Tag: Movie Review

The Oath (2018)

The Oath is a pretty simple of a movie concept. The United States government has decided to ask every citizen to sign a loyalty oath. This of course isn’t mandatory, tho there are benefits to it. There is also time to decide, the day after Thanksgiving to be exact, Black Friday.

This movie does a good job showing how easy it is to divide people, there are even a couple scenes of violence in the streets, fighting among  family members. Every so often there will be news playing in the background that does an admirable job showing how many Republicans and Democrats will simply argue or make stuff up to defend a position they themselves don’t even understand to begin with or to feel superior.

Throughout the movie there are also rumors of government officials intimidates and kidnapping people that don’t sign the oath or protest its very existence. The whole thing is very well done honestly and you can actually feel the apprehension it causes and see where the real world influences how they made the movie. You know people just like this, maybe they are friends of yours that you hang out with but avoid political talk or have talked to people like this online.

Here is the issue, the movie is a comedy. The comedy aspect is where it falls a bit flat. They took what could have been an amazing thriller or even horror movie an failed to make it all that funny but also ruined the more tense moments of the movie. Worse, what should have been a spectacular ending to really accentuate the seriousness of the situation was then met with what felt like a total cop out to simply end the movie without ever solving anything. I won’t say the movie was bad as I did enjoy it, but what should have been an amazing movie with great social commentary basically ended up simply as an okay movie not worth watching twice. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Godzilla King of Monsters (Savior)

Last night was sort of a bucket list night for me. @torstenvblog , our friend Brandon and myself went to see this and while torsten can take or leave Godzilla me and Brandon are huge fans.  Also as some of you know the birth of Savior Gaming came about a few years ago, in fact 3 years ago tomorrow, when my dad died and left me a few bucks with the stipulation that I could only use it for what I wanted, not what I thought I needed. It wasn’t a lot, nothing life changing, but enough to have a little fun with. The problem is I didn’t really want anything so I have it away to my girlfriend of 11 years, my kids and of course I bought torsten a few things. I also started this. I tell you this to add this fitting bit of trivia, me and my dad always wanted to see a Godzilla movie in theaters. Every year he would take a weeks vacation, and we would spend 1 night up watching old monster movies like this, and I would spend all day picking my favorites. So it is only fitting that I tell this story before I talk about this movie.

Godzilla at hits heart is everything you would want from a Godzilla movie. It tells the story of how mankind is attempting to find all these titans, 17 known, and debate as to whether they should be destroyed or studied or even controlled. Things of course go very wrong when Mothra’s containment grid goes down and the machine to control her works, and a Eco-terrorist group attacks and kidnaps the lead scientist, her daughter and the machine.

They later use the machine to wake up Monster Zero, the 3 headed dragon and Rodan. Godzilla is not a fan of this and fights Monster Zero only to lose, leaving Ghidorah in charge and to wake up all the other titans to wreck havoc on the work.

I won’t go further on the story here because it is a good one, but this time around they spend a lot of time focused on the monsters and their fighting which is a huge positive for any fans of this  type of movie. It felt like the golden era of their time just watching these beast go back and forth, and to make things even better this movie may be the best fan service I have ever seen. It was all done in such a way that fans like me instantly notice the classic Godzilla reveal music in the back but it was spun into the music so new comers wouldn’t feel left out. Beloved songs were remastered or covered and snuck into the movie or credits masterfully such as the cover of Godzilla from Blue Oyster Cult and the Mothra theme, something fans would love but new people wouldn’t quite grasp the significance of. They are left out of the movie, but are in the end credits which for me was monumental.

The movie isn’t perfect, and if you aren’t a fan I can see why you may not have much interest. But if you are a fan of Godzilla, there is no reason to skip this movie. See it now, and long live the king.

Backdraft 2 (2019)

Yes, you are seeing that right, almost 30 years after the 1991 movie Backdraft it got a sequel. A direct sequel. Now I know what you are thinking, Savior is about to shred this movie apart. It is almost 30 years later, it can not be good. Well, I am not.

William Baldwin returns to his role as Brian McCaffrey, years later as his a bit out of control nephew and son of Stephen from the original movie, does his job as an arson investigator. Sean McCaffrey is almost a reverse arsonist himself. He is in love with fire, he understands it in a way most people never will, it is why he is good at his job. However, he uses this love to track down the bad guys and now he must find out who is burning down buildings in Chicago and why.

