The Wolverine

I didn't have great expectations for The Wolverine. I kind of lost faith in the superhero franchises because every Marvel film that came out was a disappointment to me and after The Avengers, I decided to stop caring. This film takes the gruff mutant, Wolverine into the ninja-ridden land of Japan. I suppose that's not too bad a concept and, being that Japan is far away from the US, it works to separate Wolverine from the X-Men and give him his own movie.

The film starts right off with a middle finger and gives the audience some Inception bullshit as Logan wakes up from a nightmare in which he is present in Nagasaki during the nuclear bombing raid. He sits up in a bedroom with Jean Grey, the woman he himself murdered and is still madly in love with. Soon thereafter he wakes up again, this time for real to his humble abode (aka, makeshift cot) out in the middle of the Yukon wilderness.

Logan has gone full Into the Wild on everyone. He's dropped off the grid and grown a very rugged looking beard. Due to that, there are no appearances of any of the other X-Men at all. Instead what we get is a bunch of cliche martial-artists and ninjas.

The best way I can sum this movie up is, a ninja/samurai film with Wolverine. I felt like the only reason Wolverine was even in it was because the movie is called Wolverine. Seriously, you could probably go through the script of this movie, change Wolverine into any old guy and it would work perfectly.
The plot is a complicated, convoluted mess that's difficult to follow on a first viewing. There's no strong antagonist villain, the bad guys keep getting killed only to be replaced a few minutes later by some other bad guy. It makes me wonder why they even included characters like the evil lizard-mutant lady at all; the only things she really does in the film involve spitting acid on people, shedding her skin or dying.

Aside from all of that, I will grant that the film had some good action. There's a fight on top of a high-speed bullet train which was one of the highlights. Normally in train fights, the opponents stand and face each other as the wind and occasional overhanging object nonchalantly whizzes past them but in The Wolverine, the train goes so fucking fast that Logan and the henchmen he's battling can't even stand and the whole time they're just grabbing on for dear life. It's a great scene. I also liked one particular scene where Logan goes one on one with a samurai. It ends with the predictable, "What are you?" "...I'm the Wolverine." bit of dialogue, but it works.
All in all, I'm not really sure why this film was even made. I can't imagine that it's making all kinds of money and for the story aspect, it doesn't really change anything. Wolverine is still a depressed loner with post-traumatic-stress and the only difference made at the end of the film is that he suddenly decides to lets go of Jean Grey and move on. Big whoop. I don't really think we needed an entire two-hour sci-fi- ninja jamboree to get that plot point solved and how that resolution came out of that mess, I have no idea. It seems all too obvious that this film exists for no other reason than for just some action.

And artwork of Hugh Jackman screaming in the presence of samurai swords.

Most of the actual story development takes place after the credits where they always stick that apparently mandatory hook for the next film, during which Logan runs into a fully powered Magneto and a totally not dead Professor X at a crowded airport and they say some bullshit about how they need him or something, I can't remember. If the X-Men are getting back together, why didn't they just save Logan's "character-arc" for that movie and kill two birds with one stone?
My point is, sure it's an alright flick for what it is but, much like the rest of the plethora of superhero films surging out of Hollywood these days, it left something to be desired and, in this case, felt like a waste of time.

4/10 - Nice action, weak story.

Shark Week: Sharknado

It's real, motherfuckers.

It was only just last month that, for the price of a total loss of all credibility once and for all, Syfy bequeathed unto the world the masterpiece that is Sharknado. Sharknado is the Citizen Kane of bad movies. This made-for-TV film effectively preys on one of our deepest held fears and loathings: a shark tornado. Inclement weather that is so intense, that it cannot be scientifically explained beyond simply, "global warming". This gargantuan whirlwind of pure terror sucks up millions of sharks of all varieties and sends them careening across civilized land for miles, raining snarling, toothy death upon the hapless humanoids who are unfortunate enough to be standing anywhere within a ten mile radius of it. Indoors, on hilltops, in helicopters; there's nowhere that is safe from the horror.

Rumor has it the government is starting a new project for weaponizing Sharknados.

