rate the last movie you saw

[Johnmgm]

I wonder if WW84 would have worked better if it were cut down do 105 minutes? In it's present form, WW84 plays like a fully scored work print.

[AndyDursin]

Better? Certainly. Any time you can eliminate over 30 needless minutes that's a help, and definitely would have improved this movie. But the movie's total lack of wit and the other issues I had with it can't be fixed at any running time.

I agree though, the running time is so bloated, it's shocking it was on the shelf that long and they couldn't improve the pacing. My guess is Jenkins had close to final cut and they went along with placating her.

Either way, this one is one of the all time stinker sequels IMO -- the last one that misfired this badly was probably the third Pirates movie, AT WORLD'S END.

[Johnmgm]

I remember hating the second Avengers movie, but I didn't hate WW84, but I certainly didn't like it. If I had a gun to my head, between those two sequels...I'd go with WW84. Hell, I'd probably watch Cats again, before either one of those two.

[Monterey Jack]

Hell, I'd probably watch Cats again, before either one of those two.

Dude, don't say something you can't take back.

[Edmund Kattak]

I wonder if WW84 would have worked better if it were cut down do 105 minutes? In it's present form, WW84 plays like a fully scored work print.

I wonder if it would have worked better and didn't misrepresent the 1980's the way I lived through it and threw in all that modern woke stuff.

[AndyDursin]

I would rather watch CATS again also. At least its not boring.

Agree with Ed. What was even the point of the setting to begin with. Had nothing to do with anything and could have easily been set in the present day, not unlike the later seasons of HAPPY DAYS.

[Monterey Jack]

Agree with Ed. What was even the point of the setting to begin with. Had nothing to do with anything and could have easily been set in the present day, not unlike the later seasons of HAPPY DAYS.

The only real reason was it had to be set before Superman or Batman were active superheroes. Aside from the opening mall sequence, there was alarmingly little 80's period detail, and what was there was often off (we see kids playing Operation: Wolf in an arcade...a game that didn't hit the market until 1987).

[Johnmgm]

WW84 is a special kind of bad, the kind of bad a director gets with first time "final cut." There is no way it would have been released in it's present form without "final cut." It's not surprising at all that it sat on the shelf for a while. Everything (except the two leads) is just "off" with this movie. I almost feel sorry for it...like a really, really ugly dog...that smells bad.

Maybe it's just me, but as dopey (and plain bad) as many of the DC films have been, none of them seem as cookie cutter as any of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

[AndyDursin]

They're not, I agree. Even when they misfire I often find them more interesting than the Marvel movies which seem to roll off an assembly line. The Marvel movies are usually competent but uninspired and have a sameness running through them. WB doesn't seem to care about the "interconnectivity" of the DC franchises so you have them all over the map in terms of different iterations of the characters being included...but they do seem to give a lot more leeway to the directors making them.

There are times it works, like the Nolan Bat flicks or even something as silly as Wan's Aquaman, and times it doesnt. This one misfired to a huge degree, but in general I prefer the DC approach. At least they will allow someone to swing for the fences even if they hit a pop up.

[AndyDursin]

Joke about IMAGINE not being the worst Gal Godot video of 2020 are all too apropros sadly.

[Eric Paddon]

Sheena (1984) 4 of 10
-The news about the premature death announcement of Tanya Roberts (which is now confirmed a day later), got me to pull this out last night. As much as I would like to be more charitable toward the film out of respect for her death, and also because the character is so iconic, I unfortunately can't. This film took a property that had so much potential and in the end got so much wrong in the execution and the casting of Roberts sadly was a big part of the problem, though in fairness there are a lot of other problems too with the film that had nothing to do with Roberts.

-A decade earlier, Raquel Welch had tentatively agreed to do a Sheena film. I even found an interview with her from the NY Daily News in July 1976 where she talks about her interest in doing the part, and considering how much she was trying to run from her "One Million Years BC" past it says a lot that she was willing to don a loincloth again for a role that she clearly saw on a different level from OMYBC. Unfortunately, Universal which had the rights at the time, decided not to proceed and the project went back into limbo until it got to the screen in 84 at Columbia with Roberts.