Along the way, he will also meet a woman, find a dog he refuses to name and maybe discover the truth about his father which will possibly bring him and his uncle a little closer together since they kind of don’t get along very well. The movie is well done with nice effects and if you give it a shot it is a pretty solid and fun movie if you enjoy this type. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Backdraft (1991)

Backdraft is a 1991 Action crime drama that takes place in Chicago and follows two brothers, both firefighters, that do not get along, on their life. Younger brother and rookie Brian McCaffrey (William Baldwin) joins the force and tries to win the respect of his older brother, veteran  Stephen (Kurt Russel) after Stephen bribes someone to get Brian into his unit with him.

It doesn’t take long for this to go horribly wrong as the two always seem to have a reason to be fighting and eventually after seeing a series of fires set by an arsonist that were set to kill specific people Brian gets himself put into an investigation unit and instead of fighting fires with his brother finds himself trying to stop the criminal.

Honestly, the movie isn’t bad. It is well done and the special effects were amazing for its time. The story while at times convoluted and weird to follow is done in a pretty realistic way many times and you aren’t shoehorned into a happy ending for the sake of having one. This is however very much a movie made for firefighters and people interested in that sort of thing. In fact, almost everyone I know that loves this movie and raves about it was a volunteer firefighter at some time. If you like that sort of thing tho, there is no reason not to watch this one. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Mercy Black (2019)

Mercy Black is a 2019 horror movie over on Netflix that takes place 15 years after two girls stab another in order to summon a spirit known as Mercy Black. Marina Hess is finally released by her doctor and moves in with her sister Alice and son Bryce. It isn’t long before she is reminded of her past tho when Alice’s boyfriend Will who is interested in writing a book starts asking questions and Bryce discovers the truth.

Worse yet, after spending years discovering Mercy Black isn’t real and she was sick, Bryce now hears and sees Mercy. I don’t want to say much more because there are a lot of twist and turns and a rather odd ending that you will probably see coming a mile away anyway. The movie is getting pretty mixed reviews, IMDb gives it 5.0/10, Roger Ebert a 1.4/5 and Rotten Tomatoes a 33% (28% audience) tho Google users have it at a respectable 78%. Tho as you can see, it is mostly negative reviews.

I see why it is having this effect, most of the movie falls flat and fails at being scary the vast majority of the time. The acting, however, is nice and the ending is pretty interesting if not predictable. If you like B movies, by all means, check it out, but don’t go into this expecting anything other than that. Just a B horror movie. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The 13th Friday (2017)

I have never put something like this, but today I will. If your name is Justin Price, the man who wrote and directed this, stop reading now. You will not appreciate this review. I am sure you are a nice guy who loves films, and I don’t doubt you know your craft well, and I will happily watch your next movie. You do however owe the actors and audience of this movie an apology.

To the actors within the movie, you did the best you could with what you were handed, and I am sorry you were treated this way. I hope you were well compensated tho, and not just with experience. I am not the only one that feels this way either, Film Threat was also not very kind to this movie, and nobody should be. The plot pretty much makes a mockery of every part of horror movies and is so convoluted and ridiculous as to serve no real narrative purpose. It was so busy seeing if something could be done it was never asked if it was even worth doing. It then had an ending that existed for the same of having an ending, not because it was an ending anyone wants or more importantly needed. It is almost like having a twist ending for the sake of having a twist ending, but there was no twist. The movie just ends, almost randomly and tossed together real quick before the budget runs out.

All I can say is, do not watch this movie. It isn’t even a fun train wreck, it is simply an example of how to not make a movie. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Meg (2018)

The Meg is a 2018 thriller about a deep sea research station that sends a submersible down to explore the ocean floor, possibly even deeper than the Mariana Trench, past a cloud of section thought to be solid ground but is actually just a pocket of gas that is freezing cold. Beyond there is life people never dreamed of, an entire never before seen ecosystem. It is also home to a shark long thought extinct. The Megalodon.

This is the part where Jonas Taylor, a person long thought to be crazy or to have been having hallucinated or even made up due to cowardice, a similar attack on a sub rescue where he lost about 8 people at a similar depth year beforehand. In fact, he only takes this mission because his ex-wife was the pilot, and he kinda wants to say I told you so.

