[EXPRESSO] The Flash (2023) | Weather Report

Let’s get this over with, because i’m not really too comfortable with the idea of this review, as i previously stated, but i made a decision, so here we are.

Even casting aside the heinous shit Erza Miller pulled, i can’t say i was ever well disposed towards the film, as i didn’t really care much for The Flash as a character, the trailers and promos we eventually saw surface were more about Michael Keaton returning as Batman, an alluring prospect for older generations like mine that grew up on the 1989 Burton classic, paraded as “bait” because Batman brings ALL the boys to the yard, so to speak.

And i guess to remember you THIS world is unfair and cruel, the movie that should have been a total piece of shit… it’s not. I’d make a joke about dodging lightining, but why couldn’t Black Adam have been alright and this one a turd.. i guess it’s ironic in its own right.

The plot concerns Barry Allen, The Flash himself, using his powers to go faster than light and eventually to go back in time, all so he can avoid the incident that saw his mother die and his father wrongfully imprisoned. He eventually succeeds, meets his younger self, but learns that his actions led to a new timeline entirely, one where a lot of his super hero friends and colleagues never existed, but other villains did.

Thankfully he finds that reality’s Batman (Michaeal Keaton) and tries to launch a counter-offensive to save everyone…

Yeah, sure, some of the CG work can be uncanny valley levels of off-putting at times, the ending basically “pulls a JoJo” for more cynical reasons, but against all expectations, the movie it’s alright, it’s decent.

I’ve seen FAR worse offerings, especially from the DC side.

[EXPRESSO] Evil Dead Rise (2023) | Book Of The ‘Burbs

I’m not the biggest Evil Dead fan, and i honestly didn’t see anything past Army Of Darkness (so i can’t/won’t compare this new one to the 2013 reboot), but since this was gonna be another stand-alone film (despite also being called a sequel to the originals), what the hell, i’m game.

And yep, this is Evil Dead, despite what people that saw the first movies decades ago and clearly don’t fuckin remember them at all will try to tell you.

It’s basically a modern reboot/remake that does some changes to freshen things up, by changing the setting from the cabin in the woods to a suburban slum, and focus on a couple of sisters that reunite just to be torn apart by the unwarranted summoning of a evil undead curse that originates from a forbidden tome spreads..… and also by giving the Book Of The Dead a new name, because i guess the Lovecraft estate did trademark Necronomicon or something?

But regardless, director/writer Lee Cronin did a very good job in trying to capture the spirit of the old entries (down to offering a variation on the static camera chase sequences), with lots of nasty gore effects, disgusting fluids – or worse – being vomited by the possessed, violent impaling, but also with a certain underlining silliness to them, not to the point of devaluing the raw satisfaction of knives to the brain, scalps being ripped open, eyeballs eaten off… it’s nasty but not interested in taking itself 100 % serious, as with the cursing provided by the Deadites equivalents.

Likeable characters, excellent gore effects, intriguing bits of new lore, and overall just very entertaining (while also being enjoyable as its own thing), with a lot going on, all well packed into a very tight runtime just above 90 minutes.

Reptisaurus (2009) [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch

Cheap, direct to video shitfest from Fred Olen Ray, the final frontier for the franchise you’ve never heard about until this very moment…. or did you really?

If you’ve been lurking and watching all things monster movies from a good decade or more, you probably already know of Reptilicus from 1961, the only Danish movie monster that had the privilege of being remembered by film historians, and like some of the others “Godzilla inspired” films, managed to get a shlocky comic book series, one that eventually crossed with the one based on Gorgo, of all fucking things.

But since this is that kind of story, Reptilicus’ comic book only lasted two issues. TWO.

Then the publisher, Charlton Comics, waited for the copyright on the name to expire, redesigning the creature a bit and retitling it as “Reptisaurus”, which at least gave the series more issues and a special one-shot, and – as said before – got a cameo in an issue of the Gorgo comic book series, also published by Charlton Comics.

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember #23: Land Of The Lost (2009)

FIY, i didn’t know this movie’s history beforehand, i figured we could use a mainstream released feature with actors people might have actually have seen before, you know, in theathers and all, it wasn’t an obscure product from a country that no longer exists and it was “2YK survivor”.

So i just slotted into the list, only to later find out i basically enlisted “comedy Hitler” for this Dino Dicember, as this thing was widely hated back in 2009, with the deadly combo of being both a box office bomb and receiving overwhelming amounts of negative reviews from the press.

