PreDators of PreDator

New animated film? Sure I'll check it out.

Three different parts of earth history have a Predator going to it... and basically getting its arse handed to it. Seriously, you'd think they'd learn "do not go to Earth". Indeed, unless they are filing flight plans so other Predators know where they are going, those particular Predators just disappear, looking for a fight. Anyway, those get put down, but when a ship turns up to collect those that killed the Predators, not a problem! And so we end up with the three of them needing to deal with the Predators once and for all...

Basically, this is the same story over and over. The only difference is "what weapon is the Predator using?" and even then each of the Predators get defeated by people using that weapon against them. They really DO NOT LEARN anything ever! The ending is better than what I could have expected, but clearly setting up for more adventures (and that last scene could have otherwise been a post-credit scene for other franchises).

Decent vocal performances, and the animation was... largely fine, although the fire effects looked odd whenever they were used. [Apparently this movie was animated in Unreal Engine. Huh.]

There are lots of links to previous movies here, and if this is how the series continues, I'm not against it.

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17th Mickey

I need to stop watch black comedies...

Mickey needs to get away from Earth, so signs up with a not cult expedition to a new planet of purity, but didn't read the fine print when he ticked the "kill me" box. And so he gets to be the guinea pig for every bad thing around. Except the latest bad thing doesn't kill him, but they already produced a replacement, so wackiness ensues!

I'm gonna start with, I didn't really enjoy this. The black comedy aspect of it didn't hit home, so it just felt drawn out and not going anywhere. The creepy minister (political not religious, but...) is creepy, the creepy aliens aren't, and you can largely guess where the plot is going and wait for it to shake out.

Robert Pattinson is fine here, but frankly this felt like a role anyone could do so that Robert doesn't bring anything special to it. And that holds true for the rest of the cast. The effects are fine as well, and... this was over two hours? Don't need that.

Yes, I'm going to say that Moon did this better, which is unfortunate because that cast is 33% shit.

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Waiting for Sunrise

I've seen the video game... this is nothing like the video game...

With her sister gone missing, Clover and her friends go to Glore Valley to find her... and instead find death. More than once. Because when they die, they come back to life. To survive the night, they need to survive... until dawn!

While this has definite nods to the game, this is nothing like it. The game is all about Wendigos, this movie just has it as a minor monster. The game has the clown faced killer as a stalking menace, this movie has that as just one of many killers. The game has Peter Stomare as a over the top doctor... this movie does get that right.

We have Ella Rubin as the main girl, Odessa A'zlon I recognised from Ghosts, and Ji-young Yoo stood as the token Asian... but I could not tell you the difference between the two guys. The killers are decent enough, but aren't really on screen long enough to stand out as more than momentary jump scares.

The video game had a strong enough story, and plenty of characters. This pares down the number of characters... and the idea of a story. It's rather weak, because of that. Feel free to skip.

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Doctor Cruise

Medical shows are always something (The Pitt was The Bomb) and ads for this caught my eye, so yeah, let's binge it!

Set on a cruise ship, a new doctor heads up the medical team of two other nurses, and each episode is a different theme cruise with medical mishaps happening. The three medical people get into a situation, yes, a full on throuple at one point, but the soap opera comes out because the head doctor wants a solo relationship, but the female nurse doesn't, but maybe does have feelings, and the other male nurse has feelings for her as well, but she doesn't and... it gets messy, but hey, I already said "soap opera". And we have Joshua Jackson starring, last seen in Fringe, and Don Johnson is the captain. I'm sure I've seen Phillipa Soo is other things, but not Sean Teale.

But let's complain. So this is on a cruise ship, and I know a few things about cruise life... this is one of the smaller luxury liners, and there are definite changes for TV, but...

Three medical staff? Nope, way too few. And that medical office they have would be impressive in a stationary hospital, on the high seas there is no way they are having all that stuff!

The Captain and Doctor get fancy suites. Again, TV (and they give every person basically the same suite to save on sets), but I highly doubt they get anything thay really fancy, because they would a) be below decks, and b) cruise ships love to save on money and space by not giving out luxury cabins to staff. (And there don't seem to be any staff elevators either, just plush ones for everyone.)

The staff and guests mingle. A lot. And yes, fraternise... NOPE. That is extremely against all guidelines, and such staff would be thrown off the ship. This would also harken back to that classic series Love Boat... (and everyone calls this a 'boat', although the captain keeps correcting to 'ship').

And it isn't just me complaining.

It's a fun show, but TV beats realism. And network beats TV as there is no sign this is going to get a second season.

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Ura horâ

Found out about this Japanese horror today, so I watched it today.

This is an anthology of shorts... like really short. Like we are talking five minutes here. Just enough set up to get the idea, then BAM, a horror sting! On the one hand, great, let's get on with it. We know a lot of tropes, we don't need the hour backstory to "this is a creepy place," let's move. However, on the other hand, the horror moment is "look, it's a creepy thing" or "look at this image!" Indeed, a lot of them end on "here's a strange image to consider" which isn't really all that horrific, even outside of the J-Horror set up.

The basic set up is "found footage" with lots of tapes being "this was not aired, but we have it here for you now". And don't worry if you can't tell when the big moment is coming (and again it's not like these stories hang around for a long time for you to wait to) as there is always a moment of "proceeding further is not advised" shot.

Since it is so short, I can't really point out any actors, but two listed directors are Yôhei Fukuda and  Kôji Shiraishi and... hey, we recognise that last name!

And finally... you can see it for yourself!

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Implausible Reckonation

This is it, the final of the Running Man who Runned and did Stunts!

The Entity is nearly everywhere, and once it gets everywhere, then everywhere will become nowhere! ... 'cos it will destroy everything. Fortunately, the US can exactly determine a ticking clock to follow, with enough time for Ethan Hunt to go through some action sequences and long scenes of just talking and not doing much.

Seriously, for an action movie, there is large chunks of just nothing happening. And even some action scenes where there are large chunks of nothing happening... while being an action sequence!

This is definitely a "culmination" movie where they link several events from movies past, including a lot of links to the first movie.

The cast is pretty much the same as in Part One, and... yeah, several of them definitely are looking older now. No wonder Tom Cruise has bowed out of more movies, I can believe a few others putting their roles down... and, on the other hand, this isn't concluding anything, and the series can continue on and on and on...

This movie passed the time, but it didn't need to be the length that it is...

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Final Bloodlination

Sometimes, you just want to see a dumb movie.

This is what, the sixth movie? We start with an initial death sequence set piece... but it turns out that was a dream! But the young woman having the dream is seeing it at a nightmare, and goes in search of her family... which does technically lead them to start dying, so it is kind of all her fault, and if she hadn't done anything, they would live (longer). Also, it was a dumb kid's fault for some part of it all, so don't let kids do anything fun.

This series varies between horror and comedy, although the length of the mechanations that Death goes to and the final practical effects have always bent it towards comedy for me, and this one is definitely on the comedy side. Decent practical effects (I assume) or at least not obvious to me that it was all computer imagery.

The main cast are fine, but I can't say I know any of them from anything in particular. Aside from Brec Bassinger, last seen riding a stick, and of course...

Farewell, Tony Todd...

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