Movie Review: Geostorm (PG13 – 109 minutes)

In the 90s, no one destroyed the world better than Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich.  With Devlin producing and Emmerich directing, they gave us Universal Soldier, Stargate, Independence Day (their best) and Godzilla (Their worst).

In Geostorm, Devlin strikes out on his own as the director of a new global crisis movie.  In the near future, as Climate Change continues to make giant storms and natural disasters even stronger, scientists, lead by Jake Lawson, create a satellite web or net above the earth that can dissappate these giant storms, saving hundreds of lives.  The system comes to be known as “Dutch Boy” after the tale of the little dutch boy who put his finger in a dam to save a town from flooding. Jake however, is a bit of a hothead, and the suits in Washington replace him with his younger brother Max, who is working for Secretary of State Leonard Dekkom.  Three years later, the system is due to be handed over from U.S. control to Global control, and things start to go a little fishy. 

One of the satellites malfunctions over Afghanistan, abruptly freezing everyone in a village to death.  President Andrew Palma, concerned because it’s an election year, agrees with Dekkom that they hire their own crew to research the malfunction so that the system is running properly before being handed over to the world.  

Max relunctantly agrees with them to bring in Jake, who has been puttering around in Florida with his daughter (on the weekends he has custody).  After some fairly standard cinematic brotherly family drama – Jake agrees to go back up to the International Space Station to figure out the issue.  Meanwhile, another satellite malfunctions, superheating Hong Kong and nearly wiping out Max’s scientist friend Cheng, who is working on the Hong Kong end of Dutch Boy.

Cheng does some research and comes to find out – shocker – Dutch Boy is being manually sabotaged, and rushes to tell Max in person, since he swiftly realizes he’s being chased.  Jake discovers basically the same thing on the space station and sends a coded message to Max to confirm what Max learned from Cheng.  The clock starts ticking down to a ‘Geostorm’, a giant cataclysmic storm that will basically be a planetary extinction event, as Dutch Boy begins to go offline due to a pile of simultaneous issues, including a virus and the Space Station self-destruct sequence.  Jake has to work with the crew on the space station to find the virus in the system and the saboteur, while Max partners with his secret service girlfriend, Sarah, to get the kill codes for the system directly from the president, all while attempting to track the conspiracy to its origin, which of course, goes up to the highest levels.

The storyline is not original, you can pretty much predict who caused the issues early on, but that’s almost not the point of this movie – the point is the spectacle.  Unfortunately, that falls a little flat as well.  The storm and weather action sequences are not bad - the massive floods, freezes, heatstorms, and tornadoes are interesting to watch, but the overwhelming CGI does take you out of the scenes pretty quickly – this is one rare occasion where I think the destruction will play better on a smaller screen.  The advantage to the original Independence Day was that you did connect to the cast – the wide variety of characters thrown together to survive and succeed.  The same type of story starts here – with multiple characters on many fronts facing the same issues.  However, the characters aren’t given quite the same level of development and time, so there is not the same opportunity to connect, which is too bad, because some of them are really interesting.

• Gerard Butler plays Jake, and can we please stop trying to have him do an American accent?  There is absolutely no reason this scientist/inventor/engineer could not have simply been Scottish. Hell, there’s even a line about how he and his brother were born in the UK.  In any case, he’s certainly action-capable and great at bossing around a thrown-together team.  I didn’t really buy the science coming from him, but he was just fine in all the other aspects of the character.

• British actor Jim Sturgess plays Max Lawson, and yes, eventually he and Jake to put their past grievances aside to come together to help save the world.  He’s just fine as a younger brother always having to clean up his older brother’s mess, but I found myself confused by his haircut – a guy who works that often in the White House would surely have a more formal haircut.

• Abbie Cornish plays Sarah Wilson – Max’s fiancée and secret service agent in charge of protecting the president. She’s no-nonsense, but quickly sides with Max when he starts telling her what is really going on.

• Ed Harris plays the Secretary of State, Leonard Dekkom, a man who seems completely sinister from the get-go, especially when he insists on pulling Jake out of his ‘retirement’ to put back on the Dutch Boy project.

• Andy Garcia plays the president, Andrew Palma, and he was pretty fun – seeming to embrace the silly of the movie at hand.