And also won 7 Razzies, which – as said before – i don’t really acknowledge, but by all accounts it had everything going against it, as it was regarded as an awful, awful sketch comedy, and made people extra salty because it was technically one of those “parody movie adaptations/remakes” of an older, beloved TV series, in this case Sid and Marty Krofft’s Land Of The Lost from 1974.

Which i never saw since i’m technically a Millennial and whatnot.

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Resident Evil: The Series (2022) [REVIEW] Teens & Weskers

Oh boy. This one.

So good a couple of months after its release Netflix cancelled the series all together.

Exactly like it did for its Cowboy Bebop’s live action series, but i doubt this will be the last time we see this treatment, as Netflix is committed to bring more live action crap into its folds, especially by picking a “random” videogame or anime/manga license.

But that discussion will have to wait for when the One Piece live-action series (also by Netflix and also handled by the same production team behind the aforementioned live-action Cowboy Bebop), for this is a Resident Evil affair, and the series already had its own spotted history of adaptations.

I was gonna review this thing anyway, but cancelling any further seasons it’s definitely a move that appeals to my vulturine tendencies, and also means i hopefully won’t have to talk about it again at a later date. Hopefully, who the hell knows with Netflix nowadays, since not even instant super mega hits that are well received by most people like The Sandman (adapted from Neil Gaiman’s book of the same name)… aren’t guaranteed a second season, as the very people making it explained.

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[EXPRESSO] Halloween Ends (2022) | (Wake Me) Up Inside (When)

If nothing else, Halloween Ends lives up to the name, because it’s indeed the conclusion of this new Halloween trilogy and ideally the series.. for now. We did this dance before.

Burdened withh the unenviable task of basically salvaging the trilogy after Kills destroyed any goodwill Halloween 2018 built up.. Halloween Ends almost manages it.

4 years have passed since the events of Halloween Kills, with Michael Myers vanished and Haddonfield residents reacting in different ways, from blaming it all on Laurie Strode (now writing a book about her experiences) to exploiting the events, but all still trying to move on.

Though the focus isn’t on Laurie Strode so much, but on a new character, Corey, a babysitter that was involved in a fatal accident during on a Halloween night that branded him for life as a psycho.

This brings the narrative into an intriguing direction i won’t spoil, ultimately ties into the Laurie-Michael struggle, and continues to grow the theme of Haddonfield’s being a character in itself, so i can’t deny Halloween Ends does a lot of things that work.

…. for what it WANTS you to remember from the previous movies, hoping that you forgot a lot of the stuff that actually happened in Halloween Kills, and the whole communal aspect it’s undermined by how the script can’t resist making a lot of these people self righteous assholes or bullies in order to make their deaths satisfying. At least Kills didn’t try to have it both ways.

That and the layers of throwbacks to the original movie become kinda tiresome.

Overall, it’s not bad, it’s decent, the series has been a lot better and a lot worse, Halloween Ends it’s just another flawed but enjoyable entry with some good stuff in it as much as squandered ideas.

[EXPRESSO] Lightyear (2022) | Space Mediocrity

Ok, let’s leave aside the whole “identity crisis debacle”, despite Pixar being outright silly in starting the movie with the premise that THIS is the movie that in 1995 spawned the Buzz Lightyear toy Andy from Toy Story got. Also ignoring the 90’s animated TV series that served as a backstory to the character, because it’s clear this is a different interpretation-canon.

WHATEVER, who cares, let’s move on from this non-sense.

Though i can understand it’s quite tempting to do so since the ludicrous meta footnote is ripe for lampooning, and the actual movie leaves very little to say for itself.

But first, the plot.

I has been described by many as a sort of rip-off of Interstellar for children, and i agree, as we see Buzz and company investigate a newly scanned planet that the ship flew by during their voyage.

This alien world immediatly reveals to be rife with hostile fauna and flora, and in attempt to escape, the ship gets damaged, forcing Buzz and all the other people on board to camp and live there, while they find a way to create the specific fuel need for lightspeed space travel in order to contact base and leave the planet. They do manage to create the special fuel, but things turn for the weird as Buzz keeps failing the lightspeed flight test and returns to learn that his minutes long voyages translate to years of time passing in his absence….

I’ll say that this ain’t bad. I didn’t expect much from the trailer, but sadly despite the plot having some potential to be better, it all comes off as a generic “origin story” through and through, from the action to the characters, everything it’s pretty mild, predictable and – again – generic.

Enjoyable, but sadly quite middling overall.

