Some recent viewings

[trekgeezer]

Blade Trinity (2004) - The Vamps dig up the original vampire (Dominic Purcell) who is known by many names including Dracula in order to try and use him in genetic experiments to breed a daywalker vampire

In the mean time Blade gets tricked by the Vamps into killing a human. This gets him arrested and his headquarters taken down by the FBI. Whistler is killed again .

Whistler's daughter and her group of vampire hunters called the Nightstalkers break him out. It pretty much follows the formula from this point.

Blade would be far more interesting if they gave the character a little depth. We mostly get Wesley and crew striking cool poses to the thrumming of euro-beat pop music. Sounds like a damned disco.

I did like the reaver pomeranian dog.

Hostage (2005) - Bruce Willis is a big time hostage negotiator in L.A. until he blames himself for letting a kid get killed. A year later he's the chief of police in small California town and suddenly finds himself in the same situation when a wealthy man (Kevin Pollack) and his kids are taken hostage during an attempted car theft.

All is not as it seems when Pollack's mysterious bosses show up and put a new twist to the hostage situation.

Godzilla Final Wars (2004) - Godzilla has been frozen at the South Pole and all seems good in the world until the other monsters start attacking major cities around the world. A new team called the Earth Defense Force is formed to fight them.

Suddenly a group of aliens called Xillians shows up and captures all the monsters and claims to be here to save the Earth from a rogue planet headed this way.

When the aliens true purpose (to take over the Earth and use humans for food) is discovered it's too late. They unleash the monsters and decimate the Earth, leaving us only one option, thaw out Godzilla. Since Godzilla doesn't have the M-base gene the aliens can't control him.

The big guy gets to kick some ass all around the world.

The movie includes the following list of creature greats: Gigan (actually two versions of him), Rodan, Kamacuras, Kumonga, Manda, Ebirah, Anguirus, King Caesar, Hedorah, and Monster X (morphs into Ghidorah).

The best (and shortest) fight is with Zilla (Roland Emmerich's version of Godzilla), who Godzilla b***h slaps into the Sydney Opera House before toasting him with his radioactive breath.

Mothra shows up to help the big guy and Minilla comes along to settle him down at the end.

I thought there was too much time wasted on the silly ass plot about mutants and the aliens. The movie has a lot of Matrix style action and some pretty stupid dialogue. I really love the American Captain who speaks English while everyone else in the film is speaking Japanese.

This movie probably has the best effects of all the Godzilla films.

[Scott]

Really been wanting to see the latest Godzilla films that have come out after GODZILLA 2000 which I really enjoyed on the big screen. I hear Godzilla is more awesome than ever.

[trekgeezer]

They were showing it on pay-per-view on Directv. I made myself a VHS copy while I was watching it.

[daveblackeye15]

Glad to here another person seems to have enjoyed Final Wars.

I havn't seen it but I get a little worried whenever someone puts it down, such as the guy at Teleport cities. I'll have an open mind when I see it.

[trekgeezer]

I have an open mind with this kind of movie. The parts with the humans in these Japanese monster movies are like the story parts of porno films, you want them to shut up and get back to the real action.


Godzilla kicks some serious ass in this one and he never looked better.

[Neville]

Hated every minute of "Blade: Trinity". I mean, if I wanted people kicking ass in low budget settings I'd have rented a 70s kung-fu film and I'd have ten times the fun.

On the other hand, I was surprised at how good "Hostage" was. It's not your ordinary action film, because despite the events are quite over the top (the double hostage crisis, the kid playing "Die Hard"), the situatios provoked REAL anguish and fear on the participants, something action movies forgot how to do circa '85. Willis and Kevin Pollack were nothing short of excellent, which added a lot to the film.

[trekgeezer]

In Hostage, they left it sorta ambigious in the end about who the guys in the black masks actually were. Were they with the government?

Actually it could be open to a sequel since those guys bosses would surely send someone else after Pollack's character.

I agree with you though, it is not a run of the mill actioner, mainly because of the performances of the leads.

[BeyondTheGrave]

Hostage didn't really click with me when I saw in theaters. Maybe because of the ending.

Blade Trirnty was ok nothing I see again

I loved Godzillla Final Wars. I felt to was more of a throwback to the older Godzilla flims rather than the newer ones that take themselves way to serious. On a side note the American Captain was Don Frye. He used to fight in UFC early days as well as Pride.

[Neville]

It doesn't really matter, because they leave it unclear on purpose, but I don't think they were real FBI agents. When Willis is inside the vehicle and comments how clever it is to disguise themselves as false FBI agents, their leader answers too quickly that they may be real ones. Too quickly, that's telling, as if he didn't want Willlis to think along that line any further.

And yes, the acting is key in that real sense of anguish we mentioned, but it is also the work of an intelligent director. Think of the scene were Willis is handcuffed in his truck and the criminals show him his family captive. Willis is top notch there, but the detail of the brake lights iluminating their faces is a real stroke of genious. Somebody put real effort in that movie, it's a pity that it flopped.

[daveblackeye15]

I forgot how odd it is for a Godzilla movie to have aliens as the villians in it, make that aliens period.

Wasn't the last one Terror of Mechagodzilla? Now when you bring aliens into a Godzilla movie you usually smirk at it, but I thought they were a lot more threating in Terror than in the first Mecha Godzilla.

From what I hear, the aliens are more like the ones from Monster Zero or Mechagodzilla 1.

Hmmmm...