Stung

Synopsis: Genetically modified super-wasps descend on a gathering of rich people.  If you get stung (STUNG, you guys.  I just got it) by one of these wasps, you will become a person-sized wasp.  So kind of like zombies, except with wings and a stinger.  But hey!  Maybe you can produce some delicious honey.  (Wasps cannot produce honey.)

Thoughts: I don't have a whole lot to say about this one.  It was a b-movie creature feature.  It was a decent amount of fun.  There were a couple twists and turns that were pretty easy to spot, but this movie wasn't about that.  This was a fun, dumb movie about wasp people attacking rich people and growing their wasp army.

I didn't buy the relationship between the two leads, but that's easy enough to overlook.  I'm not watching a movie about genetically modified wasps to see a realistic portrayal of relationship dynamics in the workplace or in times of extreme duress.

I do have to bring up an issue with it, though.  The relationship in question occurs between the two leads: Paul and Julia.  They are catering the fancy event and are caught up in the mayhem.  Paul is an irresponsible pot head who hits on the female guests.  Julia is a professional who is responsible and takes her job seriously.  She is essentially running the catering company by herself.So why, when the party starts going south, does Paul become the hero and Julia the damsel who desperately needs saving?  Why wouldn't that be the other way around?  I'll tell you this: if I were in this situation, I'd throw Paul to the wasps and count on Julia to be the level-headed thinker.  I would apologize to Paul, but he's already a wasp person out for revenge.

"Oh no. However will I defend myself without a pot head man-child?"

If you're looking for a dumb creature-feature movie with decent effects, you could do a lot worse than this one.  There are some legitimately fun moments.  This seems like a great movie to throw on with a group of friends and alcohol.However, if you're looking for anything more than that, just cross to the other side of the street and keep on walking.

Rating: 3/5

Notable actors: Lance Henricksen, Clifton Collins Jr.

Godzilla

Monster movies are tricky in that the titular star is often a minor character, behind those that it affects. He is a plot point.  A puzzle to be solved. A villain to be conquered. They are often the center of the film, but they are unable to carry it. That duty in Godzilla falls on the humans.  For as much as I loved the characters in Monsters, I didn’t feel any connection to them here.  Bryan Cranston was great as the crazy-but-not-really-crazy engineer, but he didn't get nearly as much screentime as I hoped he would.  I really like Elizabeth Olsen, but her character bio was nothing more than "concerned wife".  Aaron Taylor-Johnson is supposed to be our proxy, but I felt no connection with him.  He was constantly in danger - he spent the entire film in the path of Godzilla and other nuclear monsters - and yet I never cared whether he lived or died.  If he was a minor character, the lack of connection wouldn't be a big deal.  But it takes a while for Godzilla to show up (and it takes even longer for him to do anything interesting for longer than 5 seconds), leaving Taylor-Johnson's meathead Ford as the driving force behind the film.  It's a terrible combination of an underdeveloped character and an actor with zero charisma. 

I wouldn't care that it took so long for Godzilla to show up if the characters were more interesting or their stories more compelling.  They needed to make me care about the characters and their struggles.  Get me invested in them, then bring up Godzilla and make me hope and pray that everyone makes it out okay.  They didn't do that, so the first half of the movie really seemed to drag.  The only thing I really loved in the first half was Bryan Cranston's running face, and that was a short-lived joy.

"Godzilla will get NOTHING."

We got a little action about an hour in, but it wasn't Godzilla.  We had two creatures designated as MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) that fed off radiation.  We saw some decent destruction involving these creatures: they were equipped with EMPs, so they would periodically shut down all electrical devices, which led to some great scenes of planes spinning helplessly to the ground and exploding on impact.  We saw one of the MUTOs - which looked like a mix between a Starship Troopers bug and the Cloverfield monster - rampage through Las Vegas.  They were good destruction scenes, but they weren't Godzilla destruction scenes. 

Once the Godzilla action showed up, it felt a bit like a tease.  Godzilla showed up in the city, a MUTO descended on him, a battle was starting...and a door closed in front of the camera, so we didn't see any of it.  We had a few of those false starts before the real action started.  And once that happened, I was all in. 

The fight scenes between Godzilla and the MUTOs felt like a clumsy bar brawl in the middle of a city; staggering into buildings, screaming and breathing fire.  They were glorious, and they left me walking out of the theater being really excited about the movie.

But that excitement fades after a little while, and I'm left thinking about all the problems.  The shallow characters.  The fact that EMPs knocked out all electricity, yet the news cameras still worked.  The fact that the army decided the best place to attack a monster who travels primarily by sea was a suspension bridge.  And so on.  And so forth.

"USA! USA!"

It was impossible to watch this and not think about Pacific Rim.  There was the obvious ("They should just build some giant robots to fight the monsters."), but it's also worth exploring some of the writing.  Pacific Rim knew the strength wasn't in the writing, so they just threw a handful of massive fight scenes at the audience to keep us happy.  Godzilla seemed to think its characters were good enough on their own and didn't feel the need to keep us distracted with fights.

