"Gods of Egypt" (2016)

Starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Brenton Thwaites and Gerard Butler
Written by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless
Directed by Alex Proyas
Rated PG-13 — Violence
Running Time: 127 Minutes
Trailer

In a world where the Egyptian gods live among man, Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is about to be crowned king as successor to his father, Osiris (Bryan Brown). But during the coronation ceremony, Osiris' brother Set (Gerard Butler) arrives with an army, kills Osiris and claims the throne for himself. He steals Horus' eyes and begins a campaign to conquer any of the other gods who oppose his rule.

A year later, Set has conquered the entire world of man, leaving only the skies above and the afterlife. A young mortal thief, Bek (Brenton Thwaites), is convinced by his girlfriend Zaya (Courtney Eaton) to break into Set's vault to steal back Horus' eyes so Horus can lead an uprising and free the people. Unfortunately, Zaya's plan is discovered by her slave master, Urshu (Rufus Sewell) the architect from whom she steals the plans.

Zaya is killed while she and Bek escape Urshu, so when Bek tracks down Horus he makes a deal with the fallen god to get Zaya back from the afterlife in exchange for Horus' eye. Now, Horus and Bek have only a couple days to defeat Set before Zaya's soul is lost forever.

...or something.

"Monsters: Dark Continent" (2014)

Starring Sam Keeley, Johnny Harris and Joe Dempsie
Written by Jay Basu
Directed by Tom Green
Rated R — Violence, strong language, nudity/sex
Running Time: 119 Minutes
Trailer

Four buddies from Detroit — Michael (Sam Keeley), Frankie (Joe Dempsie), Inkelaar (Kyle Soller) and Williams (Parker Sawyers) — have one last debaucherous evening before shipping out to the Middle East. There, they meet their commander, Frater (Johnny Harris) and head out on patrol, where they must not only contend with the rising violence of insurgency but the massive alien creatures that roam the deserts.

When the team is decimated by an IED and the ensuing gunbattle, the survivors must make their way across the open desert, with danger closing in on all sides.

"I, Frankenstein" (2014)

Starring Aaron Eckhart, Bill Nighy and Yvonne Strahovski
Written and directed by Stuart Beattie
Rated PG-13 — Fantasy violence, language
Running Time: 92 Minutes
Trailer

Frankenstein's monster, called "Adam" (Aaron Eckhart), has been alive now for more than two hundred years. In that time, he has been hunted by the demon forces of Prince Naberius (Bill Nighy). After an encounter with the Gargoyle Order, Adam learns of a centuries-long secret war between the forces of Hell and the gargoyles, who defend mankind.

Not wanting any part in the war, Adam retreated from human society and trained himself to fight with the weapons of the gargoyles. Now, in modern times, he has returned, having decided to take the fight to Niberius. Leonore (Miranda Otto), queen of the gargoyles, wants to understand what it is Niberius wants with Adam, but her second in command, Gideon (Jai Courtney) wants Adam destroyed.

Meanwhile, Niberius, under his human guise as head of the Wessex Institute, has been funding Dr. Terra Wade's (Yvonne Strahovski) research into the work of Dr. Viktor Frankenstein, hoping to recreate it. Unknown to Wade, she's become a pawn in the war between demons and gargoyles, and if her work succeeds, one which could lead to the destruction of all mankind.

"Sharknado 2: The Second One" (2014)

Starring Ian Ziering, Tara Reid and Vivica A. Fox
Written by Thunder Levin
Directed by Anthony C. Ferrante
Unrated - Violence, language
Running Time: 90 minutes
Trailer

Fin (Ian Ziering) and his wife April (Tara Reid) are headed to New York City for a book signing. En route, their plane encounters a storm... full of sharks. Forced to take action again, Fin takes control of the plane after the pilots are killed, but April is injured in the ensuing chaos.

