TerryMcC Reviews

Lightning Strikes (2009 TV Movie)

a lightning storms a comin'

[1/10 · 12 September 2009]

I have watched a lot of movies in my life, and from the biggest A productions, to quickie drive-in fodder from the 50's, to quirky little independent films, and Lightning Strike is without a doubt the silliest film I have ever seen! And I mean that in a bad way.

I don't know where to start, the bad acting, the bad writing, the ham handed "character development," the fact that it's sort of a steal, bordering on a parody of Jaws, only with "a lightning storms a comin'" instead of a great white shark, or the seemingly endless scenes of Sheriff Hercules trying to talk the mayor to get people out of town because "a lightning storms a comin'" and getting people indoors would do no good, we have to get them out of town (storms don't happen outside of town?) so many times I thought the film had looped back about 20 minutes and started again.

Perhaps it's that according to his film you can dodge lightning if you see it coming first, I think that's the main thing that broke the needle on my silly meter.

Alright, alright I get it, the Saturday night Syfy movies are almost always dogs, and you know that coming into one and 19 times of out 20 you're going to end up getting just what you deserve for tuning in, but this puppy I fear abused that privilege.

Yo-Yo Girl Cop (2006)

2 thirds soap opera potboiler and 1 third live action anime

[5/10 · 6 July 2008]

This remarkably silly film is taken dead seriously by the performers in it which helps in getting though a film that seems to be two thirds soap opera potboiler, and one third live action anime.

Anyway, it seems the authorities know they have only 3 days to stop a mass suicide at a high school by bomb and so of course do this not by closing the place down but instead by placing an untrained street urchin, with rad moves of course, undercover in the school in (she only agrees to do this so they'll let her mother out of lockup in American.) Armed only with a cell phone and a yo-yo, no really a yo-yo, and the occasional aid of the Colombo of Japan, she gets to the bottom of the whole affair.

However don't expect too much yo-yo fu, in fact we have to wait until the last 20 minutes before there's any real yo-ing battles.

Amusing if you don't expect too much from it

Æon Flux (2005)

Seriously

[5/10 · 7 May 2006]

Seriously good costume design, Seriously good looking people, Seriously high number of fight scenes, Seriously high number of rail deaths, Seriously cute actress, Seriously funky looking shoes, Seriously well designed DVD, Seriously asking for Aeon Flux II, Seriously not all that much like the toon, Seriously interesting set design, Seriously Seriously DULL.

Terry

And because the stupid rules here demand 10 lines.

Ya da ya da ya - Ya da ya da ya - Ya da ya da ya - Ya da ya da ya - Ya da!

Fantastic Four (I) (2005)

The first all prologue film.

[4/10 · 8 July 2005]

I get the impression this would have turned out better if they had just skipped the first film and made the sequel first.

In these sorts of films the 'origin' section is a necessary part that can be the best part or as in this one just tedious.

The Fantastic Four it seemed to me was 95% prologue leading to nothing at all.

Over and over I kept thinking. "ah, now the films going to start!" But all that happened was more mediocre dialog from basic cable actors, keeping the pot boiling with a little not very impressive F/X, and even less impressive drama, in a film that I suspect was made by people who were uncomfortable to be making a comic book movie in the first place.

A fantastic four minutes at the end, the rest, in my opinion just dull.

Mansquito (2005 TV Movie)

The plot does not thicken so much as it just congeals.

[3/10 · 12 March 2005]

Great Scott! But it's starting to seem that the Sci-Fi Channel produces these things like link sausage, one after after another after another and all pretty much the same.

Take a cliché hero from column A, a heroine from column B, inject giant mutant X (insect, spider, snake etc), mix will with lots of faceless police/soldiers/general public with a collective I.Q. five points under room temperature as monster fodder and boil in pot until rank.

The only thing they left out of this one (other than an interesting story) was the evil rich guy who wants to exploit the monster of the week.

Oh... and by the way, male mosquitoes don't drink blood, only female mosquitoes do.

2001: A Space Travesty (2000)

Travesty is right!

[1/10 · 13 January 2002]

Can you give a film a negative vote here? If so and all you could give were a -10 I would still complain and want a -11.

These hype farces are at best a hit or miss affair. This one for me was a big miss.

The idea with these things is that if you don't like the joke you are seeing wait two minutes and five more will come flying by. The problem with this one is for me all of them were horrid.

Crude, low-brow to the point of the hair descending to the knuckles. I am sorry, but I just found this painful.

The actresses were pretty at least.

Moulin Rouge! (2001)

As we use to say What a Trip!

[10/10 · 4 June 2001]

I have to say that I went to see this film with more then a touch of trepidation. I had more than a few doubts about a film set in 1900 and yet featured music from that later part of the century? And there is that video that has nothing to do with the film that but was inspired by it... To say the least I was not expecting much.

I was VERY pleasantly surprised. Moulin Rouge is a fantastic intelligent musical fantasy that has more energy in the first 15 minutes than most films have in their entirety. And the fact that they are able to blend the Can Can, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend, Material Girl and Diamond Dogs is close enough to genius to count for me!

Horrorvision (2001 Video)

Almost unwatchable

[1/10 · 16 May 2001]

I found Horrorvision almost unwatchable. While only 70 minutes in length I still found myself hitting the fast forward button again and again. The acting was of the `if I scream and say ***k a lot I'm intense' school. And the story was at best a scenario that had yet to be fleshed out.

