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B-Movie Review: Shatter (1974)

It's Hammer Time! And it's Kung Fu Assassin Secret Agent thingy Time!! Hooray!!

So we start the movie with the President of Africa going to a fancy hotel. I call bullshit on this. Africans are poor people, not even their President would afford a fancy room. Anyway, the President of Africa is about to get it on with his rich blonde girlfriend when some dude with a CAMERA GUN shoot him. CAMERA GUN. Great! I have no idea why he didn't just use a normal gun, but I already like it.

Next stop Hong Kong, we meet Shatter, the man who assassinated the President of Africa who is the main hero of this movie. He's played by Stuart Whitman. His acting is hillarious. He overact everything. It's great. We also soon realize that since the movie is set in Hong Kong most of the other roles will be played by Chinese people. This mean this movie is RACIST!!!

Unfortunately we are also introduced to the opening music. It's terrible. Please kill me now. It's like someone is actually shattering glass. Please just stop! Anyway it's followed by that music that's in every secret agent or police movie from the 70s. Thank You. So Shatter sits in a taxi, someone tries to shoot him from the next car, they misses and shoot straight through the car (the windows are shattered, OMFG SYMBOLISM!!!!!) But the best thing is that it hit some dude in the arm on the other side of the car, and that dude is just, "whatever, I was shot in the arm, happens every day". Awesome.

So Shatter goes to meet Le Snob, the man who hired him to shoot the President of Africa. Ooh, that's why he used a CAMERA GUN, so he could have photographic proof that he is the killer. Smart. Though he could of course just have used a normal gun and a normal camera. And of course Le Snob betrays him and refuse to pay him a dime. Typical.

So Shatter next meet up with his CIA contact that confirms he's alone, since the Agency doesn't want anything to do with him anymore. He's then taken by some Kung Fu dudes who uses him as a punching bag for a while until we meet Peter Cushing!!! Cushing, Cushing, Cushing, Cushing!! Yaaayy! Anyway Cushing plays a member of the Hong Kong Security Force named Ratwood (very original there, movie). And Cushing is like: "Leave Hong Kong before tomorrow or you're dead and shit". Anyway, a dude help Shatter into a bar/ massage parlor, where he meet a masseuse named Mei Lin who of course are our female protagonist. She gives him a massage, he feels better and goes to his hotel. Earlier in the movie he did a room switcheroo with another guy. And now that pays of because well, it'd suck to be that other guy. So, now Shatter knows he's a marked man and he retun to the bar/ massage parlor. He ask the bartender who's the guy who helped him before to hide him and offer him $100. So he is hidden in a nice appartment in the slums. He also meet Mei Lin again. It's revealed the bartender is actually a Kung Fu master. So he teams up with the Kung Fu guy, get the girl etc. There's a good scene when he dreams about the people he has killed and all the people who were hurt or were killed because of him, and is very haunted by this dream when he wakes up. It looks for a moment he regret what he has done, but only for a moment. I'm glad they included it, it gave Shatter some more character.

Anyway, Shatter and his Kung Fu partner kill Le Snob, the brother of the President of Africa and some bad Kung Fu dudes, who all belonged to a Evil Crime Syndicate. They meet Cushing again who of course is corrupt (his name is Ratwood in this movie, it's impossible for him to not be corrupt with such a name). And the girl is killed, which usually happen in these kind of movies. All in all a solid cheap film. Not the best quality but did the job. A cheesy male lead whose acting is hillariously bad, some nice Kung Fu and Cushing. You can't really ask for more.

Back from the Cinema: Thor the Dark World

Our favorite Norse God is back for some more Hammer Time! And it's good. In the same way the first Thor movie was good. It's an okay movie. It has problems, but it is entertaining. Some of the problems are the same one the first movie had. Thor is the least interesting character in the cast, Nat Portman's character is kind of bland etc. The strengths are very much the same strengths as the first movie too. Anthony Hopkin's portaryal of Odin, Tom Hiddleston's Loki, Stellan Skarsgård, Thor's three sidekicks and that warrior chick that probably would be a better love interest for Thor than Portman.

The main bad guy in the movie is played by the 9th Doctor Christopher Ecclestone. And he's not very interesting. More of a typical bad guy that want to destroy the World for some ancient bullshit reason, and has the personality of a cucumber. He work well as a plot device, but badly as a character. The real interesting villain is of course again Loki, that pretty much steal the show from all the other characters. Nat Portman is also more of a plot device in the movie. She get some dar maguffin inside her and need to be protected from the evil 9th Doctor that need the maguffin to destroy the world. Typical damsel in distress storyline. But the action scenes are great and satifying. The battles are intense, and that's really what you need from an action flick about a dude with a hammer. Other things that work well is Skarsgård as the comic relief, although pantless Skarsgård became a little bit too much at times. They kind of overdid that one.

I'd liked to see more of Thor's sidekicks as well as of that Warrior Chick, they felt underused in this movie. If they do Thor 3 I hope to see more of them. I also hope they next time have a bad guy that's more interesting than the 9th Doctor was in this one. Loki is good and all, but I like all my villains to have personality and character. And give Thor some character too. He is the main hero, and still the least interesting of the whole cast. But the movie was good. Not great, but definitely worth a watch. Basically if you liked the 1st Thor movie you'll like this one too.

