[EXPRESSO] Masters Of The Universe (2026) | The Barbarian Legend Of Big McLargehuge

Ah, yes, the new He-Man movie, i say if i actually grew up with the cartoon, or even saw the old 1987 live action adaptation with Dolph Lungren…. i did not.

I absorbed some He-Man knowledge through memes and Robot Chicken sketches, and i did grow up with the original TMNT, i know this “multimedia franchise-empire ment mainly to sell toys” tango very well, so why not?

The plot it’s an origin story where a very young Prince Adam is sent to Earth by his mother to escape the armies of the evil Skeletor invading the planet Eternia, entrusted with a magic sword, and 15 years later as a man he comes back tp his home planet to become the hero of legend he was destined to be, He-Man, and vanquish’s Skeletor and his minions for good.

It’s Superman meets Star Wars with a vague 80s PG-13 barbarian-medieval theming, with very little distinctive and a lot borrowed from the aforementioned franchises… and Marvel, more accurately trying to ape Gunn’ Guardian of The Galaxy trilogy, with very middling results since it can’t committ proper to be “Marvel quippy” nor sincere about its inherent sillyness, and tone comes off as undecisive and confused, almost as if the four writers were actively at war with each other.

It’s not horrible, mind you, there’s some simplistic entertaiment to be had, there is, despite these issues and other like some odd castin, i honestly found it enjoyable, the action fun enough, but… this really shouldn’t be 2 hours and 20 minutes long, it tries to cram too much stuff into this runtime and the result is that it’s bloated despite very little plot going for it.

It’s definitely not the worse movie to have an Amazon van in it, you can quote me on that.

Tentacles (1977) [REVIEW] | Jawsuckers

While i have already set my shark movie picks for the summer, i wanna give you something extra in the “killer aquatic animal” subgenre of Jaws rip-offs that don’t fit the “shark month” criteria… well, because they are not about sharks at all.

(This was supposed to be an extra review for July, but i’m gonna do it now as “compensation” for the Masters Of The Universe movie review having to bedelayed AFTER i posted the schedule)

But make no mistake, this is basically the producer of the original Piranha, Ovidio G. Assonitis, credited as Oliver Hellman, cashing into the Jaws craze by stringing together a lot of old big Hollywood actors and having something to put in theathers ASAP, ideally to get some box office revenue in before Universal released their sequel to the original Jaws.

There’s very little point to go over the plot of Tentacles (“Tentacoli” in its original italian release, which is just the italian word for “tentacles”) because you know the plot outlin-well, the plot everything, this is just Jaws but with a giant octopus doing the terrorizing and killing in the waters of a small beach town.

Some small details are different, but there’s no point circling around the obvious, this is “Octo Jaws” and the characters are also transparent in functioning the same as in Jaws, but look, we have an admittely impressive number of big name Hollywood actors roped in: Bo Hopkins, Shelley Winters, John Huston and even Henry Fonda.

Even with Fonda swapping in and in doing so eluding us from having John Wayne in a Jaws rip-off, i can’t deny this is impressive, and sure did help a lot in marketing the film… as in, good for having those names on the poster and hence working wonders as a honeytrap to sucker people into seeing a very fuckin boring Jaws rip-off.

Continua a leggere

The June EXPRESSO schedule

Time for more talk of “upcoming attractions” for EXPRESSO revies, and terms of upcoming or just released films i can make some promises.

First, since we also got a limited theathrical release of The Amazing Digital Circus finale in cinemas here, i will be attending tomorrow, so for Sunday that review should be up.

Not too long after that the review for the new Masters Of The Universe live action film (which released yesterday here) should be up.

Some of you might think i’m missing a horror related comedy thing…. i don’t know what you’re talking about, we know those things don’t actually exist, no point in assuming what a movie like that would be if it doesn’t exist, nor i recall ever being a thing before. One can wonder, though, of a what such a hypotetical film would be.

I will be seeing Toy Story 5 and Disclosure Day, there’s no fixed date yet but reviews for those will happen.

Closing off the month, we’ll get reviews of Gore Verbinsky’s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, the Supergirl film, and of an anime film called ChaO (which is releasing here in late June).

Maybe (MAYBE) you’ll see a review of the new and last (the very last one this time i suppose) Jackass film, again, a very big MAYBE.