Arriving in the city, Fin seeks to locate his family including his sister Ellen (Kari Wuhrer) and her husband Martin (Mark McGrath). But of course, all hell is breaking loose. With superstorms approaching the city, New York finds itself under siege by sharks falling from the sky. With Manhattan in a panic, Fin must take control and figure out how to save everyone... including Matt Lauer.

"Transformers: Age of Extinction" (2014)

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Peter Cullen and Stanley Tucci
Written by Ehren Kruger
Directed by Michael Bay
Rated PG-13 - Violence, language
Running Time: 165 Minutes
Trailer

Five years have passed since the Autobots defended Earth from Sentinel Prime and Megatron's attempt to transform Earth into a new Cybertron and enslave its human population. But despite their victory and heroic defense of Earth, the Autobots have been branded dangerous by the United States government.

Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) leads a CIA operation to hunt down and destroy remaining Decepticons on Earth. But what Attinger hasn't told his superiors is that with the help of a non-alligned transformer named Lockdown (Mark Ryan), his CIA team is also hunting down and killing the Autobots.

In Texas, struggling inventor Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) purchases a beat-up old truck and tows it back to his workshop where he discovers it's actually a gravely wounded Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen). Prime tells Yeager that he's hiding from humans out to kill him, barely having survived an ambush in Mexico. Cade is willing to help Prime, but his daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz) is afraid and begs Cade to call the government. Instead, his friend Lucas (TJ Miller) does it for them. A CIA team led by James Savoy (Titus Welliver) arrives and threatens to kill Cade and his daughter if they don't give up Optimus Prime.

Cade and Tessa are rescued by Shane (Jack Reynor), Tessa's boyfriend, and the three go on the run with Prime. The group meets up with surviving Autobots Hound (John Goodman!), Bumblebee, Drift (Ken Watanabe), and Leadfoot and Crosshairs (both voiced by John DiMaggio). They soon discover that the transformers killed by Lockdown are taken to facilities owned by Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci) who has unlocked the secret of the transformers shape-shifting abilities.

Joyce has constructed his own transformers, and while Cade struggles to learn the truth and figure out a way to protect his daughter, Optimus Prime wonders whether he should even bother protecting humans anymore.

"Godzilla Raids Again" (1955)

Starring Hiroshi Koizumi, Setsuko Wakayama and Minoru Chiaki
Written by Shigeaka Hidaka and Takeo Murata
Directed by Motoyoshi Oda
Not Rated - Violence, peril
Running Time: 82 Minutes
Trailer

Note: This is a review of the US version of the film, which features a number of differences from the original Japanese version, detailed here. 

 Two pilots, Tsukioka (Hiroshi Koizumi) and Kobayashi (Minoru Chiaki) are forced to make an emergency landing on a mysterious island near Osaka, Japan, after Kobayashi's plane suffers a malfunction. While resting themselves on the beach, they are witness to an incredible sight: a fight between two gigantic monsters.

The two pilots make their way back to civilization and tell the tale, and once again, Japan is gripped with fear over the kaiju menace. An archaeologist, Dr. Yamane (Takashi Shimura), explains that millions of years ago, fire creatures roamed the earth. They were of the Anguiris family, and now slumber only to be awoken by radioactive fallout.

Soon enough, though the government prepares as best it can, the creature they're calling "Gigantis" makes its way ashore in Osaka and proceeds to wreck up the place. Now Tsukioka and Kobayashi join a fleet of fighter pilots to concoct a desperate plan to destroy Gigantis and save Japan once more.

"Con Air" (1997)

Starring Nicolas Cage, John Cusack and John Malkovich
Written by Scott Rosenberg
Directed by Simon West
Rated R - Violence, language
Running Time: 115 Minutes
Trailer

I recently noted that "Air Force One" was the kind of turn-off-your-brain action picture that can be a ton of fun.  While both can be labeled part of the "Die Hard on a plane" subgenre, "Con Air" makes "Air Force One" look like an intelligent Oscar-worthy film.

