jasonleesmith6 Reviews

The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981)

Believe the Hype!

[1/10 · 29 April 2023]

Finally, a movie everyone can agree on -- it was horrible!

This movie was so bad that the only way the producers could get any kind of buzz going about it was by legally barring Clayton Moore from dressing as the Lone Ranger when he went to visit sick kids in the hospital.

This movie is so bad that it destroyed the directing career of William A. Fraker. This movie is so bad that Klinton Spilsbury, the Lone Ranger, never landed another role, his acting apparently being so inept that his voice was dubbed over with that of another actor.

Christopher Lloyd (Butch Cavendish) managed to survive this train wreck with his career intact, and Michael Horse (Tonto) found his way into David Lynch's "Twin Peaks, so it didn't destroy everyone it touched, but I'm sure it was a near thing.

As for the movie itself: the story is dull, the pacing is slow, and the acting is wooden. So, all in all, not that far from the 2013 version with Johnny Depp.

Its not even the kind of bad movie which is fun to watch, it is just SUPER dull. If you're tempted (as I was) to watch it just to see if it is as bad as everyone says, resist the urge. Its just that bad.

Britannia Hospital (1982)

I Liked It

[9/10 · 27 April 2023]

What could have been a mundane look at class differences, unions and the medical industry is almost magically breathed into life by Lindsay Anderson. The characters are well rounded. The situations, which could have been cliched, remain interesting to watch, and in many cases, quite funny. The story never becomes preachy or maudlin, and leaves you guessing until the very end. There are a couple of scenes of modest gore, which may prove difficult to some, but otherwise this is an incredibly engaging movie that held my interest until the very end.

My one problem with it, though, was the end. Anderson stated that he intentionally made the ending ambiguous, but, in my opinion, there had been such an escalation up to that point, that some kind of resolution was necessary. It would have still been possible to keep from spoon-feeding a message to the audience, but still resolve the plot, which was left hanging.

Assassin's Creed (2016)

What A Disappointment

[3/10 · 20 April 2023]

I have, so far, played the first six of the Assassin's Creed games, and regardless of what technical issues plague them, they are all beautifully crafted stories, each one better than the last. What then, I am forced to ask, happened to the movie? It commits the cardinal sin of action movies by being horribly dull. For several days after my wife and I watched it, we were asking each other questions about the movie -- not because things were unclear, they were just so boring that they failed to register. In addition to being dull, the story was simplistic -- the entire portion of the film that took place in the past, was just one big chase scene. There was no depth to any of the characters. Supporting characters came and went from the plot quickly, seemingly for no reason. It was just an amazingly dull film, which is a special pity, considering the wonder source material.

Oh! What a Lovely War (1969)

The War Movie To End All War Movies

[8/10 · 24 October 2022]

With a cast including Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave and Maggie Smith, I am amazed that I first heard about this movie less than a month ago. Clearly a neglected masterpiece, and a tremendous first directorial effort by Richard Attenborough.

There is no real plot to this film, it is merely a series of vignettes nominally centered around the young men of the Smith family who have all enlisted in World War I. Through these vignettes, most of which feature songs sung by soldiers during the war, the story of World War I is told. It is an entirely unromantic look at the war, endeavoring to show how needless it was, and how poor the British strategy was.

It drags a bit in the middle (as, indeed, did the war) in the lead up to the 3rd Battle of Ypres. In my opinion, by this point all the salient points have been made, and while the songs are all interesting, no really new ground is being covered. Still, the movie has a very satisfactory ending.

If you can find it, and are a fan of history, or musicals, you should give it a watch.

Willy's Wonderland (2021)

Not a Good Movie, But Sorta Fun

[4/10 · 16 August 2021]

As I did when the "Banana Splits" movie came out, I am going to ask again "Why don't they just make a Five Nights at Freddy Movie?" This is yet another movie that clearly wanted to, but they couldn't get the licensing.

