American Pie Presents: Girls’ Rules isn’t as bad as one would expect for a DTV film and is probably on par or even slightly better than some of the other American Pie Present films thanks to a likeable enough cast.
Acceleration is the very type of terrible movie that Amazon Prime members could watch for free and I’m pretty sure that could be where this one is headed in few months time.
Dora and the Lost City of Gold was a movie I was not looking forward to as often this is not my kind of humor and there are a few cringy moments, yet the third act was surprisingly enjoyable, reminiscent of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
3 From Hell is the latest from Rob Zombie and personally (though didn’t wholly mind his Halloween remake), I’m not the biggest fan of his, though certainly acknowledge he does have a unique style to his movies.
I actually didn’t think Death Race: Beyond Anarchy was bad, just a bit more of the same from the reboot franchise, though switching things up making Frankenstein an outright antagonist or extreme anti-hero.
The first three Predator movies are fine entertainment with the sequels not quite reaching the level of excellence in my book, though I do greatly prefer the first movie over the others if only for the quality direction from McTiernan and Schwarzenegger’s tough man and charm appeal.
Animal Factory is probably more noteworthy for the performances by Edward Furlong and Willem Dafoe than offering anything new in terms of story, and commentary, about prison life. Still worth watching, however.
Cross Wars is just an all around bad movie. The acting is poor however they’re not helped with a shoddy script in conjunction with some laughable visual effects. All of that wouldn’t be so bad if this had the fun factor, it was anything but.
VANish actually was a surprisingly well done, if not flawed, suspense thriller with what is hopefully a star-making performance by Maiara Walsh while the writing and direction from Bryan Bockbrader was well done with a unique format with the film entirely taking place in the confines of a van.
Reach Me is a mess of a film that began with the screenplay and continued on with some poor performances by a mostly respectable cast. This is something not even worth a rental and will no doubt be in the bargain bin in no time. The Blu-ray released by Millennium Entertainment has no features but adequate video/audio transfers.
Throwdown is plain and simple a bad movie, which I guess is a bit disappointing if only the DVD cover at least looked professional and I am a fan of Vinnie Jones especially when he’s given a more substantial role. Instead we got some false advertising and an amateurish movie on the whole.
In the Blood has plenty of issues but with Gina Carano’s fighting skills and being at least an adequate enough actress on par with 80s/90s versions of Jean-Claude Van Dam and Steven Seagal, has the potential to be a staple in the thin mindless action flicks if she picks the right scripts.
Force of Execution is yet another lame direct-to-video action movie that serves only for producer/star Steven Seagal to get together with friends and have a good ‘ole time, coherent plot be damned. For their parts, Ving Rhames and Danny Trejo are ho-hum with thin characters and the fight scenes, while nicely choreographed, leads only to an unsatisfying finale which only made me regret the 95-minutes I committed to the film.
Dead in Tombstone is the usual Danny Trejo action vehicle with a supernatural/western twist but everything else is standard quo. The acting is average although Anthony Michael Hall and Mickey Rourke seem to have a hell of a time (pardon the pun) and there isn’t enough of the revenge plot to keep the energy going until the end. I guess if you’re a fan of Danny Trejo, this might be the movie for you, otherwise you can outright skip it.
Death Race3: Inferno is your typical direct-to-video movie meaning a script with thin character development, poor acting even by the pros (at least Dougray Scott seemed to have fun with his cackling) and generic action which leaves this more or less forgettable. The Blu-ray at least offers solid video/action transfers and there’s a decent set of features.