[EXPRESSO] The Batman (2022) | Nigma Notions

After fighting the dreaded villain known as COVID19-Man, Batman is back to the silver screen, now being played by Robert Pattinson in what it’s essentially another “reboot” of sorts, since the plot of The Batman goes back to basics, depicting the reasons why millionarie Bruce Wayne uses his wealth to moonlight as the masked vigilante of the “Batman”, his encounter with Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman), and has him face the villain known as The Riddler.

The main difference is that this time Bruce Wayne’s past (including e his legacy as a Wayne) plays a bigger role, as we were lead to think by the trailers and promo materials, but thankfully this re-establishes the character without being an origin story, and depicts Batman as a more tragic and frail force of justice, as now his family’s legacy comes into play into the corrupt nature of Gotham itself.

The good: Gotham’s depiction is amazing, the brooding and even more dark tone is perfect, the mood overall it’s great and matches the more grounded approach (which of course reminds one of Nolan’s work on the caped crusader), the cast is stellar and giving out great performances, with Pattinson making for a really convincing and more obsessive Batman.

Shame that the narrative ultimately suffers not being as strong as it could, thanks in part to the kinda messy script that falls victim to overstuffing, with ¾ climaxes and the movie being pretty much 3 hours long. It’s not boring, actually it’s fairly captivating, but it feels like they crammed almost 2 scripts into 1 because superhero movies are expected to be very long these days.

I still recommend it, despite the aforementioned flawas, because it’s refreshing to a superhero movie done with vision in mind more than a spreedsheet of pre-made and rounded-edged lego blocks.

[EXPRESSO] Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) | Hostile Makeover

There’s a lot that could be said about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, but you won’t hear it from me now since i really didn’t bother with anything aside the original and the delightful spoof sequel Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. I knew this was gonna be another “Godzilla style” sequel to the original that ignores everything else, so i rewatched that for a refresher before this one released as a Netflix exclusive a couple of days ago, but that’s about it.

Set decades after the events of the original movie, the story focuses on the aged serial killer Leatherface, targeting a group of young entrepreneurs that arrive in the ghost town of Harlow to basically sell it to rich people, and him coming in contact with a veneful survivor of his killings.

Yes, it’s Angela from Sleepaway Camp. Seriously, it’s not like it could be anyone else, and the movie right away it makes no secret that Sally is still alive, but basically handles it’s legacy character in a disappointing fashion, feels like they wanted to avoid a complete mimicry of what Halloween 2018 did… even thought otherwise it’s exactly what they did anyway.

As in, the attempt is pretty clear in intention, the result is more akin to to Halloween Kills, sans the messy baggage (and overburdened script), among other things.

It’s not “good”, but it’s quite entertaining in the same way as that movie was, as in delivers gore, lots of kills and good production values, the modern stuff makes sense, but in terms of story and characters it’s a mostly forgettable wash.

For a direct-to-video sequel it’s “fine”, and since it’s also really short, i say give it a watch if you like the series or slashers in general, just don’t expect much beside some entertaining kills.

[EXPRESSO] Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City (2021) | Herbal Bundle

Finally time to review this one, the first reboot movie for the Resident Evil film series, distancing itself from the previous films by Paul W. Anderson in order to make a more faithful adaptation.

Helmed by 47 Meters Down director Johannes Roberts, Resident Evil Welcome To Raccoon City basically provides an abridged retelling combining the plot of Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 into a single one. Not completely random as both games’ plot take place in Raccon City, where in 1998 the farmaceutical megacorporation Umbrella Corporation had basically withdraw from operating, leaving the city to wither.

After an epidemic turns people and animals into undead monsters, a squad of local police officers is sent to investigate the Spencer Mansion in the nearby mountain area, while other survivors rally to survive the horrors left by Umbrella.

There are various changes and differences, often kinda necessary due to the merging of the two plots, which leads to the movie feeling rushed, as i feared. Aside from some hamfisted (but still cute) references, the movie actually captures pretty well the horror B-movie spirit of the games, and actually wants to be a horror film.

And it succeds, the atmosphere is nice and creepy, there’s a lot of practical effects, the characters are mostly quite accurate, and most of the elements from the games are used with sense in-context.

It’s not perfect, the cast is decent but there is some questionable acting and the “plot mix” it’s a source of other issues, but overall it’s actually quite solid and enjoyable.

Shame because this is arguably the better, more faithful RE live action adaptation… but it’s shaping up to be a box office bomb, not surprising since it was released in late November, and the “Thanksgiving holiday weekend” window makes sense only for Americans.