Last year, between the two of us, we watched an average of 317 movies.
This year our goal is to top that by watching at least one a day.
And as an extra special torture, we've decided to write about all of them.

08 January 2008

Shockwave, dir. Jim Wynorski (2006)

STEVE says:
Jim Wynorski is credited with directing Shockwave (or A.I. Assault, as it's also known) on the IMDb page. But on the disc we watched, credit goes to "Jay Andrews". This begs the question, "How bad does a movie have to be for Wynorski to use a pseudonym?"

In the opening scene, two army guys and two scientist types are running away from a giant spider-like robot. So we're off to a good start. The male scientist trips, lets out a girly scream, and is incinerated by the robot. Meanwhile, the army guys are shooting at the thing. And shooting. And shooting. I counted no less than 86 shots fired at this thing (with no time wasted on reloading) before the Major shouts, "Bullets don't work, try grenades!" and the second army guys heaves a grenade at the thing, which - shock! - does nothing. So he shoots at it again! Thirty-four times! Maybe he thought he used too many bullets last time. Realizing - or perhaps remembering - that bullets don't work, this clown lobs two more grenades at it, and wastes another 14 bullets before being decapitated by the thing.

And so on.

For nearly 90 minutes.

That's how bad.

The "star power" here consisted of Michael Dorn, Bill Mumy, George Takei, Alexandra Paul, Robert Picardo and Tim Thomerson, if that tells you anything about the level of quality. To be honest, I only watched Shockwave because Thomerson was in it, but he was tragically underused, his screen time limited to only three or four scenes.

This one doesn't deserve much of a rating, even on a MSTie level, but I'm giving it 1.5 out of 5 - and that's only for Thomerson.


NIKKI says:
I really wanted to go to bed. It was 2am, we'd just watched two not-great movies -- and now we were going to watch Shockwave, with Tim Thomerson, about Navy Seals fighting intelligent robots somewhere in the Pacific? All I kept thinking as it started: it's only 90 minutes, it's only 90 minutes. And, believe me, I watched that clock like a hawk.

But we were committed. Icon sent the store a screener with three "horror" movies on: Thr3e, 30 Days of Night, and this one. We decided to watch all the movies, just for fun. It's always fun before we start. Fifteen minutes into Thr3e and we actually shut it off, only to go back to it because we can't help ourselves. It's like we're addicted to lame horror. We wouldn't do it for any other genre. But horror -- we feast on crap, on purpose. I think we both need help.

So, guess what? Shockwave was lame! But fun, weirdly, because it so knew it was lame. Case in point: Robert Picardo, at one stage, emerges from a makeshift wheelchair with blue neon tubes stuck to his head.

Steve's jibes about the toy-looking spaceships, the guns, and Joe Lando's resemblance to Clive Owen made the time pass way quicker.

1.5 out of 5 -- and I think that's being really nice.

30 Days of Night, dir. David Slade (2007)

STEVE says:
I didn't expect much from 30 Days of Night - and in that regard, I wasn't disappointed.

Great idea, I thought - vampires in Alaska during (you guessed it) their 30 days of night period - but it was poorly executed. The vampires appeared to wipe out most of the town in the first 10 minutes of their assault - so why'd they have such a tough time finding the last seven people alive? And these people, tucked away in an attic for nearly three weeks, they're eating what? And why didn't the vampires just dive in and attack like they'd been doing? No, not very well thought out at all.

Josh Hartnett was Tommy Lee Jonesing through most of it, Melissa George could have been more annoying, and Danny Huston was interesting as always as the head vampire, but that's about as positive as I can get. Whoever decided to cast Maoris as Ennuits needs some more anthropological schooling.

2/5

NIKKI says:
I know it was terrible, and made no sense -- Day 17? WHAT? WHEN? -- but I have to admit, it kept me interested. Maybe it was Hartnett, who has finally achieved the seemingly impossible by becoming a real actor and not just a cute guy trying to hang out with the big kids. He was great, actually -- all emotional and hard. He, truth be told, made the movie compelling for me. Something I never thought would happen and won't admit in a large crowd.

More points for this: the vampires were creepy as, the claustrophobic setting was creepier still, and the bloody effects turned my stomach, which I consider a great thing in these days of lame I Am Legend-like fakery.

Still, what the hell was with the super-fast passing of time? How did these people not get killed on Day 16? What were the vampires doing? I don't think our core group were that hard to find. And why did Hartnett decide to inject himself with vampire blood to save Melissa George when the life-saving sun was just hours away? They'd stayed hidden for 30 freakin' days -- another one surely wouldn't have hurt.

Anyway -- a mixed bag. Interesting elements, cool stuff to look at, but ultimately a failure.

1.5/5

Thr3e, dir. Robby Henson (2006)

NIKKI says:
Things we knew about Thr3e before we watched it:

1. It's from 20th Century Fox's new Fox Faith division, for religion-friendly movies.
2. It's based on a novel by religious-thriller writer, Ted Dekker.
3. Internet rumblings have compared the film to Donald Kaufman's implausible, unfilmable script, The 3, outlined in the film, Adaptation.
4. It was universally panned by critics, receiving just 6% on Rotten Tomatoes.
5. There are hundreds of good movies on DVD in our house.

And yet we proceeded. So, basically, the fact that it was absolute shit, full of religious gobbledegook, badly acted and directed, with cheesy effects, a final act that boggled the mind for how stupid it was, and made us feel like we'd wasted precious minutes of our lives is entirely our fault. I accept the blame.

I would and will do it again.

0.5/5

STEVE says:
Just so we're clear: Thr3e sucked.

But I'll get to that in a minute.

Right now, let's clear something up: Thr3e is NOT in any way based on Donald Kaufman's screen play from Adaptation. I want to put a stop to that rumour right now. It's based on a novel by Ted Dekker, and it's quite possible that Kaufman's script (called The 3, incidentally) is a piss-take on that novel because it's so preposterous that a movie should ever be made out of such a story.

But Internet chatter, as is so often the case, flies in the face of such things as facts, and the idea that Thr3e and The 3 are one and the same has become indisputable.

In The 3, the serial killer, his latest victim/hostage and the cop are all the same person; it's a case of split personality that ends with a chase sequence.
Donald: The killer flees on horseback with the girl. The cop is after them on a motorcycle. It's like a battle between motors and horses.
Charlie: They're all still one person, right?
Donald: Yeah, hey, that's the big pay-off.
As there is no horse/motorcycle chase scene in Thr3e, you'd think that the chatter would cease, but no. It may be that because of such chatter I saw the ending to this one coming before we even brought it home. It may be, also, that I was prepared for the eventual outcome because of poor screen writing, but we'll never know. Damned Internet.

I was already expecting the split personality thing, so it was no great shock when it was revealed that our hero, Kevin Parson, might just be the killer. When his wannabe girlfriend follows him to the basement of his childhood home and sees Kevin and the killer standing toe to toe, I - for one fleeting moment - thought the movie was absolutely brilliant. The bad screen writing that gave away Kevin's split personality from the word go suddenly became a very clever bait-and-switch. I was cheering the movie, lauding the writers, chastising myself and jeering the critics all at once. How could they not love this?

As it does, the fleeting moment fled and the girlfriend herself was revealed to be yet another part of Kevin's split personality, taking me back to my original presumption that the movie was shite.

Way to ruin a great gimmick, fellas.

0.5/5