Archive for the ‘Fantasy/Swords’ Category
Monday, March 24th, 2025
Like I’ve been saying, I’ve been jonesing for the low-falutin 21st century studio fantasy movies lately. Disney has that new live action remake of SNOW WHITE that just came out, and that’s not the kind of thing I’m talking about, but it reminded me that I always kinda wanted to see HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR, the 2016 sequel to the 2012 non-Disney SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN. What I remembered about that one is mainly that it was kinda boring but looked really great and that Charlize Theron (BATTLE IN SEATTLE) was fun as the evil queen. I don’t remember anyone liking it even as much as me, but it was a hit and they made a sequel that I also don’t remember anyone liking. But I’m here to report that it’s okay! I sorta enjoyed it.
It’s a little bit like a 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE approach of doing both a prequel and a sequel. It opens with a long prologue set “long before happily ever after,” according to the voice of Qui Gonn Jinn, who thoroughly narrates the movie from within the force. One historic moment we see is part 1’s wicked stepmother Queen Ravenna (Theron, YOUNG ADULT) poison her husband (Robert Portal, PAINTBALL MASSACRE), and honestly you gotta respect the showmanship of timing it so he dies right after queen takes king in their chess game. He could’ve died in the middle of the game, or she could’ve been stuck having to win with a knight or a rook, or lost altogether… there are just so many ways she could’ve blundered, but she took the risk and she executed it all flawlessly. Hats off. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alexandra Roach, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Colin Morgan, Conrad Khan, Craig Mazin, Emily Blunt, Evan Spiliotopoulos, fairy tales, Frank Darabont, Fred Tatasciore, Jessica Chastain, Liam Neeson, Nick Frost, Rob Brydon, Robert Portal, Sam Claflin, Sheridan Smith, Sope Dirisu
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords | 13 Comments »
Wednesday, March 12th, 2025
This is just me but when I found out there was
1) a new Milla Jovovich picture directed by her partner in life and filmmaking Paul Warm Sweater Anderson that
2) co-stars Dave Bautista and
(bonus points) is a post-apocalyptic western fantasy, I transported myself to the next matinee. It’s called IN THE LOST LANDS and the advertising hook (to the extent that they’re advertising it) is that it’s based on a short story by Game of Thrones creator George Ruff Ryders Martin. So it’s worth watching for the middle initials alone.
It takes place in the far future, after a nuclear war. Much of the earth is now “The Lost Lands,” where people don’t generally go on account of monsters ’n shit. Most humans live in one tall but small city built around a cool skull face, sometimes but not always speaking in florid language. It’s a monarchy ruled by a Queen (Amara Okereke) and I guess her husband the Overlord (Jacek Dzisewicz), but he’s bedridden, and anyway the real power seems to be a Christian order who make giant crosses out of machinery and spread the word of Jesus by terrorizing and behaving in ways that could not possibly be further from anything that dude ever represented. So, pretty similar to what we’re dealing with now. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arly Jover, Dave Bautista, George R.R. Martin, Milla Jovovich, Paul Haslinger, Paul W.S. Anderson, post-apocalypse, Simon Loof, witches
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Western | 10 Comments »
Monday, March 10th, 2025
LEGENDS OF THE CONDOR HEROES: THE GALLANTS is the unwieldily titled new Tsui Hark joint, which I was grateful to be able to see in a theater. (This puts my lifetime Tsui Hark theatrical screenings at four, after DOUBLE TEAM, KNOCK OFF and FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON GATE 3D IMAX). Based on a famous story by Jin Yong (whose books also inspired the SWORDSMAN trilogy), it’s the type of thing I hope for from Tsui these days: a wild and extravagant wuxia epic, expertly put together at a swaggering blockbuster scale. A great time at the movies.
It opens with narration by a guy talking about witnessing many famous battles of Genghis Khan (Baya’ertu, CREATION OF THE GODS I: KINGDOM OF STORMS) and the Mongol army. As you watch these enormous conflicts on screen you wonder how the fuck a guy was witnessing it without getting chopped to bits, and then you find out: he was perched above on a cliff. When the Mongols spot him they shoot arrows at him, but he seems to repel them with some sort of energy shield trick. Okay, good, we got a real one here. This is our protagonist Guo Jing (Xiao Zhan, THE ROOKIES), a martial artist who aspires to greatness and has an interestingly convoluted backstory. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ada Choi, Alan Aruna, Baya'ertu, Hu Jun, Jin Yong, Tony Leung Kai-fai, Tsui Hark, Xiao Zhan, Zhang Wenxin, Zhuang Dafei
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, February 5th, 2025
WICKED: PART I starts near the end of THE WIZARD OF OZ. The Wicked Witch of the West is dead, felled by a well-aimed bucket of water. The celebration commences. Glinda the Good Witch (Ariana Grande, DON’T LOOK UP) arrives in her bubble to address the crowd, and somebody asks her if she knew that dead lady. So she tells us (part one of) the story of her days as the college roommate of the would-be wicked witch.