U.S. Army Ranger Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) is sent off to do a dime after killing a man in a barfight.  Eight years later, he's finally being released to go home to his loving wife (Monica Potter) and meet his daughter for the first time.  He hitches a ride home on a US Marshal Service prisoner transport plane carrying some of the nation's worst fiends.

Once airborne, the cons stage a well-planned siege of the plane.  Led by Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom (John Malkovich), the convicts take control of the plane, killing several of the guards and taking the rest hostage.  Cyrus and his cronies, including Nathan "Diamond Dog" Jones (Ving Rhames), William "Billy Bedlam" Bedford (Nick Chinlund), Joe "Pinball" Parker (Dave Chappelle), are being paid to hijack the plane in order to spring South American drug lord Francisco Cindino (Jesse Borego).  Cindino has promised them all a large sum of money and save haven in a non-extradition country for their help in his escape.  The plane is also carrying a number of other cons who aren't in on the plan, but are more than eager to join in when they see what's going on, like serial rapist John "Johnny-23" Baca (Danny Trejo), but also a few more than content to simply sit by and see what happens next, like the quietly insane Garland Greene (Steve Buscemi).

Poe's best friend on the inside, Mike "Baby-O" O'Dell (Mykelti Williamson), is diabetic and starts to go into shock.  Unable to leave his friend behind, Poe convinces Cyrus and the others that he wants to go along with their plans, saying he's got 15 years left and nothing more to live for than the hope of freedom on a beach.  He vows to save Baby-O and to protect the lives of the captured guards.  Meanwhile, on the ground, US Marshal Vince Larkin (John Cusack) must figure out how to keep hot-headed DEA Agent Duncan Malloy (Colm Meaney) from simply blowing the plane out of the sky, killing Poe and the other hostages.

"The Skulls" (2000)

Starring Joshua Jackson, Paul Walker and Leslie Bibb
Written by John Pogue
Directed by Rob Cohen
Rated PG-13 - Language, sex, violence
Running Time: 107 Minutes
Trailer

Luke McNamara (Joshua Jackson) is a working-class orphan struggling to get through Ivy League college and then figure out a way to pay for law school.  He banks on being invited to join a secret society known as the Skulls in order to afford Harvard Law.  His best friends Will (Hill Harper) and Chloe (Leslie Bibb), whom Luke has a crush on, are not supportive of Luke's plan.

But Luke is offered membership in the Skulls, which he greedily accepts, putting him on the outs with his friends.  But within the organization, he makes new ones: Caleb Mandrake (Paul Walker), the cocky son of powerful Judge Litten Mandrake (Craig T. Nelson) the current chairman of the Skulls.  The Skulls are set up with a unique buddy system called "soul mates", and Luke and Caleb are partnered together.  Litten's soul mate, Senator Ames Levritt (William Petersen) takes a liking to Luke, and offers to mentor him in the ways of the Skulls.

Luke's life begins to turn around - he's pre-accepted to the law school of his choice, large sums of cash appear in his bank account, and he's given an expensive car to drive.  Not long after, Will is found dead of an apparent suicide, but the police learn that he was murdered and the suicide staged.  Luke discovers that Will was doing an expose of the Skulls for the student newspaper when he was killed, and comes to believe it it Caleb who is responsible, and decides he needs to take down the Skulls to get justice and to take his life back.

But the Skulls are an organization comprised of powerful men.  They control the school, the police, and everyone Luke might turn to for help will be in danger.  Who can he trust?  How can he gain leverage over the most powerful men in America, or perhaps the entire world?

"Swordfish" (2001)

Starring Hugh Jackman, John Travolta and Halle Berry
Written by Skip Woods
Directed by Dominic Sena
Rated R - Violence, nudity, drug use, sex, language
Running Time: 99 Minutes
Trailer

Oh, hackers... One day, Hollywood will figure out how to make what you do not look completely ridiculous.

Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) is a former hacker who was caught by the FBI and as part of his sentence is never allowed to touch a computer again.  He works a crappy job hoping to one day get back custody of his young daughter Holly (Camryn Grimes) from her strung out, porn-star mother Melissa (Drea de Matteo).  One day, he's approached by a mysterious woman named Ginger (Halle Berry) with a job offer.  Promising him a hundred thousand dollars just to meet her employer, Ginger convinces Stanley to meet with the mysterious and dangerous Gabriel Shear (John Travolta).

Gabriel needs a hacker of the highest calibre to help him steal $9.5 billion in illegal funds from the United States government.  With this money, he tells Stanley, he will commit America to a war on terror the likes of which the world has never seen.  But hot on Gabriel's trail is FBI agent JT Roberts (Don Cheadle), the man who years earlier caught Stanley.

Trying to make enough money to save his daughter from a life of drugs and porn and keep himself out of jail, Stanley agrees to do the job for Gabriel, settling on a fee of $10 million.  But Stanley doesn't know who he can trust - not Ginger, who claims to be a DEA agent; not Roberts, who will likely send him back to jail; and certainly not Gabriel, who would just as soon kill him as soon as the job is finished.

And when Gabriel proves himself to be less a patriot and more a sadistic murderer, Stanley realizes he's in far, far over his head with no way out.

"Batman & Robin" (1997)

Starring George Clooney, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Uma Thurman
Written by Akiva Goldsman
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Rated PG-13 - Violence, language, sexual themes
Running Time: 125 minutes
Trailer

This movie sucks.

Batman (George Clooney) and Robin (Chris O'Donnell) are called to the Gotham Museum, which is under attack by the villainous Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger).  Freeze is stealing the largest diamonds he can find in order to power the suit that keeps him cold and alive, as well as his ultimate weapon, a 'freezing engine'.  Or whatever.

Meanwhile, in some random South American laboratory, weirdo scientist Pamela Isley (Uma Thurman) has been experimenting with creating plant/animal hybrids... or whatever.  Her lab partner, Dr. Woodrue, has used her research to create Venom, a super-steroid he plans to sell to the highest bidder.  He experiments on a local prisoner and creates Bane (Jeep Swenson), a massive, overly muscled, monosyllabic henchman.  ...or whatever.

After Woodrue tries to kill her with the Venom, Isley transforms into Poison Ivy, a sultry half-woman/half-plant (or whatever), kills Woodrue and takes Bane on a trip to Gotham to destroy Bruce Wayne.

Yada yada yada, Alfred (Michael Gough) is dying, his niece Barbara (Alicia Silverstone) shows up for some reason, Batman and Robin start bickering like dicks, and eventually there's some bullshit about freezing the entire planet and replacing people with plants.

Or whatever.

"Colombiana" (2011)

Starring Zoe Saldana, Cliff Curtis and Lennie James
Written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen
Directed by Olivier Megaton
Unrated
Running Time: 108 Minutes
Trailer

Sometimes the enjoyment of a film comes not from the film itself, but from the audience.  B-movies of this type are a good counterpoint to serious films.

A young girl witnesses her parents' murder at the hands of Colombian gang lords.  She uses her father's stolen information on the organization to buy her way into the United States, where she goes to live with her uncle Emilio (Cliff Curtis).  She asks him to teach her to be a killer so she can get revenge on the people who murdered her parents.

Fifteen years later, Cataleya Restrepo (Zoe Saldana) is a contract killer for hire.  Her uncle locates members of the Colombian gang that killed her parents in America and she pulls off elaborate infiltration schemes to murder them, frustrating FBI investigators who believe they are tracking a serial killer.  Hot on Cataleya's trail is FBI Agent Ross (Lennie James), who begins to uncover a greater plot involving his serial killer when his leads start pointing toward the CIA.  When he tries to get information out of CIA Agent Richard (Callum Blue), he's shut down.  It turns out Richard is in league with drug lord Don Luis, now residing in the US.  Don Luis knows Cataleya is after him and his organization, and sends his top man, Marco (Jordi Molla) to stop her.

