescued, until they encounter a mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex, that proves to be a toughie, forcing them to find a way to kill it in order to survive on the planet.

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember #39: Dinosaur From The Deep (1993)

Don’t worry, this one has dinosaurs in it.

Most likely, anyway.

Didn’t think about that being a required feature, but that’s why you should do some research first, just in case, otherwise you get duped into watching a cannibal movie, somehow.

No my friends, this time we’re in for some semi-notorious lower case Z-grade filet from France, with Norbert Moutier’s Dinosaur From The Deep.

After all, the success of Jurassic Park wasn’t an USA thing only, at all, so here comes a low budget film done to capitalize on Spielberg’s dino opus and hopefully trick enough people (especially younger dinosaur enthusiasts) into renting or buying it on VHS, only to realize it’s basically a “shot in shitteo”/”home video film” of French people with no budget.

What were they gonna in 1993/4, look up the metascore on sites that didn’t exist yet, or required anyone in the household NOT to use the phone?

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember #38: Massacre In Dinosaur Valley (1985)

In a way, we’re breaking ourselves new ground in terms of dinosaur movies.

Technically.

What i’m getting at is that Massacre In Dinosaur Valley… doesn’t actually feature any dinosaur.

Come one, couldn’t even be arsed to reuse footage from a more recent dinosaur film? Sure as shit they couldn’t reuse footage from One Million B.C. Or the 1925 The Lost World, since this one is in color… because that would imply them spending time in colourizing the old b&w footage.

But yeah, i’m not surprised that some synopses do actually list anything BUT dinosaurs being into the actual film, because guess what, this isn’t a dinosaur film.

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Sabretooth (2022) [REVIEW] | Beeg Cat Means Beeg Trouble!

Before the year ends, it’s time to fullfil some promises nobody care about, so after reviewing Attack Of The Sabretooth (AKA Primal Park) back in whenever that happened, i realized almost before i finished writing the review, that this was sorta/kinda/vaguely a sequel to another movie about sabertooth tigers, as in they were sequelized only when localized in some foreign markets, as they have nothing to do with each other… aside from the writer, being Tom Woosley for both otherwise unrelated movies about extinct tiger species going about killing people.

Still more sensible than most of the italian cannibal film being retitled as “Cannibal Holocaust 2” when not even the lead actor’s dingus is a shared asset.

Simply titled “Sabretooth”, this is yet another TV movie that debutted on the ol’ Sci-Fi channel about killer animals that might or not be mutants or resurrected extinct evolutionary cul-de-sacs because Spielberg did a killing resurrecting the ancient lineage of the KFC bucket a decade ago.

And Roger Corman was also there to rip chickens up with its Carnosaur, then again, Clint Howard WAS eating chicken in front a chicken coup (and dinosaurs).

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[EXPRESSO] Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom (2024) | Lichdom: Battlemage

After the 4^th season of the anime, we got a Overlord film, depicting the Sacred/Holy Kingdom Arc that was discussed/teased but not shown during Season 4 itself.

For reference, the series is about a regular guy that get stuck in a VR MMORPG when the servers close, as its character, Momonga, an elder lich, with previous NPCs start acting on their own, including the servants/characters made by his fellow guild members basically electing him as supreme leader, and he’s basically forced to live up to their expectations while plotting schemes for world domination as the Overlord.

The plot here sees Momonga/Ainz Ooal Gown, finally having established its territory and himself as the “Sorcerer King” getting into an alliance with the Sacred Kingdom, needing help to slay the Demon Emperor Jaldabaoth that’s attacking them with his hordes of humanoid monsters..

Again, this is as about as good a synopsis as it gets without doing huge spoilers, and while it strikes a good compromise between being watchable on its own, since the story here presented (picking up the previously established but basically ignored “Jaldabaoth” storyline) has mostly original characters, provides enough closure, and you can guess/deduce some things… having context for the characters and situations definitely benefits the experience (since it doesn’t recap shit, just giving a very brief text explanation of the premise), which does deliver on both the spectacle, violence and some honestly fun, enjoyable “anime isekai non-sense”, including fantasy politics.

I was worried the animation might had the “CG-isms” seen in later Season 3 and Season 4… not as much, the animation isn’t notably better but you can tell there’s a bump in quality and direction to take advantage of it being a film, more battles to show the animation off, etc.

Quite satisfied with it, i must say.

[EXPRESSO] Kraven The Hunter (2024) | Vodka Drunkenski

With the Venom trilogy wrapped up, we’re back to the Sony Spider Man Universe thingie, this time with a character that actually a LOT more well known (not as Venom, but more than frigging Morbius), with Kraven The Hunter, depicting the origin story of the Russian big game hunter villain.