I’m gonna start this review with a flash forward too. I thought this movie was okay. I didn’t hate it. I don’t really get it. Stay tuned for details.
I sometimes say I’m not a musicals guy, but really I’m just not a Broadway guy. It’s not as much the “I’m gonna start singing now” format as it is the specific modern Broadway style of storytelling, tone of melodrama, sense of humor, and especially musical styles that don’t appeal to me. Case in point: huge crossover hit and cultural phenomenon Hamilton (Disney+ version). I swear I tried to watch it with an open mind, but I just don’t know how to stop wincing. It sets off all my too-corny defense systems.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Dana Fox, Ethan Slater, Gregory Maguire, Jeff Goldblum, John Powell, Jon M. Chu, Jonathan Bailey, L. Frank Baum, Marissa Bode, Michelle Yeoh, Peter Dinklage, Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords, Musical | 36 Comments »
Monday, January 27th, 2025
If DRACULA UNTOLD isn’t forgotten, then it’s kind of notorious. From what I remembered it was the start of the Dark Universe, the planned shared universe of action-oriented Universal Monster reboots. The public scoffed at that whole idea, then everybody (besides me) hated THE MUMMY and the whole thing got scrapped and became a punchline.
But it wasn’t originally intended to be part of that anyway. The script had been around for a while. I remember reading about it years earlier when it was gonna be an Alex Proyas movie called DRACULA: YEAR ZERO. Sam Worthington was to star. It wasn’t about starting anything, it was about prequelizing Dracula as a thrilling 21st century fantasy adventure character – to give the iconic cape-wearer a heroic backstory, or at least good intentions and motives. Basically it asks what if before he was the Count we all know, he was what I call a Fantasy Sword Dude: the pretty cool, unevenly charismatic hero of a digital era studio b-movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Art Parkinson, Burk Sharpless, Charles Dance, Dark Universe, Dominic Cooper, Dracula, fantasy sword dudes, Gary Shore, Luke Evans, Matt Sazama, Sarah Gadon
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Horror | 23 Comments »
Tuesday, December 24th, 2024
RED ONE is not a prequel to THE BIG RED ONE or READY PLAYER ONE, but in fact a Christmas fantasy action movie produced by Amazon Product Corporation and starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson and Chris Formerly Captain America Evans. It has made around $180 million in theaters but is considered a flop because it cost something like $250 million before marketing. I have seen many holding it up as an example of the worst fucking crap imaginable. “Slop,” if you will.
I don’t have a high opinion of most of the recent artistic choices of the named parties, so I didn’t rush out to see it. But now I have seen it on Amazon’s streaming/package delivery service (it’s already on there) and it is my duty to report that I liked it. This is a genuinely funny movie! That is not something I expect out of Dwayne T.R. Johnson in the year 2024. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bonnie Hunt, Chris Evans, Chris Morgan, Christmas, Christmas action, J.K. Simmons, Jake Kasdan, Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Liu, Reinaldo Faberlie, The Rock
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comedy/Laffs, Fantasy/Swords | 42 Comments »
Monday, July 15th, 2024
SHE IS CONANN, original title CONANN, is the recently-released-on-disc third film from French director Bertrand Mandico. I previously reviewed and loved his second film AFTER BLUE (DIRTY PARADISE), which I described as being a little bit like if Alejandro Jodorowsky made BARBARELLA. This one is sort of Mandico’s take on Robert E. Howard’s Conan. Very sort of. But the Jodorowsky comparison is even stronger here – it reminded me of the full range from FANDO Y LIS to HOLY MOUNTAIN. This is a crazy one.
