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?

Back from the Cinema: Man of Steel

Is it a bird? Is it an airplane? No, it's a Superman movie!!

And it's honestly okay. Quite good actually, but there were things that I think didn't really work out. The whole opening on Krypton was too long. It took ages for things to start happening in the movie, and the long Krypron scene did not make things better. It also created a weird situation with the exposition scene when Clark Kent had to learn things the audience already knew. Couldn't we instead have seen some scenes form Krypton there instead of that overly long opening. Now we for example never saw the ship with little Kal-El crash on Earth, and we never saw Jonathan and Martha find it. I had wished that's how the film opened, even though this has been done 100 times before and is a Superman cliché. But some clichés are good, dammit.

Another thing the film failed to really go into, although it touched it somewhat, is "what is Superman?" Where does Superman's responsibilities begin, and where do they end. What does it mean to be Superman? But hey, they might go into that in a sequel. The strongest performance in the movie was Diane Lane's Martha Kent. She stole every scene she was in. Kevin Costner's Jonathan Kent was disappointing, but I feel it's because he had such few scenes. I do hope they do more flashbacks with him in future Superman movies, since Clark's childhood still need to be more fleshed out, and so does the character of Jonathan Kent. I hope we don't see more of Russel Crowe's Jor- El though. He was just boring.

The action scenes were good, and I had no problems with the plot. Zod is a great villain, even though he is a little dumb, but it's Zod, he's not supposed to be that smart. That's Luthor's thing. And unfortunately we saw no signs of Lex, except an actual LexCorp sign. I guess that's another character for a sequel. I liked Laurence Fishburne's Perry White too. There was some stupid dialogue in this film too, but most of the stupid came from Zod, so I guess it's okay.

It's a good Superman film. It has some problems, it certainly can't beat Ironman, Thor or the Avengers, but it's definitely better than Ironman 2 or 3. Let's hope for a Man of Tomorrow movie next.

Addendum: One thing though, I feel Superman wouldn't have killed of all hope for his race just like that. I think he would have got up with a plan that saved both Earth but gave hope for the Kryptonian race to somewhat in some capacity survive. Superman's genocide of the genetic material of his race seemed un-Supermanny to me.

B- Movie Review: Sorceress (1982)

The movie start with some riders in the dark chasing some people and killing them, and we see a woman trying to flee with her young child. The leader of the Riders is called Trogon and he hunt down the woman and kill her, because she was his lover, but she fled when she became pregnant. Trogon has promised to sacrifice his firstborn to his God. But soon he realizes that the woman gave birth to twin girls, and he don't know which of them is the firstborn. Then suddenly Oldman McSensei, Trogon's old teacher, appear and kills Trogon. But it turns out that Trogon is a Sorcerer, and thus apparently has three lives, so he will be back. Oldman McSensei decide the girls has to be raised as warriors so they can revenge their mother's death.

20 years later Trogon comes back to life and orders his followers to find the twins. Meanwhile the twins are bathing in a lake, but are harassed by a horny Moronic Satyr. They chase the moronic Satyr away. When they return to their village though they see Trogon's men all around the place killing and raping. This seems to always happen to these villages in these movies. So the twins, dressed up as boys to conceal their identity (not that it would fool anyone considering they have boobs) attack the soldiers and kill them. Then they are joined by the Moronic Satyr, a Viking Dude and Oldman McSensei. Oldman McSensei gives them his last powers and tell them about their mother and how she was killed, then he dies.

So they all go to a Middle Eastern looking town to find Viking Dude's friend. It turn out he's a young handsome Barbarian Dude, who likes womanizing, gambling, and especially cheating on dice. There is some fighting and then they go to Barbarian Dude's place.

Ahahahahahahaha! This is so friggin dumb. The twins have no idea they are girls, because the morons who raised them never told them. They don't even know there is a difference between boys and girls. This is idiotic. So juicy, deliciously dumb. Anyway, the Twins are left alone for a couple of seconds, but that enough for them to be tricked by a suspicious woman to follow her right into a trap, and they're caught. Trogon's girlfriend arrive to conduct some tests to determine which one of them is the firstborn, but the real question is why she has a dude in a Monkey Suit with her. Anyway, apparently the firstborn would be immune to fire, so they test it, and the first twin they test it on is immune. But meanwhile Viking Dude and Barbarian Dude beat up some soldier, steal their horses, and charge right in and save the twins. Even the moronic Satyr kick some ass.