I don't think the characters were better written in Pacific Rim, but I found that I cared about them more than I cared about the characters in Godzilla, and I think that's because the characters in Pacific Rim actually spent quite a bit of time together.  The characters in Godzilla were often in completely different places.  I found it hard to care about the relationship between Ford and Elle because most of their interactions were short conversations over the phone.  It was hard to see much love between them, so I had little love for them.

In the end, the main downfall of the movie was the lack of connection with Ford.  He was the one who was constantly in harm's way, yet I didn't care what happened to him.

Walking out of the theater, I could say that I really enjoyed myself, but its problems are impossible to ignore.  The long lead-up to destruction is a necessary evil, but I can't help but think that it could have been more interesting.  The characters could have been much better, but, in the end, we got to see The King of the Monsters beat up on a couple lesser monsters and unleash a number of his trademark screams. 

It's not a perfect movie, but it's worth seeing for the fight scenes if nothing else. 

Rating: 3.5/5

Before the movie came out, I wrote a Trailer Talk post about it.  You can read that here.

Horror Movies I Have Watched Recently

It's been a while since I've updated this blog.  Really, after the Zombie Prom, I didn't really have any motivation to keep up with it.  But I'm still watching horror movies, so I thought I'd throw some more reviews at you.

Dead & Breakfast

This description of this was, "The American Shaun of the Dead."  The cast includes David Carradine, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Oz Perkins, Diedrich Bader, Portia de Rossi, and other faces that you would recognize.  Knowing those things, I assumed I would like this movie.

I was wrong.

The basic story revolves around a demon that was trapped in a box.  It was accidentally released, turning Oz Perkins into Lord of the Zombies.  Before long, he had turned the majority of the town into zombies, trapping the majority of the survivors in the bed & breakfast.  

It doesn't sound bad...but it is.  For some reason, they felt the need to include a country singer to narrate random parts of the story.  It was supposed to be funny.  It was not.

I enjoyed parts of this movie, but most of it just came off as extremely cheesy and forced.

Rating: 1.5/5

Insidious

I heard this was scary.  And, for about 40 minutes, it was.  There were creepy scenes, and parts that made me jump.  It freaked me out a little.

Then the story took a turn towards the ridiculous, and I couldn't take it seriously after that.  Also, this falls into the category of, "Once you see the monsters, it's much less scary."  There is actually a scene where the main demon (which looks ridiculous to begin with) is sharpening his claws on a wheel.  It's laugh-out-loud funny (it reminded me of the scene in Jeepers Creepers when the demon is sitting at a sewing machine).

This is a movie that starts out with great promise, but it falls apart in a hurry.  There are still a handful of creepy moments in the last half of the movie, but they're few and far between.

Rating: 2/5

Monsters

This is really less of a horror movie, and more of a strange love story that takes place in a world with aliens.

The set-up: six years prior to the events of the movie, aliens crash landed in Central America.  They are big, tentacled monsters (they basically look like glowing land-octopuses).  During the six years, the government was able to quarantine them into an area just south of Texas (called the infected zone).

The story revolves around two people: Andrew (who goes by his last name, Kaulder) and Samantha (who goes by Sam).  Kaulder is a photographer who works for Sam's father.  Sam was injured south of the infected zone, and Kaulder is tasked with going down and bringing her back to America.

You can probably guess where the story goes.  

I loved their characters.  It's a sweet, well-written story that takes place in a world that doesn't look altogether different from this one.  The cast was perfect, too.  There were times when it moved a little slow, but I didn't really mind too much.

Like I said, this wasn't a horror movie, but I watched it because I thought it was one, so I thought I'd review it here.

Rating: 4.5/5

Quarantine 2: Terminal

I loved Quarantine.  It is one of my favorite horror movies in recent memory.

So, when I saw that this movie was being released direct to DVD, I tried to temper my expectations.  I wanted it to be good, but I wasn't expecting it to be good.

As it turns out, it was decent.  This movie takes place on a plane (and then in a terminal), and it runs parallel to the events in the first movie.  

There's really not a whole lot to say about it.  It's a not-nearly-as-good version of the first movie, but I still found it enjoyable.

Rating: 3/5

Pelt

I watched this because it was set in Kentucky.  It follows 7 college-aged students who go hiking somewhere in Kentucky (I don't think they ever said where), and run into murderous inbreds.  It's a tale as old as time.  This is basically the same movie as Wrong Turn (and countless others), but with less likable characters (seriously...I don't I liked a single person in this movie).  And the acting was terrible.

Still, I kind of enjoyed it.  I mean, I wasn't expecting anything from this movie other than lots of murder and some gore, and I got that.

If you lower your expectations, you may like it.  But you won't love it...that's impossible.

Rating: 2.5/5

I have quite a few more to catch up with, so hopefully I'll get around to doing that soon.