[EXPRESSO] Jungle Cruise (2021) | Steamboat Amazon Ride

Time and time again, Disney comes back to the familiar well of turning Disneyland rides-attractions into live action movies, hoping to avoid another The Country Bears and strike that sweet, profitable Pirates Of The Carribean lightning once more.

Can’t say i’ve ever even seen this ride in person, but then again i’m not even sure i even went to Disneyland to begin with, and this doesn’t matter anyway.

This time we have a throwback to 40-50s jungle adventure films, with steamboats, fearless guides with pith helmets, treasures guarded by perilous jungle animals, cursed soldiers, evil german royalty (not nazis since this is set during WWI, but it makes virtually no difference if they were), adventurous researchers and natives in “ethnic get up”. And Dwayne Johnson.

It’s as generic as it looks and as generic as they come, clearly prioritizing spectacle and action in order to avoid the audience NOT being stimulated, even if the scenes don’t call for action, there is it anyway, just shovel it in. This is through and through a manifactured Disney summer blockbuster, as obvious as me pointing it out (as if was needed), and ones expectes it to be just a fun, throw-away experience to kill 90 minutes.

BUT i gotta admit it’s fun, it manages to incorporate ride-like elements into the plot, often giving them some minor little twists to the usual cliches for fun, the cast is clearly overlyqualified for the roles and the dialogues, but they clearly have fun with the stock characters and the often silly lines (or deliberately bad jokes), it made genuinely laugh in more than a couple occasion.

It’s quite cute, it’s pretty much what it says it is, it’s a cute, mild, fun little adventure while it lasts, one you’ll quickly forget in any detail after watching.

Great White (2021) [REVIEW] | Seaplane Rescue Rumble

Want some fresh shark movie? Well, it doesn’t get any fresher than this, as this is the more recent movie we’ll spotlight during this year’s Shark Month, and was released just last month, both via theatrical releases in some countries, and video on demand.

Personally, i discovered it among the new releases on DVD while browsing Amazon UK, was pretty cheap, so i ordered it asap. It helped being promoted as “from the executive producers of 47 Meters Down series”. Even if it’s a half-truth, as both Jack Christian and Christopher Figg DON’T appear listed as “executive producers” in 47 Meters Down or 47 Meters Down Uncaged, at least on IMDB.

I understand “from one of the producers of Dog Soldiers” wasn’t gonna fly, but why don’t actually sell it as “from the producers of Black Water: Abyss”, where they did work as executive producers. It does come from Altitude, one of the main companies also behind the 47 Meters Down series, so..

This is an australian production, with – fittingly so – australian actors (partly filmed off of Brisbane’s coast, to boot), and it’s directed by Martin Wilson, pretty much as his debut full lenght feature, as – according to IMDB – he directed two shorts and a TV movie called “Roll”.

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Shark Season (2020) [REVIEW] | Tis Is

We do gotta pick every stitch, it is always season of scripts running down the ditch,

sharks are out to make it rich, must be the season of sons of a bitch

I’m sorry Donovan, but these fuckin movies often leave me little choice but just invent shit like this, especially when scriptwriters don’t even bother to make the premise stand out for movies like these, so at a glance they mesh all together and often can be really sketchly summed, as they barely have anything to say or show. Especially when they keep getting released under alternate titles that are either mystifing, deceptive, or already used by older, better known shark movies. Because fuck you.

There’s no other explanation than “fuck you” when you release this recent shark movie as “Shark Attack” for its UK DVD release. And as “Deep Blue Nightmare” for US TV broadcasts. (sighs)

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Open Water 2: Adrift (2006) [REVIEW] | Sequel Sharks

What happens when you get to do a sequel that’s really not a sequel, but another iteration on the same basic premise? You get slapped for asking obvious and stupid rethorical questions, as you know damn well the industry will conjure series out of unrelated movies anyway, so doesn’t matter that not even the production company is the same as Open Water, we’ll release it with a different name first and then slap “Open Water 2” when it hits home video, passing the original title as a subtitle. Not to be confused with the 1993 movie by Christian Duguay, also called “Adrift”.