They flee into the forrest, but the Monkey Suit Man and his friends (more Monkey Suit men) attack them, and Barbarian Dude and one of the Twins (the older one I think) are captured and they are taken to Trogon. Trogon reveal to the twin (I think she is called Mara) that he is her father, but no Luke Skywalker moment here. Mara says that if this is true they have to treat Barbarian Dude well. Trogon promise he will be well taken care off, but minutes later he order Barbarian dude to be executed for cheating in dice (apparently gambling is taken very seriously). However Trogon's girlfriend find a medallion that reveal Barbarian Dude is of royal blood and they decide to keep him alive for now. Of course Trogon's girlfriend try to seduce Barbarian Dude, she tell him that she want a real man and want to depose Trogon, but that the sacrifice need to go through and that the Gods will be pleased if Mara carries the seed of Royalty when she's sacrificed. So Barbarian Dude makes love to Mara. Meanwhile the younger twin sense their lovemaking through her psychic link, and a hillarious scene begin, with a very confused Viking Dude not knowing what's going on.

The ending is deliciously dumb and stupid, like these movies usually are, but nothing extra. Other movies of the genre has more impressive final battles, even if they try to throw in alot of stuff. The acting in this movie is wooden, and Viking Dude is worse than worst. It's not entertainingly bad, it's just boring bad. There is still some enjoyable scenes in this movie, but others are better. It's watchable, but not good. Certainly not good.

There is also some lies in this one. It's called Sorceress, but the girls never use sorcery in this movie. So what's with the title? And Trogon had three lives, so does this mean he will come back again? This is never adressed, like they just forgot that plot point. And another downer is that the twins aren't that good looking. Which is a pity, some pretty faces could make wonders for this movie.

Special Review: The Long Swift Sword of Siegfried (1971)

And we all know what "sword" that is. A tip: it's a dick.

Yes, indeed, it's time to tackle some German (badly dubbed to English) porn spoof of the ancient legend made a classic by Wagner: The Niebelung Ring!

We start with Something Weird. At least the text says so. Well, I tell you what's weird. The music in this movie. Always miss the tone a little. We learn that slaying monsters sure are boring, heroes need better things to do. The narrator is kind enough to explain that in old timey times heroes also were master womanizers, and that's what they were doing when there weren't any boring monsters to slay. Tell me something new!! That's common knowledge!

We begin with our Hero Siegfried riding together with his clumsy Manservant Hansel to Castle Burgundy, where Siegfried hope to marry King Gunther's sister Kriemhild. However in Castle Burgundy the king is worried about Siegfried coming there. Siegfried has killed a dragon and overthrew a caste single handedly, so they rightly worry that he is hostile. Meanwhile Siegfried is entertaining a peasant girl in a barn while the manservant is sleeping. And this is the worst fake fucking I have ever seen. And it's not sexy. You can make fake sex look better, damnit. It's a problem throughout the movie. That the sex isn't real is too obvious, and there is just no fapping to that. Then the king's men for some reason attack the barn. Hansel's line is gold: "Time to stop humping and start fighting". However Siegfried beat that with "Oh, you caught me with my pants down". Good fun.

Meanwhile we get to know that Kriemhild and her attendants are very in lesbians with each other. That won't last long though. Siegfried arrive in Worms.... wait the castle is called Worms. I get the pun, but who in their right mind would name a castle Worms? So Siegfried start to behave like an utter ass, and demand that the king throw a large feast for him. The great advantage with being a hero is the right to behave like an utter asshole. Before the feast Siegfried of course has his way with both a servant girl, and then with Kriemhild's attendants.

We basically have our Wagner. Siegfried want to marry Kriemhild, but to do that he must help Gunther win the right to marry the Warrior Queen of Iceland: Brunhilde. They have to get through the flame that guard her castle, that look really fake btw. Then Gunther have to meet her challenge, that in this version of course is to give her an orgasm three nights in a row. As in the original story Gunther wins only through cheating. Siegfried is the one giving her the orgasm, while she believe it's Gunther. Magic ftw!!

So the marriages happen. Kriemhild loses her virginity (yeah, right), but for Gunther tings look bleak when Brunhilde realizes she has been duped. She even call him Limp Noodle (yikes). Siegfried actually takes his marital vows seriously. He reject the advances of the women of the court... wait, this is a porno. Marital fidelity don't really have a place here. And now to the more serious stuff. The end is long and has a depressing tone. There is no way out of it. You can't do Wagner without going serious. Which doesn't fit a porno well. Pornos are best when light hearted. And this goes into the heavy serious plot with the conspiracy against Siegfried. However the ending come quickly and doesn't go they way the original story goes. I guess they just couldn't give it a sad ending, and they were running out of time (and saw no space to put in a sex scene for the later arc). I think the ending must have gone through some rewrites and cuts. It feels forced and abrupt.

The sets were a little bit too good for this movie, I suspect they were for some other production and the team for this movie only borrowed them. Kriemhild is played by the semi known porn actress Sybil Danning, if that helps at all. This movie is not good. The porn isn't good at all. The girls are quite good looking, but it doesn't help if the sex look fake and bad. Wagner's Niebelung Ring is a weird theme for a porn spoof, and while you can have a playful beginning about a hero banging every chick, you eventually end up with the more heavy and serious stuff of the source material that just doesn't fit well. No, not a good one.