The plot is simple: Nicolas Cage plays an autistic man who cannot speak. His car breaks down in a small town with an abandoned children's restaurant, "Willy's Wonderland" in it. The deal is the local mechanic will fix Cage's car if he spends the night cleaning the restaurant.

The first problem is that everyone watching the movie knows exactly what's going to happen: The animatronic characters are possessed and try to kill Cage while he's locked in with them. There is absolutely nothing scary about a movie when you essentially know the entire plot from the movie poster.

The second problem is that the evil animatronics are pathetically easy to kill. In Cage's battles with them, they appear so flimsy and off-balance that essentially the only thing you have to do to defeat them is to fight back in any way.

The third problem with the movie is Cage, himself. While I have no trouble believing in him as an autistic janitor at a children's restaurant (which I think we all can agree is what he would be if his uncle wasn't Francis Ford Coppola), he is so robotic in his affect, that there is no sense of victory or even accomplishment as he defeats the bad guys. It is really no different from the scenes of him cleaning the bathroom or kitchen.

Which brings me to the fourth problem: A WHOLE lot of the movie is taken up watching Nic Cage clean things. I get it, he was set the task of cleaning the restaurant and he intends to do just that, but that doesn't mean that it is, in any way, interesting to watch.

So, this movie is sort of fun -- it gives you what it says on the box: Nic Cage fighting animatronic mascots. But there are no real thrills, and very little of the dark humor that one would expect in a movie like this. Essentially it is as robotic and lifeless as Willy himself.

Crazy Samurai Musashi (2020)

More Like A Martial Arts Demonstration

[2/10 · 10 June 2021]

Since this movie consists of one non-stop action sequence, I thought that it would at least be fun to watch -- it was not. There is a brief, professionally filmed, multi-shot opening, which hinted at this being a possibly interesting film. After the opening credit, there was a jarring change in scene, lighting and camera, and the remainder of the film was shot by a hand-held camera in footage which looked more appropriate on YouTube. The fighting wasn't even realistic: the hero, Musashi, would basically just tap an opponent with his sword, and the opponent would fall down, roll out of the way, and run to the back of the army to try again -- you could actually see the "dead" fighters roll out of shot and run to the back of the army. For all the people "slain" there weren't even any dead bodies on the ground. In all fairness, I was only able to sit through about fifteen minutes of this before I had to turn it off. Possibly it got better, but I doubt it. I'm not saying filming a 77 minute fight scene wasn't impressive, it just wasn't interesting. I'm not a Martial Arts enthusiast, maybe if you were you would get more out of this film. To me, it was just a bunch of guys very formally hitting each other with sticks. For better fight scenes, watch virtually any other Martial Arts movie.

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

Great Big Silly Fun!

[8/10 · 27 February 2021]

The film is about a self-proclaimed "Pteranodon Enthusiast" who is drafted into G-Force -- the United Nations team that protects the world from Godzilla attacks. He is spectacularly bad at his job, but he manages to discover a baby Godzilla that is hatched from a Pteranodon egg, by the music of psychic children. But none of that matters, because you get to see a giant robot shoot at giant dinosaurs with rainbow lasers!

With lots of fight scenes unencumbered by plot, and special effects that are bad, but not so bad as to detract, this is a movie that will have your inner nine-year-old running around the living room and jumping on all the furniture.

Fantasy Island (2020)

Could've Been A Great TV Show

[7/10 · 7 February 2021]

I'm actually surprised that there isn't more love for this movie. I just watched it, and while the plot was weak in places, and the pacing moved way too fast over certain elements so that the tension and some of the surprise twists were lost, the concept and the overall story were very compelling. I've always liked Maggie Q as an actress, and, this time, it was refreshing to see her in a non-action role. Michael Pena was good as Mr. Rourke, and the rest of the cast delivered. The biggest fault I have with the movie is that, to me, it seemed like the ideas they were working with were so large that I felt that perhaps it had originally been meant to be a television program, and they had squeezed the ideas down to their bare essentials to fit in a film. I could certainly have seen it as a TV show reminiscent of "Lost."