-Had the film been made with Raquel, we would have seen a different script and I sure wish I could have seen what they would have done with it because the script for the Roberts film by David Newman and Lorenzo Semple is simply dreadful. The real mistake the script makes is that it utterly fails to present Sheena as an iconic figure who is already *established* as a dominant force of nature. Here, in what was obviously intended to be some kind of series of films, they decide to go for an origin tale basically which begins with "Greystoke" style trappings of the young child whose parents are killed in a cave-in and then when found is adopted by a tribal Shaman and raised to become Queen of the Jungle. Basically, this film represents the "Coming Out" of Sheena and consequently she isn't someone who people already know is a force to be reckoned with. This may not have been a bad approach if it had been tied in to an interesting story but the problem is the story is a boring tale of a king being murdered by his NFL playing brother and then a big chase all across the landscape of a dorky sports reporter who knows the truth and encounters Sheena. Ted Wass, who already embarrassed himself trying to follow Peter Sellers in "Curse Of The Pink Panther" is even worse as a "straight" hero lead as he tries to come on to Sheena with some of the most cringe-inducing pick-up lines you ever heard. And Roberts, showing her unsuitability for the part, comes off more as a displaced American model/beach girl than a primal force of nature like Raquel or Irish McCalla who played the role on TV in the 50s which is how the role should be played. Consequently she more easily goes to mush from Wass's inane pick-up lines and gets saddled with horrible, campy Semple dialogue that evokes nothing but groans.

-And then there's the biggest problem. This film gives us no action of interest whatsoever. We get just a boring trek across a landscape that is mostly dry desert and one-note "escape" from pursuing mercenary soldiers. When we reach the jungle at last in the final reel we get the howlingly stupid "flamingo" scene of swarms of them attacking a helicopter. I think I've spent so much time over the years faulting the inadequacy of Roberts in the part, that this was the first time I really noticed how boring the action and the underlying plot really is and how this kind of script would have sunk the film even with a better actress in the part. Richard Hartley's score with it's Chariots of Fire style main theme is okay during the film's more mystical moments but when it comes time for action sequences its clear he doesn't know how to score them right at all.

-If only time could have been changed and Raquel could have done the film in 1976.

[Eric Paddon]

KING KONG ESCAPES - 2/10. The English female lead in the movie annoyed the heck out of me...her dubbed voice was so irritating (I can only hope that wasn't her real voice). I found this movie to be dumb...the overall plot, the characters, the dialogue...it doesn't even have a camp value IMO. The heroes are dumb, the villains are dumb...lol...I don't know what to say. I didn't like it.

While searching for my old review of Jackson's film I found this. No, that was *not* the actress's voice you heard. Linda Miller, was a non-professional working as a model in Japan with no experience whatsoever. In fact if you listened carefully, the same voice actress who dubbed her (she was Julie Bennett, known for doing cartoons) also dubs Mie Hama! And Paul Frees of course dubs all the male voices (except for lead Rhoades Reason who got to keep his own voice)

"King Kong Escapes" though for what it is, is a superior piece of 60s Japanese kaiju for me because it had a higher budget and production values than the Godzilla films at this point were getting in lesser efforts like "Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster" and "Son Of Godzilla." To me what I really found funny is that by giving us a guy named "Nelson" who commands a submarine this was almost like watching a "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" episode!

[Eric Paddon]