Some (including Wikipedia) have described CONANN as “a feminist take on CONAN THE BARBARIAN,” which honestly sounds wonderful, but I don’t think it’s very accurate. Though obviously alluding to the famous barbarian, I don’t see how you can possibly take it as an adaptation of those stories or a genuine attempt at participating in the sword and sorcery genre. It merely brushes against some of that iconography as it leaps out into the cosmos. I laughed when I saw the angry IMDb user reviews – one was titled “Content Fails to Connect to Source material” – because obviously they went in expecting something from the title and couldn’t adjust their take when it turned out it was something else. But I’m not one to talk. I was pretty annoyed at Jean-Luc Godard using Richard Stark’s The Jugger as the supposed basis of MADE IN U.S.A. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: ???, Bertrand Mandico, Elina Lowensohn, Robert E. Howard
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords, I don't know | 9 Comments »
Monday, June 3rd, 2024
THE PRIMEVALS is about an expedition to a forgotten land in search of ancient creatures untouched by evolution (but a little bit by aliens), and the incredible thing is that we as viewers are witnessing a similar miracle. The Ray-Harryhausen-esque fantasy film was first conceived and pitched in the late ‘60s by stop motion animators David Allen, Dennis Muren and Jim Danforth, and then had various false starts in the ‘70s and ‘80s, so by the time it was filmed by Allen with funding from Charles Band in 1994 it was already a throwback. Then Full Moon Entertainment’s financial situation stalled the completion of the animation, and the movie was left in limbo when Allen died of cancer in 1999.
You’d think that would be the end of it, but fortunately Allen left the storyboards and puppets with the right person – his friend Chris Endicott, an FX artist for many Full Moon and Marvel pictures. Another couple decades later, through Indiegogo funding and the hard work of many of Allen’s animator and VFX friends, the movie was completed and premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival last summer. I was able to see it a few weeks ago at the Seattle International Film Festival, and I had a great time with it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Charles Band, Chris Endicott, David Allen, Juliet Mills, Ken Ralston, Leon Russom, Randall William Cook, Richard Joseph Paul, stop motion animation, Yeti
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords | 15 Comments »
Friday, May 17th, 2024
I am a human, but I love those apes and that planet they got. I really have enjoyed the entire PLANET OF THE APES series except for the Tim Burton one. Even that has amazing Rick Baker makeup and a beautifully goofy ending (that everyone else hates). But the original and all its ‘70s sequels are fun in different ways, RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES reinvented it surprisingly well, then DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES and WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES pushed this incarnation into full on greatness.
This new one KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES builds off of the previous trilogy, but somebody could start here if they wanted to. I was surprised by the prologue, showing the funeral for central character Caesar (with a cameo by Maurice!). But it tells you all you need to know: that a virus made apes smarter, killed most of the humans, and Caesar was the first leader of the apes, but now he’s dead. This story takes place “many generations later,” when apes have established different settlements with their own cultures and Caesar is revered as “the first elder.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Amanda Silver, Eka Darville, Freya Allen, Josh Friedman, Kaden Hartcher, Kevin Durand, Lydia Peckham, Neil Sandilands, Owen Teague, Peter Macon, Rick Jaffa, Sara Wiseman, Travis Jeffery, Wes Ball
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 36 Comments »
Thursday, April 4th, 2024
GODZILLA x KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE is the fifth of the “Monsterverse” movies, and to me the best one. Don’t get me wrong, I kinda liked the attempt at a serious Spielbergian approach in GODZILLA, and the more fun and colorful (but weirdly nostalgic for Vietnam War imagery?) take of KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and the Hesei nightmare atmosphere of GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS, but my previous favorite was GODZILLA VS. KONG, because it finally went headlong into having cool giant monster fights where you’re still in awe but you get to see what’s going on.
GxK is the first one with a returning director (Adam Wingard, YOU’RE NEXT) and he’s able to hit the ground running and improve on GvK with a crazier mythology and a better-integrated human story. I had a big smile on my face pretty much the whole time, without having to say “Well, too bad they were just traveling in that tunnel for a third of the movie.” My only real complaint is that the great Brian Tyree Henry (WIDOWS) still has a dumb one-joke character to play – a Roland Emmerich type “funny conspiracy guy” updated to have a podcast and a Discord – but he not only gets some laughs but gets to be around the actual monsters this time instead of trapped in a needless b-plot. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Wingard, Anthony Brandon Wong, ASL, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, kaiju, Kaylee Hottle, Monsterverse, Rebecca Hall
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords, Monster | 36 Comments »
