kinzokutaka Reviews

Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King (2006)

Nightmares and Dreamscapes erratic and disappointing

[4/10 · 13 July 2006]

So far Nightmares and Dreamscapes has been erratic and disappointing. The first segment, directed by Brian Henson, may have offered little in the way of groundbreaking storytelling or real scares, but at least it was well-directed, suspenseful, and visually interesting, with solid acting by William Hurt and very impressive special effects for a mini-series.

However, the second story in the series was just dreadful, and not in the good way. The screenplay is bad, requiring the shallow, unlikable protagonists to act illogically in order to move the plot, and having characters ramble on endlessly for the purposes of clunky, unnecessary exposition. The acting is overdone and unconvincing, and I felt far more empathy for a cold-blooded killer in the first story than for the newlywed couple in the second. The director used a million tricks to try to make the narrative spooky, but with the amateurish acting and writing, the end result looks like a freshman-year film school project, with camera moves for their own sake, and little in the way of plot or tension.

If the rest of the series continues like this, I'll be sorely let down. I look forward to William H. Macy's installment, and hope he gets a decent director and screenwriter for his segment. So far the quality is far too inconsistent to predict either way.

The Dungeonmaster (1984)

This is one of the most awful movies I've ever watched.

[1/10 · 27 July 2005]

Oh, heavens. This is one of the most awful movies I've ever watched. My friend Kevin worked at a video store, and would bring home a free movie every night. We marveled at his horrible taste -- each movie was worse than the last. Years later, however, The Dungeonmaster still stands out in my mind as the worst. It has seven directors and eight writers, and while I'm sure it was meant as a collaboration, it really feels like every ten minutes they decided, "Ugh! This is ghastly!" and got another director and writer to do the next segment, without there ever being any improvement. Even the wonderful Richard Moll as Mestema wasn't enough to save this train wreck of a movie. Go ahead and rent it if you love to revel in the awfulness of really terrible movies… otherwise you might be better off with some of the directors' later works like Troll or Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter. Er, on second thought, maybe that's not such a good idea, either.

Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2000)

RID is very entertaining

[19 February 2003]

Every time the latest iteration of Transformers comes out, old-skoolers like me immediately run out and disparage it for not being as good as the last. As a big G1 fan, I can honestly say that the guys who did the translating and voice work for RID did a fantastic job. They took something very foreign, Japanese, and weird (and I say this as a die-hard anime fan) and reworked it into something extremely funny and entertaining. No, it's not as serious as TFBM, and since they didn't have control over storylines like they did with Beast Wars, the character development was dictated by decisions made in Japan. Nonetheless, the finished product looks good and is a blast to watch. The voice actor for Sky-Byte must have garnered the envy of all the other VAs for getting the best lines and funniest dialogue and emotional rampages. No, RID isn't self-possessed and serious. But it *is* entertaining and fun, and for a show about giant robots, I don't think that's such a bad thing.