And what a surprise, it’s another pile of toss, but first, the plot.

Sergei Kravinoff, one of the two sons of a Russian criminal (Russel Crowe) , while taking them on a hunt in Tanzania, is attacked by a rare lion, and on the brink of death is given a special potion that not only saves his life, but gives him the power and heightened perception/senses of animals, enhancing his strength, speed, stamina, etc. He leaves home, but years later, after he made himself a name as “Kraven The Hunter” by offing criminals like his father, is forced to confront a menace from the past…

It’s not good, it’s not, that much was fully expected, and it fits the bill of every flaw we expect from these Sony “Spider Man but his name is Voldemort” films: bad acting, uninspired plot, passable at best action scenes, generic characters at best (often with completely unexplained powers, like the assassin with the quasi-Stand ability), uninteresting protagonist, the main villain being a joke, i laughed when i saw the transformation effects, but then again even the CG animals are barely convincing at their best.

It’s not as bad as i expected, but that just shows how low the bar is for these; even so it’s mostly dull, ininspired, and honestly i won’t be surprised if Sony actually pulls the plug on these even before that Sinister Six movie drops.

I will say that’s arguably a bit better than Madame Web, but it’s still toss.

[EXPRESSO] Gladiator II (2024) | Caligulas IV: The Untold Story

I have expressed my qualms with this era of Ridley Scott films before, same for the industry doing legacy sequels and so on.

But in this case, i do have some simpathy for Gladiator II, at least from a conceptual standpoint, given the odds stacked against it by default of following up such a revered movie, especially when the finale of the first did had closure. So, regardless of demand or cliffhangers to continue from, here’s a sequel that picks up almost two decades after Maximus’ death, and focuses on its son, Lucius, sent away to avoid being targeted, only to grow up as a Numidian general and being brought back to Rome as a slave, where he collaborates as a gladiator fighting for slave master/coliseum mogul Macrinus, intent of overthrowing the deranged, deprived and tyrannical twin emperors Geta and Caracalla…

It’s not a bad plot, the new characters are actually quite good and interesting, especially Pedro Pascal as general Acacius, and ESPECIALLY Denzel Washington as the devious Macrinus, the latter actually being far more interesting than the protagonist, Lucius, the reluctant heir to Maximus’s legacy (both literally and figuratively), ast Paul Mescal’s character & performance are simply not as memorable as Crowe’s, even when given more dialogues and speeches.

And that’s the issue, as this sequel struggles with the nigh-impossible quest of replicating the magnitude of the original… and doesn’t manage to catch lightning in a bottle twice.

But to be fair, for a movie that we didn’t really quite need, its attempt at recapturing the spirit and spark of the first movie is quite good, just not as good, but the spectacle is there, the plot is intriguing, the sets magnificent, Rome even more decadent, the political intrigue satisfying, the action brutal, and it does entertain quite a lot.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath Of The Mutants PS4 [REVIEW] | Arcades In Times

Since it’s un-officially “ninja month”, let’s talk ninja. Mutant teenage turtles ninjas.

And while their popularity and games based on the series still doesn’t waver, so much that we recently got a tie-in game to the 2023 animated film TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, TMNT: Splintered Fate, and one about the Last Ronin spin-off series by the TMNT original creators coming next year.

But we’re not talking about those, or the well received Shredder’s Revenge.

Nope, we’re going back to 2017, indirectly, thank to the recent release of the 2017 TMNT arcade game by Raw Thrills, in this expanded port (gaining the “Arcade” moniker and a new subtitle since there are literally dozens of TMNT game just called “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”) handled by Cradle Games and distributed (even physically) by… shovelware maestro Gamemill Entertaiment.

Though this is not shovelware, i had the pleasure to play this machine/arcade cabinet more than once in my local arcades, and it’s quite fun 3D side scrolling beat em up, obviously trying to arken back to Turtles In Time, as these arcade TMNT titles often do, for nostalgia but also because it was indeed a quality title worth trying imitation and the flattery that – ideally – that would imply.

It’s a pleasant surprise regardless, since i doubt anyone was expecting this, expecially given how some digital only TMNT titles have gone delisted entirely, especially made for smarthphones offering and arcade releases. The TMNT Cowabunga Collection is great but some titles will always be bound to being emulated, at best, like the Tiger handheld games and such.

This not the case, as we get the game seen and played in the arcades as well as some new extra levels, which is a good things since Gamemill still asks more than it should for a physical copy, but we’ll discuss that later.

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