kaisercam Reviews

Confess, Fletch (2022)

Fletch gets White Guilt

[3/10 · 19 March 2023]

In this remake that nobody (aside from a desperate John Hamm) asked for, we move on from the so-so Chevy Chase 80s era to indulge in the current Hollywood trend of tearing down as many pop culture white male characters as they can. From the likes Poirot and Picard, they must now be portrayed as inept, arrogant bunglers and regularly lambasted by minor characters to check their attitude. This is becoming so tiresome that I generally avoid modern films but wrongly believed I'd be safe with a comedy.

This convoluted and exposition loaded plot gets lost inbetween Hamm exchanging non-stop repartee with two diversity hire cops. In contrast to the Chase films, where Fletch was the joker in a straight laced world, every character here is off-beat, quirky and largerly annoying. Imagine any Bill Murray film where the entire cast was as odd and out of place as he was.

The director tries to fool the audience into believing that Fletch is a clever and canny operator only to pull the rug out from them at the fizzling end making you wonder why they bothered paying for the 'Fletch' IP in the first place.

As per doctrine, the director pays lip service (in a comedy mind you) to the usual Hollywood tropes: 1. White cops kill black people on sight 2. White men enjoy an undefined privilege and must be reminded of it 3. Junior Asian female cops are brilliant 4. White people (not the director obviously) are generally eccentric kooks with no moral compass.

The pace of film is set to how many silly encounters Fletch can have without getting punched in the face. The labyrinthine plot makes no sense in the light of day and the performances are something from a Netflix produced TV series.

If you want a good mystery sans the political indoctrination I'd advise watching anything made before 2015.

Ip Man 2 (2010)

Historical Fantasy

[5/10 · 18 May 2010]

Donnie Yen returns in this rushed sequel to the far superior Yip Man. While the first film offered startling and far more brutal martial arts action than previous entries, there is nothing new or original in the second installment. The film is basically two halves of different stories mashed together. Yip Man's struggle to continue teaching Wing Chun while resisting the local martial arts schools as they attempt to extort money from him. Sammo Hung (the lead antagonist in the first half) shows some decidedly corrupt and criminal behavior but ends the film as a hallowed saint. Midway the story falls back on the previous films theme - Chinese Nationalism. The evil Japanese are now replaced by colonialist British administering post-war Hong Kong. The white characters are all portrayed as cartoon villains, right down to the dastardly laughs and blatant derision for the Chinese. The film fails to mention that the real Yip Man moved to British Hong Kong to avoid oppression and death from his fellow mainland Chinese. Yip Man and Master Hong suddenly bury their feud in the face of British Boxer "Twister" who in a page ripped from Rocky 4 later kills Master Hong in the ring after insulting Chinese martial arts. Towards the end there arises a hatred of westerners that was not present or even indicated for most of the film. Returning characters are little used such as Simon Yam, and Lynn Hung is just there to nag Yip about money. New younger characters look as if they've just stepped out a boy band video. The fights throughout are competent but nothing new and use more wire work than before, with men in their 50s/60s doing acrobatics while fighting. Luckily talk of a 3rd film is now looking unlikely.

Dracula 3000 (2004)

Bram Stoker should sue from the grave

[1/10 · 6 July 2005]

Dracula 3000 or Van Helsing "Dracula's Revenge" (Cheap cash in on another lame Vampire flick) as I saw it is a master class in how not to make a movie. A rag tag collection of misfit salvager's board a previously lost cargo ship "The Demeter" in the (cough) Carpathian System (which later is upgraded to the Carpathian Galaxy) and awake a relentless evil (in this case the script). The film is a bizarre bastardization of Event Horizon and whatever the lamest Vampire film of all time is.