Be that as it may, I enjoyed the movie and would watch it again.

The Raid: Redemption (2011)

Rock-em Sock-em Action Thriller

[7/10 · 17 January 2021]

My one biggest takeaway from this movie, and the idea that I kept coming back to as I was watching it was, "Wow, civil rights in Indonesia are way sketchier than they are in America." :-)

The movie chronicles a squad of Indonesian police who have decided to take down a crime-lord and the apartment building which serves as his highly fortified stronghold. To that end the police break down the doors and basically kill anyone who gets in their way.

The plot is paper-thin, and fairly humorless considering how over-the-top it is, and the violence is a bit too stabby in parts, for my taste; but this was a movie that grabbed my attention straight from the beginning, and would not let it go. Also, many of the fight scenes were spectacular. So, yeah, it was pretty cool, just not the sort of thing you would ever want to have happen in real life.

Ultraviolet (2006)

Couldn't Even Last Ten Minutes

[1/10 · 10 January 2021]

I like action movies and I'm a fan of Milla Jovovich, so I thought I would give this movie a try when I found it in a bargain bin.

I had a sinking feeling from the very beginning, when the title credits were displayed over a montage of comic book covers depicting Ultraviolet. The way Ultraviolet is depicted on the covers is very different from Milla Jovovich in the film, and so this created a sense of cognitive dissonance right off the bat, giving the impression that the film may not be as interesting or very true to its source material. This was a bad decision, especially since Ultraviolet is NOT based on a comic book, and the artwork was commissioned especially for the movie. Why go out of your way to point out how far your movie strayed from your artistic vision?

The movie then opened with this voice-over, "I was born into a world you may not understand," which I think is the absolutely best way of lowering the expectations of the audience ever invented. It was as if the film-maker just straight-out said to us, "OK, look this isn't going to make much sense, but we tried our best."

After the voice over, there is an action sequence punctuated with CGI effects which were embarrassingly bad. Finally, a bunch of guys are killed and a team of police are sent to examine them. The head policeman then says, "OK guys, remember, don't touch the bodies, for obvious reasons." He then proceeds to touch the bodies.

And that was it, that was as long as I could manage to watch this movie. Possibly it got better, but I kinda doubt it. The visual effects were horrible, the action scenes were horribly affected and unnatural, and the dialogue was just silly. It was just a really, REALLY lousy movie.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

They Messed With The Formula And Paid The Price

[7/10 · 4 April 2020]

For those of you unfamiliar with the series, the "Friday the 13th" films are a series of dark comedies in which a group impossibly horny and unpleasant teenagers go out to the woods and are murdered in increasingly over-the-top (and hilarious) ways by the insane, machete wielding serial-killer, Jason.

This is the fourth movie in the series, and no doubt the writers were feeling that the formula had begun to go a bit stale, so, with this movie they tried to mix things up a bit. In addition to the unbelievably horrible teenagers, Jason also menaces a very nice middle class mother and her two children who happen to live in the area. With this simple addition, the entire balance of the movie is thrown off. Due to the family's sympathetic nature, I found myself actually caring whether they lived or died, a sensation I had not felt in any of the previous films. As the film progressed, I was frightened by the thought of the serial killer murdering them. When Jason menaced the young girl and her brother with a machete, instead of amusement, I felt a sense of dismay -- horror, if you will -- at the thought that they might be hurt. This continued throughout most of the movie, and made the film-going experience much more tense than I had come to expect from the previous films.

Fortunately, the film-makers learned their lesson with the one misstep, and few, if any, of the characters in the subsequent "Friday the 13th" films were sympathetic in any way, and the movies are much more enjoyable because of it.