• Richard Schiff plays Senator Thomas Cross, who basically harasses Jake out of a job in the early portion of the movie.
• Daniel Wu plays Cheng, Max’s buddy and the scientist working in the Hong Kong Dutch Boy office.  He’s charming and fun during the short bit he gets to demonstrate how incredibly hot it is, and then paranoid when he realizes ‘they’ are out to get him and his research.  Honestly, because I’m such a fan of Into The Badlands, I did expect him to fight back, but he mostly just ran away from his attackers here.

• Zaxie Beetz (best name ever) plays Dana, a cybersecurity expert who helps Max figure out what his happening to his access to the Dutch Boy system.

• Alexandra Maria Lara plays Ute Fassbinder, the German scientist who has been running the space station while Jake has not been there.  She’s tough and capable, and ready to do whatever needs to be done to solve the problem at hand.

• Robert Sheehan plays Duncan Taylor, the British crew member on the Space Station.  Eugenio Derbez plays Al Hernandez a Mexican crew member on the Space Station. Adepero Oduye plays Eni Adisa, a Nigerian crew member on the Space Station. Amr Waked plays Ray Dussette, a French crew member on the Space Station.  I did love the international crew aspect.

Overall, the movie is fast-paced, the action isn’t bad, and the disaster spectacle is pretty good – plus, the scenes between Ed Harris and Andy Garcia are pretty great, even if the rest of the scenes are average.  There were pieces I really enjoyed – the idea that travel back and forth to the space station is no big deal and happens very regularly, that everyone works together, that science is at the forefront of government, but the execution of the item as a whole was a little lacking.  I still love Dean Devlin, and I’m really looking forward to the new season of the Librarians – even if this is just worth a rental, but not worth seeing in the theater.

5 out of 10 – Gained points for Daniel Wu, but lost points for not using him enough. Gained points for the international crew, but then lost points for making both Butler and Sturgess pretend to be American.

Cast Interviews!

Retro Movie Review: The Lost Boys (1987 – R – 97 minutes)

The fourth of my Halloween-themed retro horror reviews has arrived!  A re-review of The Lost Boys, another 80s classic, filled with big-time 80s stars, big-time 80s hair, and some great big-time 80s music.

Lucy Emerson, recently divorced, moves her two sons with her to the small California town of Santa Carla to live with her father, who seems to be a bit off.  Michael and Sam begin to explore the town, hanging out at the boardwalk, which has a suspicious number of missing-persons fliers.  While Lucy gets a job at a local video store run by the kindly Max, Michael meets and becomes infatuated with Star, a young woman who seems to be dating the rebellious David.  David is the leader of a young gang of hoodlums who ride motorcycles around and basically do teenage-punk stuff.  Sam meets Edgar and Alan, the Frog brothers, who are a pair of young vampire hunters.  They give Sam some horror comics to educate him on the threats of the supernatural.

When Michael attempts to talk with Star, David steps in and bullies Michael a bit – what with some dangerous cliff-side motorcycling, and bizarre food options back at their lair.  Yes, they have a lair.  Come on Michael, how many red flags do you need?  They end the night with some railroad bridge jumping, and Michael suddenly wakes up at home the next day, a little foggy on the previous evening’s events, but with a beginning thirst for blood – which of course, thanks to his new comic-based knowledge, Sam recognizes.  Sam assists Michael in figuring out he is starting to turn, and since he has not yet killed anyone, he’s only a half-vampire – like Star – and he can be cured if they can just kill the head vampire.

Well, the Frog brothers are all about this plan, and think perhaps that Max is the head vampire.  They run tests on him when he comes over to the house for dinner with Lucy, but he passes all of them – the mirror, the garlic, the holy water and the crucifx – they run all the classics.  Since he passes the tests, they naturally assume that David is the head vampire, and set their sights on eliminating him.  Meanwhile, David attempts to push Michael along the transformation, and Michael learns that Star is in the same situation as he is.  Michael, getting weaker – helps Sam and the Frogs stage a final attack on the lair and the vampires to save both Michael and Star from turning completely.