****Spoliers Follow**** After a plethora of production company logos and a credit sequence that most of the budget must have been blown on, we open with a cheesy exposition type speech from Casper (silly name) who plays Captain Abraham Van Helsing (sillier name) and in lieu of actual character development, goes on to describe the twisted, unintelligible oddities that make up his crew. Van Helsing himself sports a spray on stubble and wears a body warmer throughout in a sort of retro 80's tribute to Han Solo (I guess). Now and again the Captain of the Demeter pops up in some sort of mad video diary to tell us nothing of consequence in a pronounced German accent (subtitles sadly not included). Crewmember Mina boards the derelict ship (alone???) armed only with a gun shaped torch and thick east-European accent while conversing with Van Helsing on his ships bridge (which is basically a single glittery wall). Mina wearing a gas mask with rubber hoses glued to the front, encounters what can only be described as a skateboarder in a black cloak who continually glides by the camera. Why this happens as the Vampire is not yet made flesh is never explained. This leads on to a shaky camera chasing Mina down the hallways until she runs into Humvee. It's possible Will Smith could have been drafted in to write Humvee's lines as most of them consist of Humvee reminding us he is black every ten seconds and saying the word "ass" enough for a Guinness book of records entry while delivering all this in a "from DA hood" accent (this is the year 3000, does "DA hood" even exist?) One of the main problems with this film is that it insanely tries to pretend its set in the year 3000. Unfortunately anyone with healthy eyes won't buy this, as the Demeter looks suspiciously like a soviet style ocean going tanker. Possibly the film crew thought it would be okay to leave hammer and sickle symbols everywhere and a sexy poster of Lenin next to a bunch of lockers and explain it away as some sort of futuristic communist comeback special. The crew's clothes look as if they were raided from a Oxfam collection box (sealed since 1993) and they are armed to the teeth with latest in 20th century automatic weapons (with added year 3000 zing when fired) which of course are absolutely no use against vampires. Healthcare is a thing of the past (in the future) as the simpering Professor not only has glasses but is in a wheelchair??? My god what happened to all that genetic engineering stuff.

The professor is an interesting character as he is a direct rip off from Alien Resurrection who had their own rag tag misfit crew with a guy in a wheelchair (who oddly wasn't killed). Fans didn't take to Prof as he appears scared in a lot of scenes If I were entombed in a non-wheelchair access soviet ship pursued by bad acting vampires, and everyone left me because I was such a whining wimp, I'd be scared too.

During the UN-dramatic Mina chase scene the prof informs us (with feeling) "this is disconcerting". The rest of his lines are also disconcerting "bugger", and "We're all going to die" X 100, follows.

Erika Eleniak appears as the Vice Captain (what happened to 1st officers?) in what I thought would be the tired, standard issue, hard nosed, no nonsense, "don't eye me up unless I tell you too", beat up 10 stuntman at one time super-babe, but this is a Z-flick so she basically wears a tight low cut top and even tighter leather trousers. Coolio's performance boosts the ham factor by 90% and is camper than a row of tents but luckily for us he dies soon enough. Although he seems to keep his heart on the right hand side of his body.

After a lot of running up and down the same corridor, using clunky soviet style controls, and sitting in soviet style locker rooms the crew find themselves stranded as their own ship buggers off to find a more interesting crew (probably). Why Dracula is even mentioned is unknown as the main bad guy is called Orlock which is Space Transylvanian for "crimes against fashion" as he dandies about in a big puffy, frilly shirt and even bigger starched collar making Hammer Horror Vampires look slick by comparison. Orlock stops to explain his entire back story (off camera) to Erica Eleniak, but fails to kill her in another rip-off twist from Alien Resurrection. His back story is such a load of mince it's not worth repeating. As the budget can't afford fight coordinators, special effects, original music, script (not written by a chimpanzee) and even proper end titles (the first cast list I saw, were same characters but completely different and Italian names) the film begins to destroy whatever sanity you began with. The crew luckily are able to fight back with the help of a ships computer that contains obscure, millennium old references on how to kill fictional creatures and some handy 20th century pool cues they find in the ship recreation room (up yours "holodeck"). The ending is awful and a little suspect, either they ran out of money or the ex-soviets demanded their ship back. I walked into this film knowing it was bad but oblivious as to how bad it really was.

Revenge of the Ninja (1983)

Die laughing- the way of the 80's ninja flick

[18 September 2004]

Cho's (Sho Kosugi) family are butchered by evil ninja's and he is forced to flee to America. Cho hangs up his sword and open's an art gallery in some slum neighbourhood and is inevitably caught up in a struggle between awfully dressed mafia and a quick-change artist evil ninja. I knew this film was bad as I'd seen it in the 80's but fancied the nostalgia trip. In the end I almost had a seizure from laughing.

