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Repo Men: A pretty formulaic “Big Brother Future” action movie. Well, to be fair, pretty much all of the action is at the end of the flick. Basically, people are getting more and more unhealthy and a company called “The Union” has perfected cybernetic organs! Huzzah! unfortunately, they are completely unaffordable and the Union is all too eager to get you on a payment plan. Which, if you are delinquent, they call in the aforementioned Repo Men to snatch your snazzy robot liver right out, killing you dead. Essentially, these people are gov’t sponsored serial killers (aside from Jude Law, they all look like bikers and thugs).
They are legally obligated to get you an ambulance on stand by if requested, but it’s hard to ask for one when you are tazed into unconsciousness beforehand. I’m sure the director/writer was going for some deeper meaning by drawing parallels between the Union and carnivorous banks that talk you into something you can’t afford, and ruin your life when things don’t go according to plan. It’s pretty heavy handed. So Jude Law has an accident and needs a cyberorgan himself, which leads him to a change of heart, which leads to him not making any money, which leads to him being on the run and seeing all the misery and pain The Union causes. I will say, that i did not expect the ending at all, and it was kind of neat. I don’t want to ruin it though. Anyways I’d say it’s worth a rent. I didn’t want my 90 minutes back, so there’s that. Plus a guy gets killed by a typewriter. |
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Bitch Slap: I do not know why or how I even heard of this movie. It’s essentially an exploitation flick with big boobs and tight outfits abound. One chick spends 99% of the movie in a wife beater that gets smaller and smaller. Along the lines of Valley of the Dolls, and that kind of stuff. They mess with the timeline reasonably well – you really start halfway through the story, and it progresses in flashbacks going further and further in the past as well as the current timeline moving along.
Kevin Sorbo and the cast of Xena are in this briefly for some reason… I guess whoever made this turd was involved in those shows? You may be thinking, “Hey, sounds like a good Skinemax substitute, bring on the boobies!” well, prepare for blue balls folks, sure the women are hot, and they are often scantily clad (and yes, they have a water fight, and even a lesbian encounter at one point), but there are a grand total of 1 boob shot in the entire movie, of a random stripper. The dialogue and the story are beyond retarded. The girls call each other every conceivable derogatory name for female anatomy I’ve ever heard, and a bunch I haven’t. It doesn’t really make sense to call someone a gross 5 word nickname for vagina when you’re pissed at them. |
Anyways the story, it’s basically a double/triple/quadruplecross with a bit of Keyser Soze in there. So really, it doesn’t make any damn sense. The flashbacks look like Robert Rodriguez let someone use his Sin City filter for an afternoon and this horseshit was born. The present day stuff is all in a desert. The fight scenes are actually pretty impressive, to tell the truth. Zoe Bell (Tarantino’s favorite stunt girl) did the choreography I believe. I actually enjoy bad movies, provided they don’t take themselves seriously, I’m not really sure what this movie was going for, but it pretty much missed the mark with me on all counts. F
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Outlander: Vikings? Check. Jesus? Check (well, Jim Caviezel). Dragon/Alien Monster? Check. Sounds like a recipe for fucking awesome!
And for the most part, it is pretty sweet. I’m just not sold on Caviezel, he seems so wooden. I never saw Passion, or anything else I can remember him from, so he could be an awesome actor, just not so much in this. anyways, Jesus is a spaceman that crashlands on Earth in viking days. his co-pilot (I guess) and him wash up on shore, but when he comes to, the co-pilot is toast. He tries to salvage what he can from his ship, and goes about exploring. He is quickly relieved of his ray-gun and captured by Norse vikings. They get around the language barrier in an interesting way that would lead one to believe his civilization has been to earth before…however this is never touched on… like at all, so instead he learns Nordic through the magic of super-science. Whatever, it’s swallowable and keeps the movie from getting bogged down in him learning the language, which is good b/c we get right to the monster! |
They do a good job of hiding its true form for most of the movie, and it is pretty badass. however, in the beginning it’s kinda stupid. All you can see is its xmas light tentacles. It kills lots of people sure, but they barely get the chance to look scared before they are dead. You see the tentacles going behind a building, a viking follows, then a scream. Just seems like the director dropped the ball a bit on building up the sense of dread for the situation these folks are in. Once they confront the thing, it’s pretty awesome though. All the human interactions are passable, but lets face it, when you’ve got vikings versus alien dragons, you aren’t really looking for lots of character development. Anyways, I’d give this a solid rent. I can’t really imagine watching it more than once though.