Month: September 2023

“Maid Droid” (* out of four) was a sleazy and stupid melodrama about a businessman (Jose Adam Alvarez) who is reeling from the death of his ex and hires a beautiful maid android (Faith West) to help fill his void of emptiness and loneliness but (naturally) her system starts to glitch which leads to her acting out with reckless violence and he has to decide whether to keep her as his companion or pull the plug. It’s much easier to simply pull the plug on the movie instead. Yet another movie about artificial intelligence which seems artificial and has no intelligence. Watch “Maid To Order” (if you haven’t already) instead.

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“Sniper: G.R.I.T. (Global Response And Intelligence Team)” (** out of four) was a needless continuation of this series about ace sharpshooter Brandon Beckett (Chad Michael Collins) who is called back into action with the newly formed G.R.I.T. team (Dennis Haysbert, Ryan Robbins, and others) to rescue a fellow agent (Luna Fujimoto) and eliminate an international terrorist organization from global domination. Tenth entry in a series that wasn’t that great to begin with back when it began in 1993; this is neither the best nor the worst of the series and has some good action but is still only for series fans.

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“Butcher’s Crossing” (** out of four) was an ambitious but unsatisfying adaptation of John Williams’ acclaimed novel where an Ivy-league dropout (Fred Hechinger) travels to the Colorado wilderness to join a group of buffalo hunters (Nicholas Cage, Xander Berkeley, and others) on a dangerous expedition that puts all their sanity to the ultimate test. Magnificent cinematography from David Gallego and some scattered effective moments are outweighed by film’s meandering pacing. It may take you a few minutes to recognize Cage with his shaved head but film is mostly for die-hard Cage fans and fans of Williams’ book.

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“Outlaw Johnny Black” (**1/2 out of four) was a moderately engaging action comedy about the title character (Michael Jai White) who is hell-bent on avenging the death of his father from a vicious outlaw (Chris Browning) but ends up becoming a fugitive from the law in the process and winds up in a mining town and poses as a preacher while trying track down his father’s killer and also doing battle with a villainous land baron (Barry Bostwick). Overlong and overstuffed with plot and characters but Jai White’s charisma and likeability take centerstage here and he carries the movie almost singlehandedly and makes it entertaining. Jai White also directed and co-wrote in a packaging similar to “Django Unchained.”

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“Expend4bles” (** out of four) was a lazy sequel about the returning world-war fighters (Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, and others) and some new recruits (Megan Fox, 50 Cent, Jacob Scipio, and others) who are called back into battle by a millionaire tycoon (Andy Garcia) only this time it’s personal after their leader (Sylvester Stallone) seems to have been killed. Fourth entry in this series shows that it’s running on faint exhaust fumes. A few good fight scenes and a spectacular action climax are sabotaged by terrible script. Time to end this series before it itself becomes expendable.

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“Beneath Us All” (** out of four) was a well-done but empty, derivative sci/fi thriller about a young girl (Angelina Daniella Cama) who finds an unspeakable evil buried in her household which she soon realizes will let all Hell break loose unless she kills it and sends it straight back to Hell where it belongs. By the standards of this genre, this isn’t bad and has some good style and filmmaking but at the end of the day it’s still half-baked and something we have seen too many times before. Cama is strong in the lead.

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“No One Will Save You” (**1/2 out of four) was a sporadically effective suspense melodrama about a young woman (Kaitlyn Dever) with severe anxiety who battles an alien who has somehow founds it way into her home and tears apart her walls of sanity and safety. Better than most films of its genre, with little dialogue but tense atmosphere and beautiful scenery and a strong lead performance from Dever………but after a while its minimalism starts to wear you out as does its story derivations from “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.” The aliens look almost exactly the same as the ones in “Communion” and “Fire In The Sky.”

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“Casting Kill” (* out of four) was a desperately awful horror thriller about a sicko (Rob Laird) who poses as a casting director for a big-budget Hollywood production and preys on unsuspecting actors (Rachel Chima, Gareth Tidball, and others) looking for their big break and lures them in and kills them. Film attempts to be darkly ironic and sardonic but just comes off as cheap and lame (and boring). Director James Smith said this was somehow inspired by Rihanna’s video for “The Monster” but this seems like it was inspired more by “Disturbia” than anything else.

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“Cerebrum” (** out of four) was a pallid horror psychodrama about a young man (Tobi King Bakare) who awakens from a year-long coma and has to battle his controlling father (Steve Oram) once he finds that the reality he knew his whole life is a lie and that his father has kept him hidden from various truths he thought he knew. Both over and underdone as film is curiously bland and remote but becomes over-the-top and overly cerebal in its second half. Yet another film with the DNA of “The Shining” and “The Matrix” and many others but does not transcend its origins into anything fresh.

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“The Stratum” (** out of four) was a wholly derivative future-shock thriller set in the year 2057 in which a greedy CEO (Ramin Karimloo) has seized control of the Earth but doesn’t count on his rebellious daughter (Lauren Senecal) meeting up with a cyber hacker (Crash Buist) and them fighting back to take control. Yet another series of reheated ideas from many other (and better) movies; by now, there’s just not all that much more we can obtain from going back to the future. Star Bruist also wrote and directed and Senecal co-wrote; consider this a misfired attempt at creating their own “stratum.”

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