***Spoilers***

It opens with the massacre of Cho's family who must be taking part in a reality TV show where you pretend it's the nineteenth century. Evil ninja's for no reason that is revealed, slaughter everyone. Cho returns with his American pal (never revealed how they hooked up) Braden who has a fetish for opening art galleries and is trying to convince Cho to come to America. Ninja senses alerting him, Cho goes tearing into the evil Ninja's who politely queue up to get sliced and diced. Braden being the respectable art dealer he is, produces a colt 45. blows away a couple of ninja's who stand out in the open looking to be shot by a entrepreneur. Cho's infant son (Kane) and non- Japanese looking mother still live. Braden seizes the opportunity and badgers Cho about the gallery idea again.

Jump to America years later, we know this by first seeing the American flag and then a caption beneath that says "united states". We have an obligatory fight scene with Cho's (now piggy looking) son who defends his right to wear a bright pink pullover with some bullies who despite outnumbering him, being bigger than him, and getting some choice hits in, still get their ass kicked by this pint sized ninja wannabe. Cho seems to have prospered and has a dojo in his art gallery and even a blond bimbo with fake tits who fights in her stockings (she is Braden's girl, kind of). Braden is using the artwork to smuggle heroin in what must be minute quantities since it's inside small Japanese dolls. In a masterstroke Braden puts these dolls on display to the public. Braden is partners with the stereotypical mafia who have no fashion sense, (even for the 80's), give each other back-rubs (shudder), most of them look like they've been recruited from the local retirement home. Braden and the don squabble about business that ends with Braden threatening the Mafia for screwing him. You see Braden IS A EVIL NINJA (it's never explained how he learned to be Ninja).

Braden goes on a mafia-killing spree...dressed as a ninja in broad daylight.

He kills a guy in the toilet in less time than it took for him to duck in the stall and put on his ninja costume. Seeking information on the killings and high finance crime the Don asks a tramp in the middle of a busy street. The tramp is dispatched by a shuriken in the eye. Where Braden threw the star from (as passers-by tend to notice a guy dressed in black pyjamas and a silver skull mask) is unanswered. The Mafia Don, (now sporting a cowboy hat) has had enough and sends a white/red Indian and some goons to steal the drug dolls. The police are investigating the strange killings and one cop (who couldn't act his way out of a soggy bag) asks Cho for help.

Cho being the concerned citizen tells them to bugger off and runs out to buy another beige pullover. Meanwhile Chief robbing-Bull and the goons have cleared out the gallery, Cho catches them in the act and a fight-scene ensues. The bad guys in this film can soak up massive amounts of punishment, still come back and produce weapons out of nowhere (like two tomahawks). After dragging Cho through two states with a van, the bad guys escape. Braden sensing his blond bimbo may not be loyal, leave's her in the care of a leering sumo sized child molester who has always wanted a blond bimbo of his own. Braden arrives at the gallery in Ninja garb, but disturbs Granny. Granny then tackles the intruder by morphing into a stunt woman but ultimately gets gutted by Braden. Killing grannies is hot work, and Braden suddenly has a compulsion to take off his mask, but pig boy Kane is up on the roof for no apparent reason. Sensing someone has seen him Braden looks up and sees Kane, but can't catch him.

Braden returns home to find the rapist he left his Blond bimbo with is trying to rape her, so he kills him. Using his magic fluorescent eyes Braden hypnotises the bimbo into capturing Kane. Meanwhile Cho discovers Granny impaled to the wall. The cop who can't act invites him to check out some ex-cons who hang out at a children's playground. The extremely camp looking ex-cons don't take kindly to being asked questions by a bad acting cop and a tiresome fight scene ensues. Meanwhile the hypno-bimbo has Kane who after failing to subdue him by laying into him with a metal pipe, simply carries him away.

The blond bimbo gives Kane to Braden who has hired another leering deviant (who refuses to wear a shirt, but really should). Braden and the henchman inexplicably leave the room letting the bimbo have easy access to a phone. Bimbo calls Cho and spills her guts about Braden only to be discovered. Braden has seen too many Bond films and instead of cutting their throats, sentences Kane and Bimbo to death by sauna and Jacuzzi. Braden realising the Mafia has his drug dolls goes off to the mafia headquarters. Cho gets out his Ninja gear, extra eyeliner and heads off to fight Braden. Both Braden and Cho make the mafia their bitches and end up fighting one another on the roof. After exhausting 50 weapons each (including a flamethrower up Braden's sleeve), Cho triumphs while his ugly kid and the bimbo escape to be reunited.

Gothika (2003)

You will probably require therapy after watching this!!

