Review: HALLOWEEN: H20

MICHAEL MYERS SLAYS ‘EM IN LIKEABLE ‘H20’

(reviewed on ppv)

    After “Scream” revolutionized the horror industry we’ve been bombarded by awful wannabes from other companies. Surprisingly enough, Dimension films (part of the indi Mirimax giant which is part of Disney) seems to be the only studio producing decent horror films, that are, if not as good as “Scream”, at least watchable. “Scream 2”, “The Faculty”, and “Halloween: H20 Twenty Years Later” all fall under this circus tent.
    It was a startling surprise that I actually sat through the entire “H20” film and enjoyed it. The Weinstein bro’s were smart in making every horror film after “Scream” at least have something to do with Kevin Williamson, the horror/teen guru who has had a part in all the above mentioned films. Here he script-doctored “H20”, even if his name isn’t among the credits.
    This film picks up twenty years after the first two Halloween films. The other five (or is it four?) films are non-existant in this newly created “realm”. So forget about those awful other sequels (especially that third film which had nothing to do with Michael Myers per se, just halloween masks). Jamie Lee Curtis is Laurie Strode…er, was Laurie Strode. She faked her death in the eighties and now has a new identity as a head mistress of a lush Californian prep school in the middle of nowhere.
    She’s got a kid, Josh Hartnett, who did a great starring turn in “The Faculty”, and a lover, Chicago Hope doc what’s-his-name? Adam Arkin.
    The catch? It takes place UNDER WATER. H20? Get it? Okay, the catch is really that it’s twenty years to the halloween when good old Laurie was attacked by her bro in the white mask as she was on a cushy babysitting detail. She survived. Apparently so did he. Both are back. It’s halloween. It’s gonna be a bloody mess.
    And it is, for the most part.
    The plot is more or less a classic decoy just to get Strode and Myers for a final showdown that will end…it….all!    
    At an hour and twenty two minutes, the film is short and sweet. It could have used some beefing up I’m sure, but it works out perfectly fine. There are some bad moments (the opening sequence which doesn’t make any sense to the rest of the film except to cameo the kid from "Third Rock from the Sun"), but for the most part it’s a great, spooky, fun little horror film that has a pretty cool ending and enough stars (look…the security guard is none other than LL Cool J!) to pack a good punch. **1/2 (out of ****)

Review: BLADE

VAMPIRES SUCK

(reviewed on ppv)

    There’s a great scene in "Blade"- the action-packed vampire gore fest starring falling star Wesley Snipes- where a twenty-somethings guy is riding in a fast car with a hot date and she purs to him about showing him a “surprise”. The “surprise” turns out to be a hidden underground techno dance club in the back of a meat locker with loud music and flashing lights. The guy is lost in the crowd and stops as a red liquid drips onto his hand. He looks up. All of a sudden the emergency fire sprinklers turn on full blast. The catch? It’s not water, it’s blood. The blood pours over everyone who all cheer and shout and bask in the thick, red substance. The guy looks around and everyone has fangs and fierce eyes. They’re growling at him. They’re…VAMPIRES! He crawls on the blood soaked floor as the music pounds and the blood flows over everything (even the camera lens in one badly edited scene…you’re not supposed to know the camera is there, are you?) until the twenty somethings guy stops at the boots of a black man all in black. You know he’s the hero because he doesn’t have ONE single drop of blood on him.
    Then the movie gets bad.
    “Blade” is the kind of movie that would be a great comic book, that’s probably why the film is based on a Marvel comic book. In my humble opinion they shouldn’t have put it on the big screen. It’s more or less a brutally violent kids film. It’s silly, it’s ridiculous, and the special effects look like they were drawn by comic book artists.
    The plot (if I can call it that) deals with Wesley “Falling Star” Snipes as he hunts and kills vampires. The extremely thin backstory has him being a half vampire, half man/ killing machine. His mom was attacked by a vamp prior to his birth. Snipes has an old man sidekick whose family was wiped out by the creatures, and his name is basic action one-namer Whistler. Then there’s a girl, a villain, and an idiotic ending. And get this: before Snipes kills the bad vamp he delivers this oh-so creative one-liner, “Mother fuckers always tryin’ to ice skate uphill.” Are you kidding me? I think “Have a nice day!” is better.
    There is some decent action in the wannabe dark and brooding film, most noticeable in the halfway good train sequence. The rest of the film is like every superhero film combined with vampires. Blade has a motorcycle, he has all kinds of weapons, and he wants revenge on the bad guy not just because he’s bad but because of something personal.
    To put the whip cream on the pumpkin pie, Snipes executive-produced this mess. Falling star? After U.S. Marshalls, Down in the Delta, and this…he’s fallen and he can’t get up. ** (out of ****)

Review: THE NEGOTIATOR

SUFFERING FROM INSOMNIA? WATCH ‘THE NEGOTIATOR’ FOR 30 SECONDS

(a waste of 2 hours+ of my life, ppv)

    Is it me, or does Hollywood just suck?
    Take “The Negotiator” for instance, a boring two hour+ pure Hollywood film. It’s shiny and sleek, features big stars Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey, and takes us through the been-there-done-there plot of good guy framed by bad guy.
    The only other movie that read Hollywood more than “The Negotiator” last year was the other bad summer movie, “Armageddon”, which at least had a few endearing qualities (Steve Buscemi and the cool opening sequence).
    “Negotiator” doesn’t have any aspect AT ALL that I can recommend. The plot is horrendous, the climax even worse, the actors doing basic schtick, the so-called “action” scenes a laughing joke, and it is actually more boring that “A Perfect Bore”, which has the fucking word in it’s title for chrissakes!
    Samuel L. Jackson plays a cop who is framed for some absurd back story about money laundering out of a pension fund. His partner is killed and the bad guys (they’re fellow cops! Holy shit is that one helluva plot twist or what?) frame Jackson. Sam goes up to J.T. Walsh’s (corrupt asshole) office which is conveniently located in a Die Hard-esque city building and starts to demand answers. The answers don’t come so Jackson takes four people hostage. More cops show up, and eventually Spacey shows up as….ready for the worst name in history…I’m serious this name takes two stars away….CHRIS SABIAN.
    Holy shit that’s a fucking horrible name. “Hey, CHRIS SABIAN, want some coffee?”
    So Jackson and CHRIS SABIAN have a “mental” war until the big climax when the good guys defeat the bad guys.
    Last summer there was a preview of this film that everyone thought gave the ending away. It was a scene that wasn’t even in the film, but nonetheless it showed CHRIS SABIAN and Jackson teamed up, CHRIS SABIAN telling the cops via his walkie talkie, “Now you’re going to have to deal with both of us.”
    As the movie dragged on I thought…they only put that so-called “spoiler” in the preview because by the time you get up to the end of the film you’re fast asleep or so bored to shit you couldn’t give three fucks.
    This movie is definitely the worst movie I’ve ever sat through completely. I’ve seen bad movies but at least they were watchable. This movie will put you to sleep faster than being hit over the head with a sledgehammer. Jackson and CHRIS SABIAN have so little “chemistry” that was built up upon that the movie makes both actors look horrible. There’s snippets of action edited into the film just to wake your ass up. The only redeeming value of this airplane disaster onto a train wreck crashing into a nuclear power plant causing a gigantic explosion is the fact that Paul Giamatti stars in it. He’s Pig Vomit from "Private Parts" and he was in "Saving Private Ryan."    When I saw him I smiled and when the movie was over I felt like shooting the director in between the eyes with a fucking bazooka. NO STARS