This one is directed by Hans Horn, also behind german produced TV movie like Death Water (Tod aus der Tiefe) and with a new movie in pre-production, Going Down, which sound like it’s gonna be an unofficial Open Water or a rip-off. But we’ll see about that.

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90210 Shark Attack (2014) [REVIEW] | That’s where I want to be

I’ve reviewed my fair share of crappy movies, and after a while, one is tempted to just post a screenshot of it and let that serve as a review, even if resolved to resist labelling a piece of media “the worst ever”, because eventually something worse will surface and challenge it for the crown of “king shit”. There’s always something worse, there’s always something better out there.

Though, this is one case where i could have posted the following image and really end the review here, there’s nothing that really excuses or explains this magnificent display.

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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.

I Eat Your Skin (1971) [REVIEW] | Burial Grounds – Voodoo Terror

Summer means it’s a perfect time to revisit some black and white “exotic flavored” zombie flick of yore.

Made in 1964 as “Carribean Adventure”, titled this way to hide from investors the fact it was a zombie movie… it never saw the light of day until 1971, when the zombie genre was “properly” born via the unexpected, shocking and – as time would tell – seminal release in theathers of a low budget flick called The Night Of The Living Dead in 1968.

Of course, zombies existed in cinema before, but mostly “voodoo zombies”, as in people put under hypnosis or drugged by a scientist or master of some kind, used as both forced labour and goons to dispose of people, usually made invulnerable by magic to compensate their slow, stiff movements, but even by 1964 the “voodoo zombie genre” had already plateaud… heck, you can argue it basically died in the mid 40’s when zombie comedies like Zombies On Broadway happened, as Universal later would make Abbott and Costello meet its own monster roster.

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#E32021 Wholesome Direct [Highlights]

Yeah, sorry but due to very limited time on my part, i will kinda have more “double feature” posts.

Especially since this E3 there’s way more conferences and showcase stuff to see, despite Sony basically being absent and EA delaying their crap to a direct thing in July.

Meaning i won’t have to cover it.

Also, since i’m on the subject, i won’t comment or watch the Warner Bros event, as they announced it’s all gonna be about Back 4 Blood and….i don’t really care about it, same for the PC Gaming Show, the Razer one and the final E3 Awards thingie.

And my time is limited, sadly.

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Ninja Thunderbolt (1984) [REVIEW] | Rollerskating Jumping Ninjas

Can’t believe that we didn’t cover yet (on this blog, anyway) anything from the masterful editing hands of Godfrey Ho and his empire of multi-colored caucausian ninjas, so time to rectify this with a… random one from the huge ninja pile, Ninja Thunderbolt!

A little introduction for those yet unfamiliar with Godfrey Ho’s legendary style of “cut and paste-kata”, as in he took various unfinished, unreleased or copyright dubious films (often from Hong Kong and Taiwan)…. and edited new footage of caucasian actors acting as ninjas in colorful jumpsuit to make a “new” full lenght movie, redubbing and rewriting the dialogues in order to make a somewhat connected – and sometimes almost coherent – plot tie together all the footage.

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Fist Of The North Star: Ken’s Rage 2 X360 [REVIEW] | You Should Have Left The Bronx

The first Ken’s Rage sold relatively well, and it’s Koei, so we got a sequel 3 years later.

Which would be fine, until you realize what it actually implies in this case, and i don’t mean it simply being released to coincide with the series 30^th anniversary.

That is something else entirely that ultimately condemns Ken’s Rage 2, but the main issue is that you just can’t do what Dynasty Warriors does with Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, as the source material for that leaves it open to the real historical characters being reinvented or changed, on what of the many events (historical or pure fiction like the many uses of magic) focus more the narrative, while keeping focus on the essential battles and significant achievements of the warring factions, and their part in the path to the unification of China after the fall of the Han dynasty.

You can’t just re-imagine Kenshiro, his friends and foes, as they have all distinct personalities, distinct character designs, signature moves and Fist Of The North Star’s popularity never really waned in 30 and plus years, so people still are quite well aware of it. On the other hand, you could hardly justify making a sequel when the first game stopped at the end of the Raoh’s story arc.

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