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Mutant Chronicles: (Post Apocalyptic Scifi) With Ron Perlman and Thomas Jane I was expecting a little bit better. The end result just doesn’t look that good. If I didn’t know better I might have classified it as a Boll film. Some action scenes, nothing spectacular. The idea is somewhat stupid and poorly executed. The actors, although not of grade A stock, still didn’t have much to work with. Only a few shockers made this movie somewhat memorable. The overall feeling I got was a big “meh…” If you have a long list of priorities, this belongs somewhere on the bottom. If it’s short, forget it.

Punisher – War Zone: (Action) They call it the movie that spelled the end for the Rated R Superhero. The new Punisher is ultra-violent and not all of it is called for. Yes, the factory scene at the start was gruesome with shock and awe but no one needed to see grandma’s half-blown face front and center. The movie is cool, slightly cliched, some characters are stupid but the action is solid. Ray Stevenson, I think, is better than given credit for but I do agree that this movie could have held back a bit, without decrementing the punch, to get a better rating than “For Adults Only” in most countries. Too bad. There are still some things that are great about it, like the first two actions scenes and the to-be-immortal-phrase: “Would you like to swear on an imaginary friend, too?”

Transporter 3: (Action) Having seen the first two Transporter flicks back to back you can’t help but think that although the choreography is good, they tend to repeat and the first two are basically copies from the same mold. The third spices it up a bit, getting some more involvement from the inspector but in the end, it’s pretty much the same movie. They added a new gimmick, added some characters whose only reason is to annoy our serious, cynical, rule-guided Frank Martin and some are just token plot-devices. And this one didn’t even have a lot of spectacular fight scenes though it did compensate with some fancy driving and vehicle stunts. It’s another one in the series. If you liked the first two, this one is a lot of the same. If you didn’t, here’s another to skip.

The Listener: (Supernatural Detective) I’ve seen the first four chapters and I’m not really hooked. It’s either a detective series with the twist being that the sleuth is a passive telepath or it’s a “Series-Aimed-At-Young-People” (And thus crewed with models for actors and piles of bricks as writers) that’s disguised as a detective series. Either way, the cases aren’t interesting, the characters are mostly a bunch of cardboards, the police procedure is highly dubious and disbelieveable and the only interesting part of the story (the main character’s past) is not really dealt with.
I know The Mentalist isn’t really dealing with the back story either but at least that one is funny and interesting.

Primeval is Back for Season 3: (Scifi, Time Travel, Action) They added some actual soldiers to the mix, kept the Predator bit open, introduced some new characters, complications from above and returned Cutter’s old flame with a vengence. But so far it look amateurish, very unprofessional and sometimes even downright stupid. And I expected better. But, it looks like they’re going to really investigate this whol “anomalies” thing more seriously and put in some secret history while they’re at it. So I’ll keep watching for now.

Emperor – Battle for Dune: (RTS, 3D) I never thought I would be so disappointed from a Westwood title and a Dune one at that. I mean, Red Alert 3 was banal and repetitive but at least it was fun. Emperor has an interesting gaming system where you choose where you want to go, who you want to fight and board rearranges all the time to allow you to basically play the game until you’re sick of it. And that’s also an error. The game is very repetitive, not at all interesting, really poorly balanced and above all, disastrous with the fluff. The story is a joke, the decor is flat at best and the acting is one of the worse I’ve ever seen. The best actors were the guild master and the renegade Bene Gesserit and I wanted to smack them have the time. When it came to the end, I could see the holes in the shell and through to the times where the designers themselves were trying, just like me, to just get it over with. I kept the saved games, but I don’t think I’m returning to this one. Skip it.

Frank Herbert’s Dune: (RPG\FPS\Adventure\Don’t Really Know, Unplayed) I was expecting Cryo’s Dune with a 21st century outfit and what I got was something that tried to be a Bioware title but failed miserably. I was hoping for an engaging story but could continue because of the interface. The controls are horrible, the camera works against you and the whole thing is almost unplayable. Skip it.

Wanted – Weapons of Fate: (Action Shooter, Unplayed) When I saw the game come out I was looking around to see if it’s worth it. Watched the trailers, watched the reviews. It’s not even a first or third person shooter. The whole game is based on taking cover and curving bullets, it’s simplistic and also seems very repetitive and too-much-console for my tastes. It looks nice, not state of the art graphics, it may blend the comic and the movie badly but it’s got attitude. So I’ll say, don’t buy it, don’t play it but don’t skip it, watch it. Take you a couple of hours. It’s cool, worth the time, but not the money.

Monsters vs. Aliens: (Scifi, Comedy, 3D Animated) The vibe before the coming out of this feature was “The Best 3D Movie Ever Made”. And I say it’s very entertaining. It’s funny but not trying too hard. It doesn’t abuse the 3D aspect like Journey to the Center of the Earth, which I appreciate. It’s written well and performed well. And it even ends up with a message of sorts that is not jammed down your throat. Now you might think it’s an average movie but I think that because it does all of this with style and subtlety and doesn’t force it, it ends up being a decent movie. It’s not a spectacular Pixar but it’s a very good Dreamworks and worth the 3D experience.


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