Man from Atlantis (1977–1978)

Surprisingly Good

[8/10 · 19 September 2017]

I have only seen the pilot for this series, but I thought that it was surprisingly good. Certainly better and more interesting than some of its contemporaries, like "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Incredible Hulk." The plot wasn't perfect, but it was nuanced and interesting, and the scenes filmed underwater were believable. There was a sparing use of special effects, and those that were used were decent enough by 70's standards. I don't know how long a show could survive where the hero's only gimmick is that he could breathe underwater, but the pilot's plot didn't feel forced or contrived. It was a good movie, in and of itself. I am forced to wonder, though, with the popularity of Marvel properties at the time: "The Incredible Hulk," "Spider-Man" and things like the "Dr. Strange" TV movie, if this wasn't originally an effort to bring the Sub Mariner to television. He bears a striking similarity to Patrick Duffy's character: both have amnesia, are from Atlantis, and are looking for their home.

The Slowest Gun in the West (1960 TV Movie)

Not Very Good

[6/10 · 23 October 2013]

This seems to have been made immediately after the "SGT Bilko" show went off the air, as a vehicle for Phil Silvers by Nat Hiken, the mind behind "SGT Bilko." It may have started out as a pilot for a new show starring Silvers. If so, it is not surprising that it was never made. Silvers' character as a fast-talking con-man does not merge well into the western genre.

It is always good to see Silvers in anything, but he's not very convincing as a cowboy, even "the slowest gun in the west." There are some funny moments, but many of the jokes fall flat. The theme-song, a western-style ballad about the Silver Dollar Kid (Silvers' character), is repeated far too many times, far too loudly, and gets intrusive after a while. The rest of the cast is stiff, and do not seem to be very well-rehearsed.

The movie picks up when Jack Benny's character appears. Benny was rather famously not very good in movies, but he is very natural in this role -- which is just an extension of his character from radio and TV. Unfortunately he isn't in the movie very much, and the climax of the movie is a big letdown.

It might be fun to see for fans of Silvers or Benny, but don't expect big laughs.

Hay Foot (1942)

Funny Film But No Plot

[6/10 · 31 August 2013]

SGT Doubleday is smart, and the favorite of his commanding officer. He remembers everything he reads, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the military. The only trouble is, he is unable to shoot a gun. Meanwhile, the base's two loud-mouths and sharp-shooting experts have it in for Doubleday because they think he's a know-it-all. Somehow the commander becomes convinced that Doubleday is an expert marksman. Will Doubleday be able to learn how to shoot a gun in time to compete in the sharpshooting competition and win the love of the commander's daughter? Don't ask me, the movie ends suddenly with almost no sub-plots getting resolved. No real explanation of the title, "Hay Foot" is offered either. Doing a search on the internet didn't reveal much, except that it may have been a kind of slang for a rookie recruit. Since this was the second film in the SGT Doubleday series, this doesn't make much sense though.

Nevertheless, it was a pretty entertaining film.

Heavenly Days (1944)

War Propaganda

[5/10 · 2 July 2013]

During World War 2, one "Fibber McGee & Molly" radio program every month, was devoted to some topic pertaining to the war effort, like rationing, or war bonds. "Heavenly Days" was the McGee's third feature film, and while the first two had been done entirely for entertainment, this one was devoted to spreading messages about the war effort.

It wasn't a very funny film, and not because of the message either -- their radio shows were always very funny, whatever message they were trying to convey. I believe this movie suffers the most due to the fact that the McGee's regular writer, Don Quinn, had nothing to do with the screenplay. Don Quinn had as much to do with the success of "Fibber McGee & Molly" as did Marion and Jim Jordon, and the film suffers from his absence.

Marion and Jim Jordon are incredibly appealing in this -- as they usually were, no matter in what venue they appeared -- however they script is very weak, full of ham-fisted attempts at patriotism and sentiment, that really fall short. In addition to this, the plot does not make very much sense.

The film should get should some kudos, though, for including a part for George Gallup (the creator of the Gallup Poll, played here by Donald Douglas). Ah, for the days when a statistician could become a celebrity.

