TITLE & REVIEW
This is a CGI full-on 3-D animation of the
Belgian comic-book series that started in the 1930s.
The visuals are all faithfully rendered, with French-style architecture and vehicles.
The voices are British, though -
Boy reporter Tin-tin (Jamie Bell -
King Kong
), bumbling police detectives Thompson and Thompson (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost -
Paul
) and drunken Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis -
LOTR, King Kong 2005
) face off against villainous Sakarine (Daniel Craig -
Casino Royale
). Together they embark on cartoonishly OTT adventures,
where there is no actual threat of danger to our heroes.
A young boy in Finland is sent off alone into the forest on an overnight hunting trip,
as his rite of passage on his thirteenth birthday.
This is a touching story,
straight out of a short film that one might catch at an art-house cinema.
Unfortunately, there are other hunters in the woods. Some trophy hunters with SAMs take out Air Force One, leaving the lame-duck President (Samuel L Jackson - Kingsman ) ejected in the pod from Escape From New York . His bodyguard (Ray Stevenson - Punisher: War Zone ) also makes it out ...
Naturally, the two stories collide. Two different genres meet - art-house coming-of-age story and Hollywood blockbuster shoot-em-up - and despite the schmaltz and clichés, the result is pleasantly watchable.
Professor C. Thomas Howell (
Peter Benchley's Amazon
) and his babelicious sidekick travel around the world following clues
in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci.
They must debunk the religious artefacts and uncover the location of an ancient treasure.
Meanwhile, they must avoid villainous relic dealer Lance Hendricksen (
Aliens, Terminator
).
This rips off the Dan Brown story, but it is actually one of the most watchable Mockbusters so far. It is certainly better-paced than the Tom Hanks film!
This was directed by
Jim Wynorski
. A group of overweight soldiers en route to military prison
end up on an island peopled by beautiful women in leather bikinis.
They have to avoid getting eaten by dodgy stop-motion dinosaurs.
This is a found footage film - like
Blair Witch Project
, but with the African version of the Loch Ness monster.
A TV company hires a team to go to the Congo and look for dinosaurs They are an English crocodile hunter, his son (think Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: TNG ), a few redshirts and a couple of unrealistically beautiful young women.
The CGI is used sparingly, which is for the best. Usually it is over-used, which stretches the SPFX budget too thin and makes the whole film look cheap. However, there is still too much of it.
Michelle Forbes
is a
Relic Hunter
as is her husband.
They get double-crossed on a mission ...
The parents' mission is taken up by Robbie Amell ( Tomorrow People ) and his blonde-haired ex-GF ( Alexa Vega ) with whom he bickers constantly. In the Han and Leia school of this, this means they are destined to be together.
When the parents are declared MIA, the children must take over their mission. This was the plot of Spy Kids , except that in the earlier film the brother was Alexa Vega's and back then she was too young to have a love interest.
Victor Garber ( Alias ) rounds out the cast as the mentor figure. Also, there is a secret evil genius that is manipulating our heroes.
This is a comedy remake of a 1970s American TV show about three people
(Marshall, Will and Holly) who get trapped in a mysterious wilderness.
Dr Rick Marshall (Will Ferrell -
Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back
) is mocked when he claims he discovered wormholes.
He and grad-student Holly (
Anna Friel
) go through the worm-hole,
and get stranded with foul-mouthed redneck Will (Danny McBride -
Your Highness
). They get chased around by a dinosaur,
and have to save the universe from an alien invader.
Ferrell and McBride each bring their own brand of humour to the film. Friel dresses like a slender Lara Croft, a reason in itself to watch the film. Unfortunately she uses her own Rochdale accent.
A decent version of this story was filmed in the 1970s, starring Doug McClure.
Why was this new version made?
The original work by
Edgar Rice Borroughs
must be out of copyright, so The Asylum got it on the cheap.
Some Americans on holiday get lost in the Bermuda triangle, and end up on a time-warped island. C Thomas Howell ( Red Dawn ) is in the Doug McClure role.
Thankfully the CGI dinosaurs are kept to a minimum. They actually look better than the rubber ones in the Hammer original!
The most original thing about this, compared to the Hammer version? The German characters actually speak their own language.
The near future, and the Earth has been flooded thanks to Global Warming - like in
Waterworld
. A family of salvage divers (including Ian Somerhalder -
Lost, Vampire Diaries
) are hired by the New Vatican to retrieve a magic artefact that can end the flood.
