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8/10
Oh man, where do I start with this...
23 July 2014
Warning: Spoilers
This film is probably the most wonderful mess I've ever seen. It's loaded with plot holes, full of terrible dubbing and dialogue, and some hysterical 'special' effects (I'm looking at you, sprinting future android...)

To summarise the plot (probably an exercise in futility):

Some future dudes come back in time and offer to save Japan from Godzilla, who in their time has totally destroyed the country. They go back in time some more, to WWII, and teleport the dinosaur that would become Godzilla under the polar ice cap so he's safely out of the way (because just killing him would be too hard, I guess). However, before leaving, the future dudes leave some future furbies behind.

Upon returning to the present (where everyone still knows about Godzilla, even though he never existed) it turns out the furbies were turned into King Ghidorah by the nuclear testing that would have created Godzilla, and the future people are using him (somehow) to smash the hell out of Japan. Turns out those naughty future people lied - in their time Japan is an economic megapower that basically rules the world, and they hijacked the time machine to come back and destroy them in the past... or something. Not sure why they bothered to enlist the the help of present-day Japanese to achieve this, rather than just doing it themselves.

But anyway, the future dudes are undone when their Japanese team-member (who was apparently fine with this scheme until now) betrays them, and hatches a plan with the Japanese government to re-create Godzilla using a nuclear submarine in the hopes he will destroy King Ghidorah. But it turns out Godzilla has in fact already been created because a Russian nuclear sub just happened to crash in the exact same spot where the future people had dumped the dinosaur in the past (again begging the question why they didn't just kill it). Godzilla heads to a Ghidorah- ravaged Japan and monster smackdowns ensue. Godzilla wins, Ghidorah is destroyed and the evil future people are killed. The end, right?

Nope. Godzilla now turns on Japan and begins smashing things up big time. So the future Japanese lady goes back to the future (where apparently the plan to destroy Japan has been abandoned), finds King Ghidorah's corpse, turns him into cyborg Mecha-King Ghidorah and pilots him back in time to fight Godzilla in the ruins of Tokyo. More questions, such as why didn't you travel back to a point *before* Godzilla trashed half of Japan, arise. Mecha-King Ghidorah eventually emerges from the brawl victorious, crashing into the ocean and taking Godzilla with him.

Future heroine returns to her own time, but not before telling one of our heroes she is in fact a descendant of his in an apparently emotional scene that adds precisely nothing to the film. Beneath the ocean, Godzilla awakens as the credits roll.

And all that happens in *one* movie.

Seriously, you owe it to yourself to watch this mess. Despite only being an hour and forty-five long, with all the stuff going on it feels like a three-hour epic. There's so much crazy - the future android in particular is absolutely hysterical pretty much any time it's on screen - and the needlessly convoluted plot has more holes than Swiss cheese. Add to that those classic Godzilla model effects that manage to be both very impressive and utterly lame all at the same time and you're onto a winner.

I don't even know what score to give this. But it's best taken with a healthy dose of alcohol.
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Deep Rising (1998)
10/10
Oh yes
27 September 2011
I should probably clarify my above rating. If I were to judge this film on it's true merits, it's critical quality, it'd get... maybe 4 stars out of 10. But if I were to rate it for how much I enjoy watching it? 10 is starting to get close...

Everyone involved with this film is clearly having a great time with what they have. And that is where it really succeeds - it KNOWS what it is. It's not going for Oscars, or even any awards at all, it's just trying to make you laugh. It makes no attempt at rising above it's station; I often find that is where 'bad' movies fall down, when they try to be too serious or deliver a message. This is just a party from beginning to end.

Moreover, the acting, dialogue and effects (if sometimes dated) are markedly better than you can usually expect to find in this kind of film. Just about every actor/actress here has scored a major Hollywood role at some point, so you'll recognise the faces. The fact that their characters are so stock is just part of the fun. In Deep Rising, 'an English accent' counts as characterisation, and it's a hoot. Stuff spectacularly explodes, monsters ooze slime everywhere, and the bad guys bring some very serious Chinese firepower to the proceedings. Most importantly, it never feels cheap.

I could go on and on about all the things I love in this film, from the corny, intentionally bad one-liners ("Now what?"), to the genuinely inventive deaths (toilets still make me laugh), to the over-the-top, comedic gore. I guess the only thing that I really need to say is definitely check this one out if you think you can laugh with it. There's a time and a place for your Shawshank Redemptions and your Killing Fields, but for the other times, slap this one on. Preferably surrounded by like-minded guys and a crate of beer.
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New Jack City (1991)
1/10
Wow this was bad...
27 September 2011
I don't normally write reviews, but this film annoyed me so much I felt compelled to put some of my opinions forward.

Firstly, the script. I really couldn't get over how terrible it was, given the good reviews I'd read before watching the film. Don't get me wrong, I like a brainless, thoughtless actioner as much as anyone, maybe more, but I at least want my action scenes to be strung together with some kind of purpose. Here, stuff just happened. The film would be going in one direction and then, with the flick of a switch, that idea would be abandoned and we'd go after something else. The end in particular suffered from this problem, and left me thinking, "WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST DO THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE?!"

Another massive problem I had was with the acting. I'm sure Ice-T has plenty of fans out there, but I couldn't even put up with how bad his acting was in this. It was just atrocious. I wasn't even able to enjoy it in an amused way, because I really got the impression he thought he was being cool. Judd Nelson as his partner also annoyed me, because he seemed to be in the film for no reason other than to have a white guy in the cast. Most of the time he said and did nothing, and in the one scene where he actually takes part in a conversation, I couldn't help but feel that whatever he was saying was irrelevant.

The film did, however, have one saving grace - Wesley Snipes. As bad as everything else was, Snipes was really having fun here, and it shows. Like a black Tony Montana, he chews up every scene he's in, (mostly) overcoming the lame script he has to work with. Sadly though, it's not enough to save what was otherwise a very long 90 minutes. Check it out for Snipes, but don't necessarily expect to come away smiling.
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