[EXPRESSO] Mortal Kombat II (2026) | Sequel Syndrome

It would have taken some actual fuckin effort in actively trying to sabotage the film for this follow up to the 2021 Mortal Kombat to be worse than that… well, that film wasn’t really horrible, but it was an ensemble of random, unpopular and ineffective – at best – narrative choices made just so the film based around a fighting videogame series revolving around a mystic deadly fighting tournament could put on the side doing the titular bout of Mortal Kombat.

It all felt like it was just someone at WB mandating it to be so in order to lure doing the actual MK plot in a sequel that was actually about what people wanted to see… and Mortal Kombat II is indeed that, as Shang Tsung’s plan to kill Earthrealm champions before the tournament could begin fell apart, so now Earthrealm has to compete against Outrealm, commanded by the tyrant Shao Khan (served also by the necromancer Quan Chi), and a new warrior has been chosen by the gods to fight for Earthrealm, a washed up 90s action movie hero called Johnny Cage…

And yes, Karl Urban as Cage already makes this one the better film, but yes, overall this is actually what people were expecting from a MK movie, lots of fights, the tournament, lots of gore, fun videogame-fantasy nonsense, absurd characters duking it out in mystical realms, going to Hell, the effects are better and the plot is actually okay, doesn’t have pacing narcolepsy or occasional tone issues the 2021 had, this time around embracing wholeheartedly its inherent trashy nonsense.

While i had have honestly a very fun, silly time with this one, i will have to dock the rating down a notch because.. well, because this is the film they should have made back in 2021.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II X360 [REVIEW] | ♬ ‘Cause every chromosome is a hand-me-down ♬

The first Force Unleashed was good, not original or amazing, but good hack n slash fun, it was.

So a sequel wouldn’t be surprising, given it was the fastest-selling Star Wars videogame at the time, even if the first one actually had a proper ending and a definitive fate for the main character, Star Killer, so how do you continue the story?

Since i’m about to discuss the story of the first game and spoil the ending, i’m gonna have to make it extra CLEAR.

As in.

SPOILER WARNING

SPOILER WARNING, again.

You have been warned.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Ready Or Not 2: Here They Come (2026) | Competitive Shemhamforash-ing

The first Ready Or Not was a refreshing modern twist on the classic formula first pioneered by The Most Dangerous Game, as in, fiv-i mean seven years ago the modern “eat the rich” subgenre of horror wasn’t yet saturated to exhaustion, and of crap like HIM (not the band) or Blink Twice.

So making a sequel isn’t necessarily a good idea, especially since the approach is quite simple, as it double downs with more of everything, taking place immediatly after the ending of the first one, with Grace’s survival setting in motion a bigger ritual that involves the other elite families reunited to take part in a manhunt to obtain a seal of ultimate power, again against Grace, and her estranged sister that gets forcedly roped into this satanic mess.

I mean, to make my point, this released the same month as They Will Kill You, which is also an action horror comedy about a devil worshipping cult made of powerful rich assholes and the protagonist is in this mess because of her sister, though the context isn’t the same, the style is far more grindhouse, even the usage of the supernatural element is for slightly different purposes.

Even so, the question is inevitable, and i would say this is the better film, as the approach of more of the same actually works for this sequel, there’s simply more to the plot, to the characters, bigger stakes, a proper sense of escalation, less repetition and a better handling of its themes (even as they have become overly familiary by now) making for a fun and funny action horror romp.

Comparisons asides (i’d say just watch them both if you can), it’s a good sequel and i gotta admit, it’s still funny to see people explode like rubberbanded human watermelons.

[EXPRESSO] They Will Kill You (2026) | Viscerae Satanae

There’s something to say about modern efficiently descriptive titles, as indeed you can get more direct of a title for a horror film than “They Will Kill You”, and it’s indeed pretty on the money, as the plot sees a young woman get recruit as a cleaning lady for the renowed high class hotel Virgil, but soon discover she was actually chosen as a offering to Satan himself, as the Virgil is basically a temple dedicated to him and his (mostly rich assholes) followers.

Little do these cultists know that their chosen sacrifice has undergone a Shaman King styled training arc while in prison, so she’s not stopping at anything on her quest for familiar revenge, especially now that she has been released, and has packed enough tools to do the deed, even if the Virgil has more supernatural shit going on than anyone could ever imagine.