Back from the Cinema: World War Z

What can I say? It's not terrible. It's an okay action flick with a high tempo. But I am tired of Zombies. Can't the Zombie films just die? Except Zombieland, that movie need a sequel.

This movie is really two different movies in one. First we have Brad Pitt and his family trying to survive, and it's a typical Zombie survival film. Nothing out of the ordinary here, but they manage to make it intense and exciting. The chaos when the outbreak begun has only been this well portrayed in the video game The Last of Us before this movie. But suddenly we have another movie. Brad Pitt gets his family to safety and goes on a quest to find a way to save the world and stop the outbreak. I would have been fine if the whole movie was just Brad Pitt trying to save his family, and I would have been equally fine with it if the whole movie was about Brad Pitt trying to save the World. But what was the point about the first part of the movie with him and his family trying to survive later, when this storyline was dropped for Brad's quest around the World to find the cure? None, it felt like nothing had been achieved.

Brad Pitt isn't spectacular in any way in this. It's clearly visible he only treated this movie as a paycheck and didn't give his all. I don't really blame him for that. The story is okay, but you have to just go with a few weird things, like the fact that zombies don't want to bite people with diseases (why not, a zombie wouldn't care) and that it only takes 12 seconds to turn into a zombie after bitten (why aren't all humans dead), or that Israel has built a huge ass wall to keep the Zombies out (it was so for the Zombies, am I right?).

The 3-D was more unnecessary than ever before. It didn't give anything, and certainly didn't factor into the movie. Wasn't it for those dumb glasses it felt like a 2-D movie to me. If people aren't going to do stuff with the 3-D, have it actually play a role in the movie, why the fuck is it used at all? Why are we paying extra for it? Either 3-D should actually be a part of the experience, or this shit need to die.

The movie isn't bad. It might be worth a watch if you still care about Zombies (I don't). But it's certainly not above a meh.

Worst Decision Ever

Ben Affleck as Batman? Fuck You!! So the Dark Knight will be played by a man without even an ounce of talent. Not that Christian Bale was that good. He had no idea what acting was. But Ben Affleck?? Hell No!!

B- Movie Review: Stormquest (1987)

This is an obscure movie, very hard to find. There are not much about it at all on the Internets. There is a reason for that. It's not a very good movie.

The movie actually begin with a scream. Is this good or bad? Then there are disjointed pictures to a sweet 80s tune? Is this good or bad? I'm so confused. I don't understand.

Well, after the confusing opening we start in the female dominated Kingdom of Kimbia where some guards are sent to the dungeon to fetch three prisoners. Wait a minute, Kingdom of Kimbia, and female dominated? Doesn't make any sense at all. Shouldn't it be a Queendom, not a Kingdom? Anyway, three women stand on trial, a guard who has stolen some gold from the treasury, a warrior woman who's accused of having a male lover and a priestess who's accused of setting their god free (the god is a lioness). Now you may wonder, if it is forbidden to have male lover how do they procreate? Well, they explain this. They mate with males from elsewhere during ceremonies, and they send their male offspring back to their fathers. I guess it makes some sense, as much sense as a one gendered society can make. And there's some sexy whipping of the female criminals. If I were a judge I would always order 20 lashes to all sex female prisoners.

Meanwhile in some other King/Queendom, whatever, a bunch of shirtless duded liberate loads of male prisoners. This country is apparently ruled by the Stormqueen. Meanwhile the three prisoners as well as the Warrior girl's male lover are to be executed by being thrown down a waterfall. However the Shirtless dudes intervene and there is a battle. The Warrior girl's lover dies but the three prisoners and the Warrior girl's sister all join with the Shirtless dudes, who apparently are rebels rebelling against the Stormqueen. We  also get to meet the Stormqueen who's a fat transvestite whose main hobby is to torture her male slaves. She also has a charming menagerie full of poisonous snakes and tarantulas.

We learn that the Storm Queen drug the food given to the male slaves in her kingdom, so drones (workers) can't think at all, while studa (slaves for mating) only think of themselves. The Stormqueen also enjoys the sport of death hunts, where male prisoners have to escape from mad, hungry male slaves who are trained to kill. All in all he/ she is a charming character. Meanwhile the mother of the two sisters is arrested home in Kimbia, and the guard prisoner betrays the others.

The battles in this movie a confusing, chaotic and badly lit. You don't see what's happening in them, which is really bad. The movie feels boring and dragging. Scenes drag on much longer than they should. This movie could have been, and should have been 30 minutes shorter. Now it's almost 2 hours long, and doesn't have 2 hours of content. I like the scene where the rebel leader is caught by the Stormqueen and taken to his/her harem. He just laugh at her straight in the face. And she gets furious. Prizeless. The whole climax is apparently the revelation that the Storm Queen is actually a dude. I call bullshit, everyone knew that. Why would anyone buy that it's a woman in the first place? Also there is crocodile wrestling, that looks fake, because they shoot it again so you don't see what's going on, probably because their crocodile would look more fake than the Storm Queen's gender. Also the ending has more drag than the Storm Queen herself. Okay, I stop the bad puns now. The acting wasn't good, but I hadn't expected better. Unfortunately no brilliant bad acting moments, just quite boring stuff.

I can't recommend this one. It's just not that good.

Waiting for Europa Universalis IV

Have pre-ordered....
Will be released today....
Can't wait.....
What nation to try first?