Cataleya is getting closer to Don Luis, who is getting more desperate to stop her.  Ross gets a big break when Cataleya's sort-of boyfriend makes a tactical error and takes a picture of her with his cell phone.  Now, with her identity blown, Cataleya must go on the run and force a final confrontation with Marco and Don Luis to get her revenge.

'Star Trek: Enterprise' Season One (2001)

Starring Scott Bakula, Jolene Blalock and Connor Trinneer
Created by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga
Based on 'Star Trek' created by Gene Roddenberry

Jonathan Archer facial expression 1 of 2

Oh, jeez. 

I'm not even sure where to start, here.  I've already reviewed seasons three and four of this series, because I own them on DVD.  Recently the show became available to stream via Netflix, in HD no less, which prompted me to go "well what the hell" and give it another go.  Since I've been steadily watching through the entire franchise this year, I felt it appropriate.

Set one hundred years before the events of the original "Star Trek," "Enterprise" chronicles the adventures of Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula), captain of the first starship Enterprise before the founding of the Federation.  The show opens as a Klingon courier is wounded on Earth while running from alien assassins known as the Suliban.  Captain Archer, against the recommendation of Vulcan ambassador Soval (Gary Graham), decides to transport the Klingon back to his homeworld.  He gathers his crew, including Subcommander T'Pol (Jolene Blalock), chief engineer Charles Tucker (Connor Trinneer), linguist Hoshi Sato (Linda Park), pilot Travis Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery), Doctor Phlox (John Billingsley) and weapons officer Malcolm Reed (Dominic Keating). 

Their ship is the NX-01, the first starship constructed by Earth capable of traveling at warp five.  Archer sets out into the galaxy on Earth's first deep-space mission to make contact with the Klingons.  Along the way, however, the Klingon courier is kidnapped by the Suliban, and Archer vows to rescue him.  This introduces Archer to the Temporal Cold War, a conflict raging across not just space, but time.  The Suliban take their orders from a mysterious benefactor in the future that delivers them technology and information to best their foes. 

After making an enemy of the Suliban, Archer is ordered to explore the galaxy.  He vows to make contact with new worlds and new civilizations. But the galaxy is a more dangerous place than he thought, and Archer will find out just what kind of commander he is, and what his crew is capable of.

Y'know, just like a baby gazelle.   ...or something.

"Resident Evil: Afterlife" (2010)

Starring Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter and Wentworth Miller
Written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson
Rated R - Violence, gore, language
Running Time: 97 Minutes
Trailer

Y'know, Paul Anderson's original "Mortal Kombat" film was dumb, goofy fun... pretty much what one would expect out of a film based on a videogame known more for its ridiculous gore and production design than it's gameplay mechanics.  But his forays into other properties like "Alien vs Predator" and the increasingly godawful "Resident Evil" series are just the flat out terrible moderately-budgeted features.

In the fourth installment of "Resident Evil," Alice (Milla Jovovich), armed with an army of clones of herself, assaults the underground headquarters of the Umbrella Corporation in Tokyo four years after the zombie apocalypse.  Unfortunately, their target, Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), escapes and sets off an explosion that kills all the clones.  But the original Alice manages to escape, and thinks that she's killed Wesker in a plane crash after he injects her with something that supposedly removes her superhuman abilities.  She decides to head to the supposed safe zone of Arcadia, flying to a set of coordinates that only leads her to an airfield full of empty planes and a beach where she is attacked by her friend Claire Redfield (Ali Larter), who seems to be under some kind of mind control.