While I never go to Full Moon for great film making I have never seen them produce as bad a piece of junk as this.

Who Done It? (1956)

Benny Hill P.I.

[7/10 · 11 May 2000]

Who Done It? Produced in 1956 stars Benny Hill as member of the chorus in a musical comedy on ice who enters a contest held by a mystery pulp magazine and wins a 100 Pounds & a blood hound. Due to typical Benny Hill high jinks he is fired from his skating job and so decides to get an office and become a privet eye. (would 100 pounds have gone that far even back then?) During his short career he happens on a gang of foreign spies & a scientist who has invented a machine that controls the weather, he also gets a girlfriend, played by the beautiful and tragically short lived Belinda Lee (She would die in an auto crash only five years after this film) who works as a stage strong girl. To be sure much slap follows there after. Who Done It rather reminded me of the sorts of films that Bob Hope or Danny Kaye use to make. With the introduction of the weather controlling device it reminded me a bit of the Avengers television series, only with the mod camp replace by hyperactive Benny Hill corn. I would not call it a practically out-standingly good or bad film. It's just one of those films that if you are in the mood for this sort of movie it's the sort of film that will match that mood.

Silly, none too bright, improbable, but with a laugh or two in it. And where else are you going to see Benny as a detective?

And yes he does end up in drag at one point.

Virus (1999)

By the numbers.

[5/10 · 17 January 2000]

If you are a generous and forgiving person you could say

that this film does what this sort of film is supposed to

to do. It has all just been done so many times before, killer

machines possessed by intelligent electricity. In a way

it's as if they had dusted off a script that has been done

too many times already and just changed a bit here and

there. "hmmm? Let's see we have super intelligent sharks, an

anaconda, and 9 Alien rip-offs already. I know! Lets say

it's smart lightning from outer space!" The rest is by the numbers.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The only shocking thing is the public buying this.

[3/10 · 2 August 1999]

I have to say that the Blair Witch Project was one of the most disappointing film experiences I have had in a long while, and with some of the tripe that has been around of late that is saying something

I found it dull, pretentious, and not particularly original. No, I am not jaded by an over abundance of F/X dominated eye candy. I have been hoping for horror films that relies more on the imagination then gore & computer graphics.

This however is not it, I found it a chore to make my way though the thing. There was not a single frightening moment in the whole thing.

I guess this might be impressive to people who have never gone deeper into the wild wood then a slightly ill kept city park.

My guess is that the conspiracy among critics wherein films are cut to bits as a way of teaching the company, or director or an actor in question a lesson. I think this may have been the reverse, because it was made for a song

the critics have decided to prase it to the hilt. It amazes me that the public is falling for this! I guess the American public is not as jaded as I thought. In the end, as someone who works in both education and media if these had been my students and they had made it out of those woods and I got a look at their unfocused effort with an audio track filled with the chant of ****

**** **** as this one was I would given them a solid F-.

I nearly laughed out loud at the ending.

The Challenge of the Lady Ninja (1983)

Worth it for the Lust-Fu alone.

[10/10 · 16 May 1999]

Challenge of the Lady Ninja is a good example of a film that is so bad it is entertaining.

In the Dubbed English version it deals with a Chinese woman who has taken the controversial step of training to use the Japanese skill of of Ninjitsu. We are treated to one wire-fu scene of this taking place, to be sure she is the best of the best, and has earned more then a few enemies among the other trainees.

She returns to Hong Kong to find that her brother has become a Japanese collaborator. That is when we find that despite the modern clothing, and large late 70's sedans this film is set in World War II.

To stop her brother she pulls together a team of female warriors each with her own unique style. The most amazing of which is a prostitute who by spinning about is able to cast an illusion of herself in a bikini that overcomes any male with lust.

The team then goes up against an opposite team of bizarrely dressed Japanese villains. They are almost defeated a number of times but are saved by the timely intervention of a mysteries masked hero.

An amazing bit of over the top bad film making, I recommend it highly.

Lighting Bill (1934)

an anti-masterpiece

[1/10 · 3 April 1999]

An amazing display of film-making ineptitude. You know you are in trouble when from the very start you see the title is misspelled as `Lighting Bill' (the daring adventures of a grip out west?).

The lighting is bad, the sound is bad, crew members wander onto camera! Amazing!

The Matrix (1999)

Neo Gnostic film wonder.

[10/10 · 2 April 1999]

To be sure all the comments before mine say many of thing things I could have said about the fantastic special effects, the deeper than most story, and non-stop action. So I would like to add something else. I would say that while this film is in science fiction / cyber `drag' I would call it a very Gnostic film. The most Gnostic of a number of such films to come out of late (Pleasantville, Dark City, Dead Man) And if you don't know what I mean by Gnostic then look it up. Learning New (Neo) things is good for you.

White Comanche (1968)

Has to be seen to be disbelieved

[3/10 · 28 March 1999]

Yes this is a dull film for the most part, but the sight of Shatner as Notah with his bare white chest is worth at least taking a look. If you don't want to sit through the whole film come in on the last part where the two brothers fight it out on horseback in an extremely badly shot close out.