Millionaire Ben Cross ( First Knight ) tries to find the artefact first. Lots of sub- Relic Hunter antics ensue.
A gang of tweenagers (including
Mary Elizabeth Winstead
) end up on a mysterious island.
Luckily, Dr Harryhausen (Adam West -
Batman
) is there to give exposition.
They must save
Carmen Electra
from giant ants.
As befits the Ray Harryhausen reference, the monsters are portrayed through good old-fashioned stop-motion animation.
Archaeologist Dick O’Hare (
American Horror Story
) and his daughter (also an archaeologist, despite her model-turned-actress looks)
lead a dig on a newly-discovered pyramid.
Unfortunately, it all goes terribly wrong.
They send a robot into the structure to explore, but something destroys it.
They decide to retrieve the robot, or bits of it, perhaps in the hope of repairing it
and handing it back to NASA as if it were good as new.
The smart option would be to let NASA claim the insurance,
but if characters in horror movies were smart they would not be in horror movie scenarios.
The archaeologists are accompanied by a TV journalist and her cameraman (James Buckley - Zapped ). This is not the distraction so much as the fact that this is not a true Found Footage film. It keeps flipping between what the explorers are filming (they have the TV camera, the robot’s cameras and even a web-cam for a tablet computer) and what the storytellers want us to see. This is a cheat, and allows the use of additional music and sound effects - not to mention the threat of a disappointing Untruthful Narrator ending.
The monster is original, to an extent. The writers chose a creature that is part of ancient Egyptian folklore, but it has not been used as a movie monster before. The CGI is also well-rendered, so the visuals are not to blame.
Anna Friel
is an archaeologist who uncovers clues to the Ring of Solomon.
She is desperate for funding, so she asks the Vatican for help.
They send an Inquisitor to oversee her mission.
While claiming they want the relic because it was Touched by God,
their real agenda is to locate King Solomon's mines!
Tomboy Nim (
Abby Breslin
) and her dad (Gerald Butler -
300
) live on a remote South Pacific island.
When daddy goes off in the yacht, Nim is left alone.
Her only companion (other than some English-trained wild animals) is
her Internet pen-pal, the adventure writer Alex Rover.
Nim’s island paradise is invaded by Buccaneers, a cruise-ship crewed by the likes on Anthony Simcoe ( Farscape ). The only one she can call for help is Alex Rover. Unfortunately Alex the Adventurer is the alter-ego of Alex the Writer - an agoraphobic Jodie Foster !
This is a great kids’ story, with one major problem. The protagonist is never in any actual danger. We see the characters do things, but there is no actual emotional connection with them. It is a very well-made film, but ultimately there is nothing to it.
Edwardian England, 1903.
A clifftop mansion is burglarised by a fish-faced stranger.
A beautiful young woman goes missing.
The square-jawed hero and the comedy relief (a Terry-Thomas type)
discover a secret passage and explore the caverns below.
They discover an underwater city ruled by Captain Sir Hugh (Vincent Price -
Witchfinder General
).
This was based on a poem by Edgar Allen Poe , and made on the cheap by notorious B-Movie studio AIP (American International Pictures). The female lead ( Susan Hart ) is a talented performer, but she was also the twenty-something wife of the fifty-year-old Producer. The part written for Boris Karloff ( Frankenstein (1931) ) was played by John le Mesurier ( The Italian Job (1969) ). If this had been made ten years later, the heroes would have been played by Doug McClure and Peter Cushing.
A group of European pirates led by Captain Christopher Lee (
Dracula
) takes over a village of English-speakers led by Andrew Keir (
Quatermass And The Pit
). Yes, it sounds like the previous year's
Pirates Of Blood River
. However, this is a different film with a slightly different script.
This time the year is 1588, and the pirate ship is a privateer vessel that was part of the Spanish Armada. There is no safe harbour for the pirates to repair their vessel in, so they tie up in a remote creek on the south coast of England. Sort of like Frenchman's Creek , only these pirates are not overly romanticised.
The pirates take over a local village and enslave the villagers. Of course, the plucky Brits fight back.
This is a Hammer production from the late 1960s.
There are no famous faces in the cast,
but they are all experienced supporting players from the
Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee films.
The story is based on a novel by
Dennis Wheatley
, and one of the characters is actually seen reading a copy of the book.