This is not some highly elaborate phantasm of your convoluted subconsciousness, this is Sharknado and it aired on public television Thursday, June 11th, 2013, where it quickly became the second most tweeted televised event in all of Twitter history (i.e. about seven years). The movie is pretty much as straight-forward as it appears. A giant tornado sucks up a bunch of pissed-off, blood-thirsty sharks and all hell breaks loose in the city of Los Angeles. Now, so far on The Aculeus's Shark Week, we've seen sand sharks, snow sharks, Supershark and even a goddamn Sharktopus but good God of all that is holy, Sharknado might just take the all-encompassing, bat-shit madness cake. You haven't lived until you've seen mediocre actors, armed to the teeth with shotguns, chainsaws, bombs and boobs, vying for their very lives against hordes of flying, flesh-hungry fish.

But it really is one of those movies that needs to be seen to be believed. I could talk about every individual scene from sharks swallowing a helicopter co-pilot, to needlessly bitchy ex-wives and their douchebag boyfriends, to setting a pool on fire, to bombing a hurricane in order to stop it, this movie really has it all. The acting as I mentioned above, is definitely sub-par but is actually better than what you'd expect for this kind of movie. Yeah, sure, you can nitpick the nearly emotionless screams and such but it wasn't so bad that it seriously detracted from the rest of the movie and it's certainly better than most of the other films we've seen so far.

What was much worse than the acting, was the writing itself. There's a scene where an attractive female character tells a 'heart-wrenching' story about how she got her scars (she changes the story every time... sound familiar?) which involves a boating trip gone wrong. But this ain't no Robert Shaw in Jaws and she concludes her tale with a line that goes something like, "That's why I hate sharks so much." I'm not sure if it's necessary to throw in some heated emotions towards sharks because what it comes down to is that this movie is comprised mostly of cutting back and forth between stock footage of sharks swimming in the ocean and horrendously CG'd sharks falling from the sky. Oh, and speaking of the CG...

It's so fucking hilariously bad that it's not even worth commenting on. Would you just look at that shot with all of the sharks falling from the sky? That pretty much sums up the entire movie. As I mentioned above, this movie was so fucking popular that it was generating 5,000 tweets per minute at it's peak and had well over 300,000 tweets total and had participation from several celebrities.

As you read this, Syfy is already well underway in their talks about a sequel, which I couldn't be more excited for because out of all of the movies I can think of, all of those unjustly, unresolved plots out there, Sharknado is absolutely the number one in deserving of a followup. What could be next? Is Crocosaurus going to get in on the action? Perhaps the survivors of LA will know that the only way to stop the shark menace is to summon Cthulhu? Maybe this time it will be a super tornado that threatens, not just the west coast but the whole world and humanity as we know it! Whatever the plot could possibly be, I have no idea how they plan to top the original masterpiece.

Sharknado is essentially the newest The Room. So while some people may question the science, or the morals of sensationalizing on a highly sensitive topic such as murderous flying shark-storms, I will sit tight for Sharknado 2 because seeing a grown man dive, chainsaw first into the belly of a shark only one time is simply not enough of an adrenaline rush for me.

This gif sums up the daily struggles of the working-class American.

Shark Week: Sharktopus

I'll admit, it took me awhile to get around to watching this one. There's only so many shark movies an IQ can take before it begins it's decline. This is another one of those movies where the title is pretty self explanatory. The movie wastes no time at all and right in the first minute of the movie, we see Sharktopus killing the fuck out of a pussy, normal great white shark. We are then shown a "high tech" laboratory where they are controlling the beast and they explain that Sharktopus is a top secret weapon designed for the Navy. Now, just think for a moment: if you were asked by the government to design a hyper effective military war machine and given a huge budget to do so, what would your perfectly sane, college educated mind go to?

Well, a fucking remote controlled shark/octopus hybrid of course.
Despite the title of the movie and how catchy the nickname "Sharktopus" is, the monster is rarely referred to as such because the project goes by the uninspiring "S-11". Run in terror.

Whatever the Navy was planning on using this unwieldy bastard for, we'll never know because the very first test they attempt, which was simply to follow a speedboat carrying two innocent, unsuspecting civilians, was a failure. A bump over the head and the collar that controls Sharktopus is knocked loose and that's all it takes to turn it into a reckless killing machine. The first thing it does is send the boat into a rock formation which causes it to explode in a fiery ball of CG.