The Apple (1980)

This is just a really bad movie

[2/10 · 24 April 2013]

Other than the kitsch factor of this film, there is nothing whatsoever to recommend it. The acting is horrible; the plot doesn't make sense; the songs are lousy and poorly performed; the sets are not even very good (mainly it was just filmed on location in office buildings in Germany).

I think that the film-makers were influenced by the recent Bee Gees musical, "SGT Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." That "The Apple" compares unfavorably to it, should speak volumes -- just look at the reviews for "SGT Pepper." They were clearly going for some kind of biblical analogy: Innocents are tempted by the evil record company executive, and the woman succumbs to temptation. That's about as far as they could stretch the metaphor, though. The rest of the movie is about how the man tries to get the woman back, and how they are both taken in by a nomadic tribe of hippies, before God eventually rescues everybody and takes then away to populate a new planet. No, really, that's how it ends.

RiffTrax has recently done of riff of this movie. I tried watching it once without the riff, and could only get about 10 minutes into it. RiffTrax makes it much more watchable, but it is still a chore.

Columbo: Dead Weight (1971) Season 1, Episode 3

Were They Trying For A Spin-Off?

[31 October 2011]

I'm not entirely sure of my facts here, but I believe that "Columbo" was one of several mystery shows that were shown in weekly rotation by ABC (again I'm not entirely sure here). This allowed them to make TV-movies, with slightly higher production values and deeper plots than they would otherwise be capable of, if they had to make a new episode every week.

Having watching this episode last night, it seems like they were using this episode to test-drive a possible new series starring Suzanne Pleshette as a "kooky" divorcée who lives with her mother and solves crimes. Far more of the focus of this episode was on Pleshette than was on Peter Falk as Columbo.

I don't wish to cast any aspersions on Suzanne Pleshette, who is an amazing actress, but she was really grating in this role. Her character was not very likable, and her mother was downright annoying. If they were using this as a try-out for her own series, then I am not surprised it never worked out. "The Bob Newhart Show" was a much better fit for her.

As for the episode itself: I agree with other posers who say that the role of retired war-hero is one that Eddie Albert was uniquely ill-suited for. In my opinion, the only role Albert could carry off convincingly was that of a benign and slightly senile grandfather.

Will Albert succeed in getting away with his plan of murdering his business partner and seducing the only witness? Well, since I didn't check the "Contains Spoiler" button, I can't say here. You will have to watch the episode and find out for yourself.

Lucky Luke (2009)

Weak Script But Great Style

[1 September 2011]

I am an American who never really read any Lucky Luke comics. I watched this movie on the strength of its trailer, and the fact that I am an enormous fan of Goscinny's other creation, Asterix the Gaul.

Die hard Lucky Luke fans seem to dislike this movie as being untrue to the comic books, whereas people unfamiliar with the comics seem to enjoy the movie more.

I definitely fall into the latter category. I found the movie to be, generally, very pleasant, very stylish, and well-acted. From what little I know of Lucky Luke's character, I don't think the movie diverged very far from the spirit of the comics. Lucky Luke was given a back-story in the movie, and a fairly dark one, at that. It worked in the movie, I don't know how much it would have upset me, had I been a real fan of the comics.

The biggest fault I found with the movie was that the script was very weak in parts, and felt VERY rushed. I would have liked more time in the beginning of the film, to establish Daisy Town, and Luke's efforts to clean up the town. More time could have also been spent, establishing the character of the villain, Pat Poker. The movie relied on the viewer having past knowledge of many of the character, but in particular, Pat Poker had a very vague character definition.

The settings were wonderful, and the real stand-out, in my mind, was the climax of the movie, which took place in Pat Poker's hideout, It was an absolutely beautiful set, which, for me, was worth the price of admission.

I'm actually pretty surprised that this movie didn't get released in this country. It was a pretty solid action-comedy with good acting, and great style. I found that these positives made up for occasional weaknesses in the writing.