[3/10 · 18 February 2004]

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** Gothika is another example of the hollywood concept film. Prison psychiatrist Halle Berry finds herself on the wrong side of the bars when her badly cast, older, fatter husband is murdered and all clues point to her and she ends up imprisoned with the mental cases she used to treat. That's the concept that some sucker of a film executive got sold. This pathetic attempt at a thriller, with a not so subtle nod at "What Lies Underneath" is neither scary nor tense and Halle Berry acts like she should be handing her oscar back. If you like a plot to make sense then (By plot I mean a story that leads to a logical conclusion that you can understand and appreciate) do not waste your time on this, as it is only a vehicle for Halle and Robert Downey JR's 50th comeback. Penelope Cruz also assaults your sense of sanity with her unintelligible accent. This movie is cliched right down to the dark foreboding old style country prison with the standard issue thunder and lighting storm. I don't know if this film was too long and they cut it down for pace reasons but if so they cut out any logic with it.

*****Major Spoilers Ahead*****

Ok if like me you were daft enough to watch this, I want to explain what I was moaning about above, I realise this is a movie about ghosts but come on, even ghost stories should make some sense. First off how many of us believe Halle Berry would be married to the guy who played her husband and that she would be allowed to work under him in a prison environment and that her being an intelligent, observant psychiatrist had no idea he was a sexual deviant who spends a lot of time down "at the farm". Why does the girls ghost decide all of a sudden to return that particular night after being dead for 4/5 years, was she waiting for the right atmosphere as it was bad weather? How many people accept that someone who worked (literally the night before) in a prison would be committed to that very same prison and be overseen by her friend and colleagues? Not to mention being incarcerated with her former patients, tad dangerous maybe? Even if it was just a temporary measure to place her there until she was formerly brought to trial she would be kept elsewhere for her own safety and a psychiatrist who doesn't know her would treat her as it would be a conflict of interest when it came to testifying at the trial. Next up, who bought the rational (non-paranormal) excuse for the shower scene, Halle manages to gouge out words in her arm in like 10 seconds and afterwards Robert Downey Jr and a prison employee explain the incident away as "she must have smuggled a scalpel in". How did she manage this? (she was in a bathrobe, and was watched the whole time) Where did the phantom scalpel come from? Where do they think the scalpel went in the shower room?. Better still the first time she escapes her cell (the ghost unlocked it)nobody seems to be interested on how she accomplished this magical feat as Robert Downey Jr remains sceptical. Let's move on the ghost herself, now apparently she committed suicide due to the abuse she was suffering. How did the perverts accomplish this? Did they ring at Bernard Hill's door and ask if she could come out? Did they intercept her (somewhere) take her to the farm and then let her go home taking the chance she wouldn't reveal anything? Wouldn't Bernard Hill notice the emotional after-effects? Ok, how about the second escape with the scene where Halle hides next to the friendly guard who lets her go and gives her his car keys. What is this guard on? Hasn't he heard about the overwhelming evidence against her? Nearly there folks, moving on now to the final scenes. Why did the girl in the sex dungeon just stay there? it was unlocked, why hide there and eventually starve to death?

While Halle is chatting away with the sheriff Robert Downey Jr must have read the script as he finally decides to investigate the tattoo on his PC, now this scene cuts to the police station and after that Rob runs up to the window just after Halle despatches the Sheriff. How did Robert figure it out? Was the tattoo website he went to, hosted by the sheriff? And speaking of the sheriff how did he keep getting in the prison to rape the inmates, even law officers don't have free run of prisons let alone the keys to prisoners cells. Fine forget that, lets go back to the Sheriff's office, when Halle finally works it out the sheriff follows the murderers handbook to the letter and totally disregards any attempt to cover up the fact he's out to kill her by smashing up the place and firing wildly with a handgun/shotgun in the now deserted office (where is everyone?, does the office close at the weekend?).

And now the final abomination HOW THE HELL DOES HALLE'S CHARACTER GET FREED AT THE END. It is a fact that she killed her husband, the courts recognise insanity they don't recognise murder by possession. It doesn't matter how many people her husband killed you still get jailed. The defense was to claim when she got home that night she found out he was a sicko and he attacked her (despite the forensic evidence to the contrary)and she killed him in self-defense. Of course any decent prosecutor would ask "well why didn't you say that in the first place instead of denying it". No court is going to quibble with a woman killing a murderer/rapist in self defence. So with all that in mind I HATE THIS FILM.