Now, you’ll note I’m stopping there, and I’m not going to tell you who the head vampire is, just in case you haven’t seen this movie.  You should – it’s unintentionally (I think) hilarious, a little scary here and there, and really fun.  It’s directed by Joel Schumacher (yes, the man who put nipples on the Batsuit), who also was the director of other  80s “brat-pack” movies: St. Elmo’s Fire, and the original Flatliners.  The action is great, the comedy is great, and the music is great – but even better is the cast:

• Jason Patric (no K) plays Michael, the hapless kid who just wants to fit in a new town, but definitely falls into the wrong crowd. In case you missed it, re-watch The Losers, and watch him terrorize Negan, Heimdahl, and Captain America.

• Corey Haim plays Sam, and is really entertaining here as a kid determined to prevent his older brother from turning full vampire.  I can only hope my brother would do the same for me.

• Dianne Wiest plays Lucy, and is trying her best to keep some sense of normalcy for her kids after moving them cross country.

• Barnard Hughes plays the kids eccentric Grandpa, and thank goodness he is so eccentric.

• Edward Herrmann (extra R and N) plays Max, and is so completely kind and wonderful as the suitor that Lucy gets taken with after the move.

• Keifer Sutherland continues his string of sleezy 80s creeps in this movie after already nailing it in Stand By Me.  I can’t help it though, I did find him sexy in this role.

• Jami Gertz plays Star, after playing opposite Jason Patric in Solarbabies (you should see that too), he recommended her for this role.

• Corey Feldman plays Edgar Frog – and this is the first ‘Two Corey’s’ movie, so you can either credit it or blame it for that.  Hey, Dream a Little Dream was great! Jamison Newlander plays Alan Frog.

• Billy Wirth plays Dwayne, one of the other vampire punks.

• Alex Winter (yes, Bill) plays Marko, another vampire punk.

Overall, if you’ve never seen this, then chances are you’re younger than me. It’s fun, it’s a classic – and that saxophone solo from the guy who was Tina Turner’s saxophone player!  Watch it again this Halloween.

9 out of 10 – gained bonus points for the hair.  And for Grandpa’s last line.

Retro Movie Review: Sleepy Hollow (R – 105 minutes – 1999)

For the third of the four ‘horror’ movies I’m going to recommend for Halloween viewing this year – I’m going with Tim Burton’s 1999 Sleepy Hollow.  I’m not quite sure it’s horror, but it is the movie I tend to watch whenever I’m carving pumpkins, so I’m sure it fits the theme.

The movie is set in 1799 when New York City police constable Ichabod Crane is sent to the quiet town of Sleepy Hollow which has been having a series of killings where the victim is found headless.  Crane swiftly learns the townsfolk believe the killer is an undead Headless Horseman – who is the ghost of a Hessian mercenary from the American Revolutionary War.  He comes up from his grave searching for his own missing head, and takes the head of whoever he comes across.

Crane begins his investigation, being squeamish and resolved that whatever is happening is based in science, not lore or specters.  He is skeptical right up until the moment he encounters the horseman himself as it kills the town magistrate.

Crane begins a flirtation with the daughter of the richest family in town, the Van Tassels.  Katrina Van Tassel may or may not know more than she is saying about what is going on.  Crane has to get to know the townspeople and their lurid history to figure out what exactly the horseman is, who is controlling him, and how to finally stop him.

The movie is based on the legend and partially on the Disney movie, but is absolutely a Gothic Tim Burton-style flick. If you like his stuff, you probably love this.  The entirety of the town was constructed specifically for this movie so that Burton could have exactly the look he wanted.  It’s a completely beautiful movie with an interesting story and a wonderful cast. 

• This is back when Johnny Depp and Tim Burton were still working well together and hadn’t fallen into self-indulgent pretentious nonsense. His take on Crane is as a man-of-science who is still very squeamish around blood, death, and the like. However, it really works here and Depp is a perfect fit for Burton’s gothic ‘hero’.  His romance with Katrina is a little unsettling based solely on the age difference between the actors.

• Christina Ricci plays Katrina, and does a good job with a character that is obviously hiding something, but is perhaps not prepared for the ramifications of what she is hiding.

• Miranda Richardson plays Lady Van Tassel, and is both elegant and creepy.

• Casper Van Dien plays Brom Van Brunt, a hapless dolt in the town. 

• Michael Gambon plays Baltus Van Tassel, Jeffrey Jones plays Reverend Steenwyck, Richard Griffiths plays Magistrate Philips, Ian McDiarmid plays Doctor Lancaster, and Michael Gough plays Notary Hardenbrook – filling out the townsfolk with some amazing actors.