After breaking Claire out of the mind control, the two of them fly to Los Angeles where they see a sign calling for help on the top of a large prison complex.  They land their plane and meet several survivors, including a former NBA superstar Luther West (Boris Kodjoe), film producer Bennett (Kim Coates), aspiring actress Crystal (Kacey Barnfield), Angel (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), Wendell (Fulvio Cecere) and Claire's brother Chris (Wentworth Miller).  The prison is surrounded by hordes of the undead, and Alice's plane only holds two.  Chris suggests the group use a military armored transport locked up in the prison's garage, and the group begins to make preparations to leave and head for Arcadia - which they now know is a ship just off the coast. 

Unfortunately, the undead manage to finally break into the prison.  To make matters worse, the engine has been removed from the transport, and the prison's armory on the lower levels have been flooded.  And because that's not enough, there's some kind of bizarre, huge, unkillable creature trying to break down the prison gates with a massive ax/hammer thing.  Don't know what that's about.

"Mega-Shark vs Crocosaurus" (2010)

Starring Jaleel White, Robert Picardo and Gary Stretch
Written by Naomi Selfman
Directed by Christopher Douglas Olen-Ray
Unrated
Running Time: 90 minutes

Can you imagine?  Urkel himself, Jaleel White, as a military scientist fighting both the Mega-Shark and the Crocosaurus?  I hardly could, myself, but then I witnessed it with my own two bleeding eyes.

Urkel is a military scientist experimenting with using soundwaves to repel sharks underwater.  Not long after, the Mega-Shark attacks his ship, kills his fiancee, and leaves him with an ambiguous thirst for revenge.  Elsewhere, a random blonde woman in high heels stupidly treks through the jungle to find Wannabe Indiana Jones (Gary Stretch) and hire him to find the supposed monster that's frightened all of her workers.

But then it turns out that she finds it first, since she gets eaten (high heels and all) when the two of them make their way through the jungle together for no reason whatsoever.  Even though it's captured, the boat carrying Crocosaurus to the United States to be studied is attacked by the Mega-Shark, and both Wannabe Jones and Urkel are brought aboard a US Navy ship commanded by Admiral "The Doctor from 'Star Trek: Voyager'" (Robert Picardo), who's just downright too good to be in this fucking movie.  Admiral Star Trek tells Wannabe Jones and Urkel that their only mission is to kill the Mega-Shark and the Crocosaurus... before they kill all of us!

What follows is essentially an hour of low-budget nonsense, the occasional video-game level special effects, a whole vat of cheese, and more bad acting than Nicolas Cage's entire career put together under one roof. 

"The Human Centipede: First Sequence" (2009)

Starring Dieter Laser, Ashley C. Williams and Ashlynn Yennie
Written and directed by Tom Six

I vowed for a long time never to watch this film.  I'd heard rumblings of it over the past months, and eventually looked it up to see what it was about and was thoroughly, flat-out disgusted by its premise.  "The Human Centipede" features what I can easily say is the most repulsive idea for a movie that I've ever heard.  I didn't want to watch it, I never wanted to watch it.  I could easily go my entire life without having watched it.

But beer and pretty girls are like kryptonite. 

"The Human Centipede" is the grotesque story of two American tourists, Lindsay (Ashley C. Williams) and Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie) who get lost in the woods in Germany on their way to a party.  Their car suffers a flat tire, and like many horror movie protagonists before them, they head off in search of help.  Unfortunately for them (and for us) they come across the home of Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser) a world-renowned surgeon specializing in the separation of conjoined (Siamese) twins.  Only now, in his twilight years, Heiter has become psychotically obsessed with creating them instead of separating them.  Lindsay and Jenny find themselves drugged, and wake up strapped to hospital beds in Heiter's basement, along with a Japanese man Katsuro (Akihiro Kitamura) and Heiter determines the three are an appropriate tissue match.

"Jaws 3-D" (1983)

Starring Dennis Quaid, Louis Gossett Jr. and Lea Thompson
Written by Richard Matheson and Carl Gottlieb
Directed by Joe Alves

Best part of the movie?  Lea Thompson in a bikini.

