Van Helsing (2004)

I remembered Van Helsing to be 90 minute stupid fun steampunkish action movie. I remembered wrong. This is over two hours. I only remembered one scene. Everything else I had forgotten. Why I had forgotten almost everything? Van Helsing is what you can almost call painfully bad. I had to watch the movie in two sessions because I had enough after first hour.

Van Helsing is a mess because it has too many ideas stuffed into one movie. There is too much of everything. You have Dracula, Frankenstein, werewolves, Mr Hyde, secret vatican organisation and too much of effects and near escapes. Movie doesn't know what it wants to be. Story feels different than what the movie looks. Story wants to be serious, characters look like they are in comedy. Dracula feels more like sitcom character than evil villain.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Underworld did everything Van Helsing tried to achieve better previous year. Neither is great movie but both are better than Van Helsing. I wonder why League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is considered as really bad movie when we have similar but worse movie in Van Helsing.

Van Helsing just have too many ideas for one movie. Penny Dreadful showed how different characters from literature can be added to one story. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen wasn't as successful but it made more sense then Van Helsing. Van Helsing should has dropped at least half hour of length and werewolves, Frankenstein and Mr. Hyde and had shorter action scenes. Then it might have worked.

Netflix's Iron Fist (2017)

If you can't see the video you can find it here.

I almost gave up on vhs look. It took long time to render and I had to do it several times before I found what end the flashing. I wanted to try this look since Iron Fist has roots in old kung fu movies and vhs aesthetics are linked to them.

I forgot to mention couple things in the video. There were too many flashbacks which didn't tell anything new. They were there only to make episodes longer. I almost hated the last episode. It has so many things wrong. It felt out of place because it introduced new concept which didn't have proper build up. There was some build up but it needed more and story should have been spread over two or more episodes. Now it had too much on one episode.

Iron Fist was first miss in Netflix's series but it was not as bad as some say it is. It could have been much better.

Fun fact: Background music was originally made for Daredevil review. Since that it has become my most used background music.

Ragnarok (2013)

Ragnarok is Norwegian action adventure. If you are familiar with Hollywood action adventures you probably feel action part missing. In many ways it is like Jurassic Park in viking mythology. It takes some elements from Jurassic Park movies including kids hanging with adults when they go to dangerous places.

When I started to watch the movie I expected to see regular horror movie with lot of deaths and gore. It has some horror elements but cast is too small to have many death scenes. When your realize what this is you pretty much can see what is happening to every character during the movie. At least if this is not your first horror/adventure movie. But it doesn't matter because movie is so well made.

Ragnarok is another good Norwegian horror movie. Another is Død snø aka Dead Snow (2009). It is refreshing to see good horror movies from outside Hollywood. Recommended if you can watch non-English movies and like horror movies and/or Jurassic Park.

The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

There was I time when I had all Phil K. Dick movie adaptions on dvd. This included famous movies like Blade Runner and Total Recall but also less known movies like Screamers. I wanted all of them because Phil K. Dick stories had interesting and original concepts. Since that there have been several other Phil K. Dick movie adaptions and I have not kept track of them. Maybe I should. The Adjustment Bureau is Phil K. Dick movie adaption.

In good Phil K. Dick fashion everything is not what it looks like. Part of the fun is to figure out what is really going on. Which is why I won't tell much about the story. The Adjustment Bureau is much like Eternal Sunshine of Spotless mind. Main theme is romance where both want to be with each other but something goes wrong. Both are romantic movies with twist.

The Adjustment Bureau is not as good as Eternal Sunshine of Spotless mind. It is good choice if you want to watch something similar. Same goes for Phil K. Dick movie adaptions. There are better ones but this is good choice if you don't want to watch better ones for some reason but want to watch one.

Meet the Spartans (2008)

This is what you expect it to be. Really bad movie telling the story of original movie with adding stupid jokes to every scene. What happened to parody movies? There was a time when parody movies were more than just remakes of original movies with lazy jokes.

300 was over the top and was not meant to take seriously. All the one liners were on steroids. I never got the homosexual undertones. Maybe someone sees them when there are muscular men with little clothes. To me it was always this warrior thing. In real life men would have more armor but 300 wasn't meant to be taken seriously. There is a movie called The 300 Spartans if you want serious movie of the story.

Meet the Spartans is full of gay jokes. Yes we get it. They are muscular men who don't wear too much clothing. Another joke was having fat guy in group. Fighting is replaced by dance battles because that is so original. You see guys using modern technology. Fight with wolf replaced by fight with penguin. Beautiful girl was actually ugly. And so on and so one. It is always the laziest joke unless it is totally obscure reference which makes no sense.

300 is close to a perfect movie. Everything works. It is full of spartan alpha male BS and it looks amazing. It is so over the top it is almost a comedy. To be honest I don't know how you could make parody of it. Some movies just shouldn't be parodied. Meet the Spartans doesn't even try. It has the look which makes most of the jokes feel out of the place. You get more comedy and humor from 300.