• Christopher Walken plays the Hessian in flashbacks to when he had a head, which basically is him growling and leering at folks with sharp teeth.

• Lisa Marie plays Crane’s mother in his own flashbacks, in which Christopher Lee also appears as the ‘burgomaster’.

I really enjoy the movie, it’s creepy and weird, but also beautiful and elegant, and it’s another movie where the cast elevates the material.  Side note – if you didn’t watch Sleep Hollow on Fox, you missed a great show, with an interesting twist on the story.  I believe the first two seasons are on Netflix, and it’s definitely worth a watch.

8 out of 10 – A Great Halloween party flick!

Movie Review: the Foreigner (R – 114minutes)

Stephen Leather wrote and released a thriller novel in 1992 called “the Chinaman”.  It was converted into a movie this year and released starring Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan.  From what I can tell, the movie stays pretty close to the novel.

When the movie opens, Ngoc Minh Quan appears to be your run-of-the-mill Chinese immigrant in London, owning and operating a restaurant, and picking up his daughter from school.  He takes her to buy a dress for an upcoming dance, when a bomb goes off in the street, killing her along with several others. Quan, despondent at losing the only family he has left, checks with Scotland Yard officer Richard Bromley daily, who has no information aside from a group called the “Authentic IRA” has claimed responsibility.  Unwilling to let it go, and determined to get justice – or perhaps revenge, Quan continues to pursue the issue, reaching out to Irish minister Liam Hennessy, who used to have IRA ties.  From this point on, the movie has almost two parallel storylines as Quan pursues Hennessy for answers and Hennessy tries to find answers on his own.  Eventually, both find the answers they were looking for, but not quite as they expected.

I really enjoyed the movie, more so than I was expecting to.  Director Martin Campbell can be hit or miss for me, I loved GoldenEye, but didn’t really enjoy Casino Royale.  And while the Mask of Zorro was fantastic, he also did Green Lantern.  The Foreigner moves steadily, but not all that quickly, as everyone involved is searching for almost the same information in different ways.  The tension stays pretty high all the way through, and is maintained in interesting dialogue sequences and great action moments.  The cast is unexpectedly wonderful.

• Jackie Chan plays Ngoc Minh Quan in a role that is very different from what we’re used to seeing him do.  His portrayal of a man who has just lost everything he loves in the world is beautifully tragic, and yet also completely and totally focused and determined to get justice for his daughter.  There’s less action scenes than he used to do, but it is still all him, and they are wonderful.

• Pierce Brosnan plays Liam Hennessy, and does a great job of making you want to be on his side even when you start to question his motives.  He’s aging well, and plays this role just right.  I know he’s originally Irish, so the accent does fit pretty well, but does seem over-done at times.

• Michael McElhatton plays Jim Kavanagh, who varies from Liam’s assistant to his henchman depending on the situation.

• Liu Tao plays Keyi Lam, who helps Quan run the restaurant, and tries to steer him away from his quest for vengeance.

• Charlie Murphy plays Maggie, Liam’s mistress – who, of course, is not exactly what she seems to be.

• Orla Brady (if you’re not watching Into the Badlands, you should be!) plays Mary Hennessy, Liam’s wife – who also is not exactly what she seems to be.

• Ray Fearon plays Commander Richard Bromley, and he’s exactly what he seems to be. He’s a hard-working officer, unsure how to help Quan, but also determined to solve the bombing.
• Rory Fleck-Byrne plays Sean Morrison, Liam’s nephew and ex-Royal irish Ranger/UK Special Forces.  He is what he seems to be, and agrees to help his uncle track down Quan.

• Lia Williams plays Katherine Davies, British minister and politician, who Liam has to report to, and tries to keep him in check.
• Dermot Crowley plays Hugh McGrath and Niall McNamee plays Patrick O’Reilly, two of the “Authentic IRA”, carrying out these bombings throughout London.

Overall, I definitely recommend this movie – it’s very serious and grim, not at all what you would expect from a Jackie Chan movie, but then, it’s not really a Jackie Chan movie.  He’s simply the audience’s entrance into the story.  It’s almost like Taken, or one of the old Charles Brosnan revenge flicks.

8 out of 10 – ranking high because it was better than I expected.