Good god, what a terrible movie this is.  Picking up years after the first two films, Mike and Sean Brody are now adults.  Mike has a job as an engineer at Sea World, which is about to open a new underwater structure.  He's dating Kathryn Morgan, a marine biologist.  During the opening weekend of the new Sea World park, Mike invites his brother, Sean to come.  Sean has been afraid of the water ever since he was nearly eaten by a shark as a child (y'know, in "Jaws 2") but a new girlfriend manages to coax him into the water a couple times.

Basically what happens is that a shark gets into the water park, and begins eating the workers and visitors.  Aaaand it sucks.  The movie was shot in an ancient 3-D process, and looks terrible.  The 3-D effects are few and far between, but when they do finally come, they're atrocious.  Observe.  This only happens a handful of times in the entire movie.  There rest of the movie shot much like previous "Jaws" features, only it makes a lot less sense.  It's nearly impossible to tell what's going on during any of the supposed action sequences in this movie.

Mike's brother Sean appears in maybe three or four scenes in the entire movie, making his presence entirely unimportant.  The script is pretty slight, moving from pointless scene to pointless scene with some water skiing and screaming thrown in for good measure.  Because it was filmed in 3-D, most of the movie is flat-out ugly.  When it's not washed out under atrocious amounts of grain, the picture is soft or even out of focus, and a few scenes are so poorly lit that it looks like a couple of funky colored splotches on black backgrounds.

I suppose I have to give the filmmakers some credit for at least attempting something slightly different from the past two movies, by enclosing the whole thing in a water park.  But the truth is that no matter how good the idea might be, the execution is terrible.

"Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane" (2007)

"Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane" (2007)
Starring David Chisum, Erick Avari, and Richard Tyson
Written by Sydney Iwanter and Mark Onspaugh
Directed by Scott Thomas

This movie should've just been called "Zombies on a Plane" to capitalize on the "Snakes on a Plane" web craze.  Someone also should have written, "I've had it with these muthafuckin zombies on this muthafuckin PLANE" somewhere into the script.  But alas, what we get is what we get.

And what we get is Zombies on a Plane.  Imagine every obvious cliched story beat or character you might want to put in a movie like this, and it pretty much happens.  The plane is flying into a nasty thunderstorm?  Check.  The pilot is two days to retirement?  Check.  Two young couples on a romantic getaway to Paris?  Infidelity among said couples?  Check.  Possibly dangerous prisoner being transported by a US Marshal?  Check.  A douche-y celebrity in first class?  Check.

Badass dude in a silly hat with the skillz necessary to re-deadify the living dead?

Fuckin' check.

Of course, I can't remember what any of these characters were named.  To me, they're all just types.  The plot is just as paint-by-numbers as the characterization - the US government is transporting a super-secret virus sample (incubated in the body of a woman for some reason) in the cargo hold of a commercial airliner.  After adverse weather conditions allows the woman to escape, the virus takes hold and she begins to turn the other passengers into vicious, bloodthirsty zombies.  The government, of course, decides that their only course of action is to shoot down the plane, lest the virus get free and pose a danger to the civilian population.

Why they didn't concern themselves with danger to civilians before loading their dangerous cargo into the belly of a commercial jetliner is never explained.

Loaded with cliches and low-budget special effects, "Flight of the Living Dead" actually isn't terrible.  I mean, it's certainly not a good movie.  But its flaws are also what make it so viciously entertaining.  The plot makes no sense, the characters are stupid and the zombie effects look pretty cheap by most standards... and yet you sort of can't help but laugh at the whole thing and how ridiculous it all is.  Everything about it is obvious, so if you're ever surprised by anything in this movie, then, well, you're pretty stupid.  The humor of it all comes from that very stupidity, coupled with some fun zombie kills.

As a side note, we watched "Flight of the Living Dead" immediately after watching "The Room," and some of the bits in "Flight" are made funnier because of that - mostly concerned the two cheating young travelers.  Whenever the two discuss their infidelity, we were cracking jokes with dialogue from "The Room" and it just drove us into fits of laughter.