As hilarious as the first kill is, some of the many other ones are even funnier. Take this one for instance where a hapless bungie jumper is picked off in mid fall:

Or even better, a zip-liner who apparently zoned out Sharktopus murdering everyone at the tropical beach resort he was residing at.

I always knew those things were dangerous.

When you're not watching Sharktopus shred everything in sight, you're plugging your ears lest you be subjected to the abhorrently cast actors in the film, most of whom only existed to die and could've been effectively cut out if need be. The main characters are, for the most part, tolerable but just about every extra is either so over-the-top you'd think you were watching The Wiggles or they're duller than cardboard.

I was actually surprised that I recognized one of the actors. The scientist who created Sharktopus, who sort of takes the role of a bad guy, is played by Eric Roberts, who you may recognize as Salvator Maroni from The Dark Knight. His daughter is like the co-creator or something, but it's weird because not only do the two actors bear no resemblance but they're not even the same race (and no, there's no mention of adoption or anything) and the daughter seems to be hiding an accent of some sort because she occasionally slips in and out of it.

The way the "scientists" go about explaining things is hilarious. They weren't even trying with this one and honestly, as annoying as it was, they made it much more "believable" in Super Shark. Here, it's just utter gibberish that basically means nothing at all. It's like whenever they're asked about it they pull the ol' college know-it-all and completely circumvent the question but try to make it sound like a legitimate answer. It's not like it's even important anyway, it's a fucking shark/octopus that kills people.

So the whole premise of the movie is that the Navy wants it's million dollar project back and they just can't get the damn thing to stop murdering people. Eric Roberts, who's character is named Nathan Sands (yes another sand related name), is trying his darndest to get Sharktopus back unharmed because it's his life's work... God, can you imagine if you live your whole life in scientific pursuits and all you have to show for it was Sharktopus? Anyway, he tells his bounty hunter to use specialized darts to inoculate it so he can haul it in and repair it, I guess. Unfortunately, he only has two of them, so if they miss twice, it's all fucking over. My only question is why not get more darts? Really? Two? This isn't something he built in his backyard, it's a US Navy project. He had the budget to engineer the shark but he didn't have enough to buy more darts which are the only thing standing between success and a complete project shutdown given the highly likely chance that a contingency plan is needed?
Eventually, Nathan Sands dies and the bounty hunter guy, sick of Sharktopus and his shit, takes it upon himself to kill the thing. What I don't understand is that the military was literally standing by just before Sands was killed, Sands just kept refusing to give the order so his precious baby wouldn't be hurt. The Commander actually says,

"If you can't [capture it], I'll send a team in to terminate it. They can be there in an hour, turn that freak of yours into chowder and leave no sign that it ever existed." 

So, if the military has this capability, why didn't the main characters use it? Instead they go after it alone and get about a dozen more people killed along the way.

The thing just goes around impaling people on it's tentacles in all of it's CG splendor. I figure by now it should go without saying that it looks like shit. It's awful. Certainly not as bad as Snow Shark but at least in that movie they had an excuse; it was a damn film festival submission, Sharktopus was made by Syfy (keep it up, by the way). It's hard to really gauge exactly how shitty it really is until you see it in action.

Walking always seems to induce that exaggerated head swinging.

I don't know, it's just such a weird movie. There's a scene where, after searching with a metal detector for all of five seconds, a beach babe digs up a fucking gold doubloon only to have it taken by an old guy after he watched her getting eaten by Sharktopus; The Shark keeps changing sizes, halfway through the movie it randomly goes into that stylish, multi-panel thing from 24 and then never does it again, there's a scene where a girl screams but the actor's mouth doesn't move, characters go from hating each other to being abruptly intimate, the bounty hunter manages to miss the shark from literally five feet away with his fully-automatic machine-gun and there's even a Wilhelm scream thrown in there. Not to mention, some of the dialogue is just really bizarre. Take this one for example:

"He was a nice guy, smelled kinda funky but he was still a nice guy."

Like, what fuck is going on in this film? It may have a lot more action than Super Shark but it's a hell of a lot dumber even considering the random bikini girls, serving no purpose but to be hot that litter that film, a crime which Sharktopus is no less guilty for.