Cast Interviews!

Retro Movie Review: Dracula 2000 (R - 99 minutes – 2000)

"Bram Stoker’s Dracula", with the exceptionally creepy-on-multiple-levels performance from Gary Oldman, was released in 1992.  In 2000, the aptly named Dracula 2000 was released, which can function as a sort-of pseudo-sequel.  It's nowhere near as good, but certainly entertaining.

The story follows a descendant of the legendary Abraham Van Helsing, who owns and is working in an antique shop in London.  One night, his secretary allows her boyfriend and his hoodlum friends into the shop to steal things. Oddly, they find a high security vault and inside, a sealed silver coffin.  Due to the security around the item, and because they are stupid, the thieves assume it’s very valuable, so despite the booby traps having already killed one of them, they take it and head to New Orleans, because when you steal coffins, that’s what you do. Van Helsing follows them to get it back, requesting that his apprentice, Simon, stays in London.  Simon follows to New Orleans, because that will advance the plot.

The thieves continue to be stupid and so open the coffin on the plane, revealing the also-legendary Count Dracula.  Free, he attacks the thieves, and causes the plane to crash in the swamp.  He heads to downtown New Orleans and encounters college students Mary Heller and Lucy Westerman.  Coincidentally, Mary has been having sexy Dracula dreams.

Van Helsing and Simon get to New Orleans and start eliminating the newly turned vampires that Dracula has been leaving around.  Van Helsing tells Simon he’s not just a descendant, but in fact the original Abraham Van Helsing. After defeating Dracula in 1897, Van Helsing has been keeping him prisoner, watching over his body to ensure he will not get free and prolonging his own life with injections of Dracula blood, gotten via leeches, attempting to live long enough to learn a way to kill Dracula dead permanently (similar to what Setrakian was doing on the Strain). 

Van Helsing tells Simon that Mary is his daughter, which is of course why she and Dracula are drawn to one another.  He and Simon try to reach Mary before Dracula, but he has already turned her roommate Lucy into a vampire, and made her one of his three new brides, because as you know, Dracula is all about having three vampire brides around whenever possible.  The brides are able to kill Van Helsing while Dracula captures Simon and Mary.  Transforming Mary, he reveals that he was Judas Iscariot, and because he betrayed Jesus, he was condemned to live forever as a vampire – which also explains the crucifix issue and the silver issue. Mary, able to keep her wits about her, works with Simon to overtake and kill the brides, then together they hang Dracula so that he burns when the sun rises.  Together, they put him back in his coffin and return him to the high security vault to keep watch over, until the next sequel.

And yes, there were two direct to video sequels, Dracula II and Dracula III.  I can’t speak to the lack of quality of either of those, as I did not see them.  There is also a Dracula 3000, starring Casper Van Dien, Erika Elaniak, and Udo Kier which takes place in space. No, I'm not kidding. This one is questionable in terms of quality - Directed by Patrick Lussier (My Bloody Valentine, Drive Angry), It’s fast paced and sufficiently cheesy.  The reason I like it is the surprisingly good cast. 

• Gerard Butler – back when he was Gerry – plays Dracula as angry, sexy, and cursed.  He’s always watchable, but if you want a little of him in something a little better, check out Reign of Fire.

• Christopher Plummer plays Abraham Van Helsing, and really, chews the scenery in the best way, as an old man who is ready for this situation, but also upset by it.

• Jonny Lee Miller plays Simon Sheppard, and is action packed and British.

• Justine Waddell plays Mary Heller-Van Helsing, who gets to be mostly taken in by Dracula.

• Vitamin C (remember when she was a thing?) plays Lucy, Jennifer Esposito plays Solina, and Jeri Ryan plays Valerie who get to slink around in white dresses as the three brides.

• Omar Epps plays Marcus; Sean Patrick Thomas plays Trick; Danny Masterson plays Nightshade; Lochlyn Munro (who is that guy you’ve seen in everything) plays Eddie; and Shane West plays JT.

• Nathan Fillion, yes that Nathan Fillion, plays Father David.

Overall, the movie is perfectly silly with a cast that you know, just that you didn’t know were in this.  Check it out again this Halloween season, because of all the Dracula movies out there, why not check out one you totally forgot about?

6 out of 10, it’s not great, but it’s fun!