Superman III (1983) 3 of 10

-I'm sure it's been over 15 years at least since I sat through this. Looking at it now not long after revisiting the first two movies (alternate cuts) and after sitting through NSNA with its dated obsession with early 80s video games, this film comes off even worse. I'll just be blunt. I don't find Richard Pryor funny in the least. I've never seen any of his 70s-80s films that made him a hot property and in the years since the only times I've ever watched him have been on old Carson shows. But whether you like him or not, he simply does not belong in this kind of a film. You think of how the first two films opened with their majesty and grandeur, and here this one opens cold with a Pryor stand-up bit in the unemployment line (and a clerk defining bad taste 80s hair) and you'll be forgiven for thinking you've wandered into the wrong film. Then an overly extended slapstick title sequence that gets tiresome and when you recall Lester putting all the lame streets of Metropolis slapstick in the battle sequence in Superman II it becomes even more annoying. Calgary is a cheap stand-in for New York because when they use stock footage from the first two movies the difference is overwhelming. And the villain's plot is pretty muddled and takes forever to kick into high gear and frankly it never really does get rolling. Another big mistake is having Pryor do a long monologue about how Superman thwarted things in Columbia instead of letting us see things unfold as it happened (how did Superman know what was happening to begin with??) Finally, Pryor's change of heart comes off as contrived and phony. The man is just as dishonest as Vaughn is and was perfectly willing to try and kill Superman with the "Tar" Kryptonite (after he did his unfunny George C. Scott impression that is another cringe moment as time goes by) and then he has this contrived change in the climax in the cave?? Nope, not buying it. Pryor beats the rap big time in this one.

-After seeing Gavan O'Herlihy do lamely in NSNA, I'd forgotten he was in this film and is even more annoying. He seems like a tune-up for the Biff character in "Back To The Future" basically!

-The film's one big plus is Annette O'Toole as Lana who is terrific and more than compensates for the near-total absence of Kidder in the film (fired basically and reduced to a two-scene cameo that I'm sure was humiliating for her). Thorne's rearrangement of Williams material wears thin because with Lois absent from the film that means no quoting of the Love Theme anywhere and this makes the end credits really sound choppy and disjointed as they keep recycling the Superman March in out of sequence bursts.

[BobaMike]

Shadow in the Sky 5/10

I'm going to try and explain this movie without spoiling too much....

This new film starring Chloe Grace Moretz and directed by Roseanne Liang, is a WW2 action/sci-fi mess. I can't remember a film that starts out so promisingly but then goes completely off the rails due to a twist that is so mind blowing stupid that I kept waiting for another twist that would correct things.

The first 45 minutes are exciting and suspenseful. Chloe is an injured WW2 army air corps officer in New Zealand (where this low budget film was made). Carrying a package that she refuses to let anyone open due to a top secret order from army brass, she hitches a ride on board a bomber crewed by sexist stereotypes (which should have been my first clue as to how this movie was going to go). They stick her in the belly gun turret, where the film spends almost 30 minutes in a small area, with only Chloe. It's claustrophobic and kept me interested, as she communicates over the radio, spots a Japanese plane, and soon after, an actual gremlin. Yes, this movie is partly a rip off of the classic William Shatner (and later John Lithgow) Twilight Zone story. But still,I was eagerly watching to see how the mystery box and the monster were connected.

But the monster and the mystery box are not connected, which is a huge mistake on the filmmakers' part.

But once the secret of what is in the box is revealed, the movie becomes so unbelievable I can't even begin to describe it. Chloe is climbing all over the outside of the plane in mid-flight, shooting down planes, flying the plane, bossing the men around, and turns into a basically a superheroine. The men character are interchangeable, and one comes seemingly back from the dead (or maybe he didn't die and I couldn't tell which guy he was).

Chloe was good, as this is a basically a one-woman show for a short 88 minutes, the FX were fine for a low budget B movie, and the scenes were well directed, but I never need to see this movie again.

[mkaroly]

Someone should do a Richard Pryor film retrospective on this board...the two films of his I hold in high regard are SILVER STREAK and STIR CRAZY, the latter being my favorite of the two. Pryor starred in some weird (and forgettable) projects, and while he was a collaborator on BLAZING SADDLES, I am glad Cleavon Little got the job. Pryor had a very unique way of acting...his quick body movements, facial contortions, and voice inflections were all fascinating to watch but "quirky" (perhaps partially due to his drug addiction). I don't know if that "hyper"istic way of moving would have worked in BLAZING SADDLES.

Now that I think about it, I love HARLEM NIGHTS. Late period film for Pryor that is an emsemble piece, but I love him in this. His talent was wasted (and unnecessary) in SUPERMAN III. Definitely a pioneer with stand-up on the stage and on the big screen.