The movie itself rather intriguing, I always like a good shark movie and while I know it isn’t really all that possible for this to happen I do like how they attempt to make it seem at least plausible. I rarely say this tho, I really think this could have benefited from an R rating. The concept was good and the action scenes were ok but, but it always felt like they were holding things back to keep it into that PG-13 rating. The huge shark felt less threatening most of the time because of it, even when it was devouring whales you never really got the feeling it was doing much more than swimming by. I know Jaws (1975) was rated PG and is an all-time great, but this is just a bigger shark they tried to make scarier and simply didn’t. Then they didn’t make it gorier either.

It does have some things going for it tho, for example, Megalodon is a cool concept. The comradery and friendships are also fun to watch grow. The movie may have been met with mixed reviews and it has its faults, but the movie is enjoyable. I would happily watch it again.. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Deadpool 2 (Savior)

Deadpool 2 came out to some mixed reviews is some areas but I felt was pretty funny. The story is pretty standard stuff, Deadpool is killing people and cracking jokes, after all, he is the merc with a mouth. The reason he is killing people isn’t all that clear in the beginning, and I don’t want to give away what changes. He will eventually be fighting Cable to save a kids life. This will make him form a team in efforts to save him.

The movie has quite a bit of action and it shines there pretty well, but the big thing to remember here is a lot of this movie will depend on how you feel about Ryan Reynalds. The humor is quite a bit like his other movies except he is playing Deadpool. This isn’t bad for me, in fact, I really enjoyed it. The jokes made me laugh, for example, at one point he is in the X-Men mansion complaining about the lack of people and the company cheaping out on him when he walks past a room and we get a cameo from a group of X-Men from the movies closing the door real quick on him.

If you enjoyed the first Deadpool you will mostly get more of the same, and there isn’t a ton of twist and turns but the ones that do exist are worth it. I also think the end credits scene may be the best, possibly in movie history. In fact, it alone may be worth watching it for. People that aren’t fans of Deadpool tho may want to avoid this one tho. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Sex Drive (2008)

Sex Drive is a 2008 comedy about one man’s quest to lose his virginity to a woman on the internet by stealing his brother’s car, a 69 Pontiac GTO Judge, which his brother loves more than basically anything. Only a few issues with this quest, Ian (Josh Zuckerman) has a friend named Lance. (Clark Duke) Lance is kind of a ladies man and gets them chased by a pissed off redneck that decides he needs to score with a lady he finds crying at a gas station. His best friend from childhood, Felicia (Amanda Crew) is also kind of a cockblock. Not sure she means to, but she has done this quite a few times in their life including one sure thing early in the movie.

Then there is Ezekiel (Seth Green), an Amish man that will routinely save them when their car needs to be fixed. He learned while he was off on the Amish tradition of Rumspringa. The movie explains loosely what it is tho in an extreme version of it. Basically, it is the Amish (and from what I heard Mormon) tradition where at the age of around 16 people are allowed to leave the religion temporarily to experience the rest of the world and return around age 18 to decide if they want to stay or leave forever. Not every sect practices this is a general idea of what it is.

Anyway, after that little learning bit, I am sure most of you didn’t care about, our boy Zeke who is, in my opinion, the highlight of the movie will fix their car a few times and be very sarcastic the whole time. Not because he doesn’t like our group, they actually end up being great friends, he just missed the sarcasm. It is lost on his people according to Zeke.

The movie is typical for the genre, it has its serious moments, it has some nudity and crude humor and is just in general a fun movie if you liked movies like Porky’s or Superbad. If you didn’t however there isn’t much here for you, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Avengers Endgame Review (Savior)

As usual, @torstenvblog an I went to check out the new Marvel movie, and I will, of course, this will be spoiler free.

I won’t say much about the story because I feel saying pretty much anything about it will be a spoiler. Obviously tho it covers what happens after the Thanos snap and how they all deal with it. Some of them obviously will deal with it far better than others. The general tone of the start of the movie as you can imagine has the team feeling pretty down. Admittedly this never changed.

For a three hour movie, it never felt like three hours, and even tho the first hours pacing felt a bit off to me and some of the decisions felt a bit odd at first by the end of the movie they all made much more sense. The end of the movie left me very satisfied and the final act was nothing if not extraordinary. It had everything you would want it to have, action, intrigue, explosions, and even a few tears.

I can’t say it was the best or even my favorite in the Marvel universe. It wasn’t even necessarily the ending I wanted to the whole Infinity War or what the last over a decade was building to. It was, however, the ending I needed. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.