The story is set aboard a cargo ship that has seen better days. There are a handful of passengers aboard, but they all have nasty secrets. Worse, the captain is smuggling tons of volatile explosives. The crew are a mutinous rabble. And finally, the ship is steaming straight into a tropical storm.
Everything is set up for the survivors to arrive at the Lost Continent of the title. However, it is only a remote island and it only appears at the end of the second act. Just in time for the survivors to battle some conquistadors. Well, who expected the Spanish Inquisition?
This is one of the lesser-known efforts by Hammer, House of Horror.
It is part of a slew of caveman movies they released in the late Sixties,
the most famous of which was
One Million Years BC
. At least they got their money's worth out of the props, scenery and costumes.
A Big White Hunter in Africa in the 1960s gets somehow transported back in time to a prehistoric era. The evil brunette cave-women (led by Martine Beswick ) have enslaved the blonde cave-women. Our hero is chosen as the evil brunette Queen's concubine. He objects to her cruelty, so she has him punished.
The final bookend sequence introduces the hero's partner - business partner, that is - John (Stephen Berkoff - Werewolves Vs Strippers ).
This is a Hammer Studios adventure film.
The intro credits give us some exposition on the backstory.
Once there was a group of Huguenots who fled persecution in Europe.
They went to the Americas, and named their settlement Isle of Devon.
The terrain, being that the movie was shot in England, might be North America.
However, the local river is infested with South American piranhas!
The hero (Kerwin Matthews - 7th Voyage Of Sinbad ) ends up in a Scarlet Letter situation. The village elders, led by his own father (Andrew Kier - Quatermass And The Pit ), sentence him to fifteen years hard labour in the village's very own prison colony.
Our hero promptly escapes from the top security stockade. He gets lost in the swamp, but is found by friendly pirates led by the one-eyed Captain Leforge (Christopher Lee - Dracula ). Judging by his accent the Captain is apparently French, while the Huguenots - a French sect - speak in English or North American accents.
The hero agrees to guide the pirates to his home village, so he can get even with the elders who imprisoned him. However, he starts to have doubts about his new companions. One of the pirates (Oliver Reed - Gladiator (2000) ) gets a bit over-amourous with the women.
Once back in the village, the hero teams up with one of his friends, Timothy Blackstone (Dennis Waterman - Scars of Dracula (1970) ). Despite his grudge against the elders who unfairly imprisoned him, he turns against the helpful pirates in order to save a treasure that he never even knew existed. It is about more than just the treasure - it is about mercilessly killing all of the intruders. Yes, just like every slasher film since Texas Chainsaw Massacre (itself in the footsteps of Deliverance) the inbred hillbillies want to hunt down and slaughter the intruders who transgressed.
This is a Hammer swashbuckler set in 1648.
Captain Tom Sylvester (Oliver Reed -
Gladiator (2000)
) and the Cromwellian Ironsides are searching for King Charles Stuart,
so he can be put on trial for his crimes against the people.
However, this movie seems to be from the perspective of the Royalists.
Cromwell is referred to as a murdering despot,
while in reality he merely challenged the Stuarts' belief in divine right to rule.
The colonel in charge, Judd (Lionel Jeffries - First Men On The Moon ) is a turn-coat, and his own daughter regards him as being a villain because of it. She still holds her former sympathies, to the Royalist cause. Luckily for her, Captain Tom wants her for his wife. He is smart enough to work out what she is up to, but realistic enough to compromise himself in order to get what he wants.
A Royalist insurgent nicknamed the Scarlet Blade leads a gaggle of peasants in a series of raids. Yes, this movie tries to make it look like the people were voting AGAINST democracy - or at least the steps in that direction which Cromwell made.
Judd's daughter knows that Sylvester is only helping the Royalists because he wants her to marry him. However, she flaunts the fact that she has chosen the Scarlet Blade instead. Poor Sylvester is now caught between two camps, regarded as a potential traitor by each side.
In the good old days of the British Empire,
three explorers journey across the African desert to find a lost city.
Peter Cushing (
Star Wars: ANH
) is the elderly mentor, Bernard Cribbins (
Daleks Invasion Earth: 2150 AD
) is the comic relief and John Richardson (
One Million Years BC
) is the handsome heroic one.
The city is ruled by the undying Ayesha, She Who Must be Obeyed (Bond babe Ursula Andress ) and her High Priest Christopher Lee ( Dracula ).
This is a Hammer version of the Victorian adventure book by H. Rider Haggard . The thing is, the original book is more about exploration than action.