Sharktopus doesn't really come under the "so bad it's good" genre and it's more of the "so bad it's bad" variety and I don't recommend it.

Shark Week: Sand Sharks

Sand Sharks is pretty much what you get when you combine Super Shark with Snow Shark. Basically take Super Shark and stick it in the ground. I can start by saying, it's certainly better than both of those movies.

For starters, the dialogue in this movie is actually pretty well written,with little exception. Unlike Snow Shark, the characters interact in a seemingly non-forced way and, unlike Super Shark, most of the science bits didn't come off as if they were just making up words (It's called Wumbology and I still can't believe you haven't heard of it). Yeah, this movie tries to dazzle and baffle as well. They try their darndest to make the audience understand how the sharks can move and survive in the sand and whatever but it still feels sort of out of place considering how stupid the concept is and there's no mention at all about where the sharks came from or why they've never been seen before. But at the very least, they did try to make some sense of it and they pulled it off better than they did in Super Shark.

What this movie does have that the others do not is enough shark/sand related puns to make your head explode.

"I would've never guessed she was such a shark."

"This spring break is really going to bite."

"Better watch out she might come biting for your job."

"I'm going to see what I can dig up."

"I'm still the big fish in this pond."

And on and on and on. If you're still not convinced, one of the main characters name is Sandy Powers. Durr..

That Sandy Powers by the way is played by Brooke Hogan who has starred in other fondly remembered classics such as Two-Headed Sharks and Avalanche Sharks. But speaking of the acting, it's actually pretty good in this movie and by "pretty good" please understand that I'm grading this on the shark-movie scale. The characters are actually defined from each other and it's certainly a hell of a lot better than Snow Sharks and a bit better than Super Shark as well. The only character I could say is actually memorable was Corin Nemec as Jimmy Green. If you look up that name on IMDb, you may recognize him as that guy that you're totally going to beat the shit out of because he tried to hit on your girlfriend at a club. His character is such a cliche douchebag that it hurts just looking at him but it's actually pretty funny and he plays the jerkoff well.

But we don't watch a shark movie for the writing or the acting, oh no, we watch a shark movie for the mother-fucking sharks.

You don't get a really clear look at them at any point, whereas in Super Shark we get plenty of time to check the bastard out, but the screen time is innumerably longer than Snow Shark so it's not that bad. Despite looking more like enlarged catfish than sharks, the special effects are passable mainly because at this point I'm so desensitized to horrendously rendered fish that it doesn't faze me anymore. Sharks change sizes, they jump out of magical sand puffballs, severed heads are obviously placed in digitally, yeah, yeah. Obviously no one would say they're good but they're not completely laughable.

What I think is weird is that this movie actually bears a striking resemblance to Jaws. I wrote down a few of the similarities.

1. Movie takes place on an island.
2. Shark goes around picking off random people.
3. Town meeting is held, everyone argues about what to do about the shark.
4. Sheriff is the only one who thinks there's a shark.
5. Wants to close beaches.
6. Mayor wants beaches to stay open.
7. Annual party that keeps the town's economy alive is starting soon.
8. Meeting is interrupted by Robert Shaw lookalike who says he'll kill the shark if the reward is greatly increased.
9. Sheriff calls in a shark expert.
10. Everyone goes out to kill the shark.
11. One guy comes back with a dead shark that's hung by it's tail over a pier.
12. Dead shark is examined by the shark expert.
13. Dead shark is not the shark that's been killing people.
14. Big party happens anyway.
15. Shit goes down at the big party.
16. Shark is killed via explosion.

Seriously, even the poster is the same.

And if that wasn't enough, the tagline is "JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE SAFE OUT OF THE WATER..." Now, most of this obviously could be chalked up simply to references and nods to the original masterpiece, but it goes too far and it's sort of a lack of originality if you ask me.

Another pretty strange thing I noticed about this movie, one of the scenes where a shark is blown up, they use a sound effect from the 2001 Halo: Combat Evolved video game. It's the plasma grenade sound and I would recognize it anywhere. I've heard movies egregiously rip sound effects from different sources but that was probably one of the strangest ones that I've caught.