It’s a action horror comedy romp of grindhouse style and proportions,with lots of graphic, deliberately over the top violence and lots of splattering of organs and blood all over the place, very reminescent of Tarantino’s style (down to the breaking down in chapters for twists and character backstories, plus some feet licking early on) and his emulation of the old grindhouse exploitation films, but the supernatural angle helps this stand out, basically making this a sort of revenge battle royale against satanic cultists that are almost as deadly as the ones in Blood.

It’s really fun, and even though the structure might feel a little repetitive, the short runtime helps the action flow fast & hard, plus even if you more or less figured out where it’s gonna go, there’s still plenty of unexpected and weird, over the top but also incredibly entertaining shit to keep the splatterworks and fun factor very high.

Final Verdict: Expresso

Snakes On A Plane (2006) [REVIEW] | Legal Drinking Age Snakes

I thought of reviewing Park-chan Wook’s So I’m A Cyborg But That’s Ok, since it February and we recently got his latest film, No Other Choice.

But then an Arrow Video newsletter made me aware of them doing a Blu Ray/4K UHD release of Snakes On A Plane, which i promptly preordered.

I mean, we already did Tromeo & Juliet for the Valentine’s Day review, and i’m not sure we’re gonna bring back “Snake Month” this summer, might as well celebrate good ol’ Snakes On A Plane‘s 20^th anniversary.

Yep, there’s no beating the “getting old” allegations, so strap that girdle up, take your pills, we’re going back to the very primordial soup, when Sharkenado wasn’t even a thought in the Asylum deseased pipeline of bullshit we’ll call a “mind”.

Oh, mind you, the Asylum did exist and in many ways proper started realizing who they really were due to Snakes On Plane, their had their proper epiphany in no small part thanks to this film, but we’ll discuss that when reviewing Snakes On A Train, sooner or later that review had to happen.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Anaconda (2025) | Thunder Of The Gigantic Tropic Serpent

Yes, the Anaconda serie is back…kinda.

You might have heard of this reboot being in the works for a while, and it being as a quasi-January release here definitely did not feed any hype, not that there was any in the first place, gotta admit.

In case you didn’t, Sony decided to reboot the Anaconda franchise as a Tropic Thunder sort of dealio, not a bad idea in itself even though it already felt kinda masturbatory and “lazy” since Jack Black was already in Tropic Thunder.

This film sees some friends that meet up together and decide to actually follow up on their childhood dream of being proper directors, instead of being relegated to menial cinema-adjacent jobs like making video wedding invitations or playing tertiary one-line characters on TV shows, when one of them propose the project of rebooting Anaconda, one of their favorites.

This means not only writing the script, getting some funding, but also going to the Amazon river and hire a snake expert so they can “shoot the shit” there. But things gets messier when they find themselves involved with smugglers and actually stalked by a giant anaconda…

To be honest, this is noticeably better than i would expect it to be, it’s actually quite ok.

It would be better if it was able to be more original instead of doing again Tropic Thunder via Be Kind Rewind and if it was a bit less of a compromise between a more edgy and satirical take on meta-cinema and being also “safe for kids”, to say nothing about how it is fairly safe in the “self-poking humour” department.

But i will admit it has some surprises and it’s actually funnier than i expected, it’s decent and knows it’s for the best to keep runtime on the short side.

Jack Frost: The Amytiville [MANWHA REVIEW] | The Teen Hellsing Years

This has been on my bucketlist for a while because it was such a transparent case to me.

As in, sometimes you have comics more or less explicit in showing their inspiration, their model to copy and emulate, happens a lot in shonen manga but it’s not always what one would assume

Sometimes it can be just a conflation of this kind of comics being very iterative and built (like most books and movies, for that matter) on clichès, on proven formats, time-tested formula, so similarities are often more coincidence than deliberate emulation of a specific series among the sea of many similar ones, expecially when in turn they influence each other as they go, and in time are themselves taken as examplse to follow.

But once i laid eyes on this manwha (a “korean manga”) by Ko Jin-Ho, Jack Frost: The Amityville, aimed at basically the same demographic of an edgy Shonen Jump series, then red the first volume, i was kinda happy in how immediatly obvious it was to me what this wanted to be.

As in, a more shonen take on Hellsing, the renowed pulp classic by Kohta Hirano about vampires, guns bigger than people, religious freaks with knives that double as lances and undead nazi cyborg monsters.

Continua a leggere