So this is another bad movie.  It's more competently made than "The Room" for sure, but it's still entertaining because it's not any good.

"The Room" (2003)

"The Room" (2003)
Starring Tommy Wiseau, Juliette Danielle and Greg Sestero
Written, Starring, Produced, Executive Produced, Financed, Photographed and Directed by Tommy Wiseau

"You ah teawing me apahhht, Lisaaaa!"

There are bad movies and then there are baaaaaad movies.  And "The Room" is a baaaaaad movie.  Every so often I host a "Bad Movie Night" at my house, inviting over some of my friends to tear apart some kind of godawful cinematic tragedy that somehow made it to screen or disc.  In the past, we've endured such travesties as "Gangs of the Dead", "Frankenfish" and "Batman and Robin."  But last night, we watched Tommy Wiseau's "The Room."

I just can't describe how shockingly bad this movie is.  It's called "The Room," but there are actually several locations in the movie, including a living room, a bed room, a rooftop, a park and an alley.  We never learn why the film is called "The Room" and writer/director/star Tommy Wiseau's explanation for that explicit question on the DVD's special features is about as absurdly nonsensical as the movie itself.

The story, such as it is, concerns Johnny.  Johnny is up for some kind of promotion at whatever it is he does for work, and engaged to be married to Lisa, the woman of his dreams.  Things are, apparently, going quite well for Johnny.  Little does he know that Lisa has decided that Johnny is rich and attractive... but utterly boring.  This leads her to seduce Johnny's best friend, Mark.

Oh, and also, PS, her mother has breast cancer.

So while Mark keeps having sex with Lisa and moaning about how they shouldn't because he's Johnny's best friend, Johnny keeps going along like nothing is wrong with his life until he starts to suspect that Lisa is keeping some kind of secret from him.  Johnny is also for some reason paying for the college tuition of a teenager named Denny, who also apparently is in love with Lisa and wants to marry her and have her children.  He tells Johnny this, and Johnny basically just says, "Oh, that's so funny haha."

One day, the entire cast of the film arrives on the rooftop of Johnny's apartment building and finds a drug dealer attacking Denny.  Johnny and Mark beat him up and steal his gun, and then everyone yells at Denny for a while.  Then Johnny has sex with Lisa again, but instead of filming a second sex scene between the two, they simply reuse the footage from the first one set to new music.

Eventually, Johnny discovers Lisa and Mark's affair and goes crazy and commits suicide.  Oh and there was a scene where everyone plays football wearing tuxedoes.  I don't know.

This movie is absurdly, ludicrously bad.  Hell, at one point in the movie, one of the actors apparently quit and he's simply replaced by someone else who interacts with everyone as though nothing is wrong with this whatsoever.  The background on the rooftop scene is digitally composited with footage of the actors, but it's never consistent, and buildings obviously shift locations from shot to shot.  The same lengthy establishing shots of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge are used over and over and over again.

The acting is atrocious in every sense of the word.  Stilted, hilariously idiotic dialogue is delivered by wooden, lifeless actors who are likely reading off cue cards, since they keep looking to the side of the camera.  Tommy Wiseau is the worst, with his thick accent muddling everything he says.  Most of his dialogue appears to be redubbed over, and poorly, with the words rarely ever matching the movement of his lips.

After "The Room" was laughed out of theatres in 2003, it gained a cult following as a terrible movie.  Wiseau claims that this was his intention all along, and now classifies the film as a "black comedy."  But the truth is that it fucking sucks, man.  I mean, hilariously so, of course.  We tore this movie to shreds watching it.  It's amateurish and outright retarded in practically every sense you can think of.

So if you've got some friends and you've got some drinks, "The Room" is probably just what you're looking for.  I've seen high school student projects better than this.

And did you notice how I offhandedly mentioned that Lisa's mother has breast cancer, and then never came back to it?  That's just what happens in the movie, too.