Another thing, that big party I was mentioning above? According to the film, there were thousands of people showing up, but they couldn't get enough extras for that and it's obvious that there's only about a hundred or so people.

Possibly less.

Well that's Sand Sharks. Better than both Super Shark and Snow Shark but still a campy flick that's entertainment factor is inversely proportional to your intelligence.

Shark Week: Snow Shark

We're really digging into the bottom of the barrel with this one. Snow Shark is as lame as they come and is a B-movie in every sense of the word. If you thought that Super Shark was trash, oh boy, Snow Shark makes it look like a Hollywood Blockbuster.

The basic concept of Snow Shark is that, for whatever inexplicable reason, there is a shark swimming around through the snow and terrorizing the citizens of an otherwise small, quiet town. Whereas in Super Shark I complained about the over-exposition and talking way too much about science things that don't really matter, here it doesn't even try. It's just a fucking shark in the fucking snow and you have to fucking deal with it. Makes me wonder, where does the shark go when the snow melts? Is it limited to just swimming in snow? It's not like the snow in the movie was ten feet deep, it was barely above the actors ankles most of the time so the shark must've been burrowing underground. The only explanation they ever give is, "It must be ancient". Not trying to be hypocritical here, but this sort of thing deserves a little more backstory then "It's ancient". How did the bastard get so far inland? The setting is obviously nowhere near any oceans. Who gives a shit? It's a damn shark movie.

Viewers of this movie may be disappointed to find that 90% of the shots of the shark look like this:

and that 100% of the kills look something like this:

You get some very, very brief shaky shots of a shark head grabbing people and the rest happens off screen and they just throw blood everywhere. I suppose I could understand not wanting to give a lot of screen time to what is likely one of the more embarrassing-looking movie monsters in existence but you never get a single good look at it, most of the time it's just a dorsal fin and people being dragged off screen.

The acting by the way is an absolute joke and the whole time I was expecting some kind of plot twist where everyone in the town is actually a Terminator which would explain why there is nary an emotion to be found. It doesn't help that they're delivering some of the most awkwardly written dialogue I've ever seen which includes screenwriting gems such as:

"Promise me you'll kill that damn snow shark if it's the last thing you do!"

"Tom, where are you going?"
"I have a shark to kill."

"Mom wouldn't treat me like this if she was still around."

"Well she isn't around is she?"

"I hate you!"

The list goes on. Every character interaction is worthy of a cringe or two and it's laughable when the movie tries to be serious.

It's also got some all-too-obvious horror cliches like no one believing in the Snow Shark at first or going off alone to take a leak at night. There's not a single shark attack scene where you wouldn't know what was coming a mile away.

Ah, the ol' brush-snow-on-top-of-your-legs-and-scatter-some-blood effect never fails to get the Oscar.

But perhaps I'm being too hard on this flick. I guessed about halfway through that it had been an entry in a film festival of some sort gauging that the budget appeared to be about a week's worth of allowance. As it turns out, I was right and this was in fact submitted to several horror-festivals and actually won several of them. So, if you look at it that way, it's not that bad. As far as the entertainment factor goes, it's certainly less boring than Super Shark but there are much better shitty shark movies out there. So, if you want something campy and stupid, this is a good choice.

Shark Week: Super Shark

What do you get when you cross a Great White with Superman? Well obviously, you get Super Shark and as exciting as that cover art up there looks, the movie itself is far less.

For a film titled Super Shark, I expected it to be much dumber than it was, which may sound like a compliment but I assure you, it isn't. I've been watching shitty shark movies all week now. I can buy that sharks are attacking humans for no discernible incentive, sure. Now it's admirable for a film to aspire to be a bit more than that and try to go the extra mile in believability which Super Shark does. The main character, Kat, is a marine biologist who busies herself by antagonizing oil companies, the latest of which has recently and unwittingly awakened the dormant behemoth known as Super Shark which promptly destroyed the oil rig that disturbed it.

Being that the main character is a scientist of sorts, the writers found it necessary to give her all kinds of technical dialogue about chemicals in the water and where the shark could've come from. It's just all kinds of information that's not really needed. We're talking about a huge fucking shark that comes on land and kills beach-babes, this obviously isn't science and the movie embarrasses itself by trying to make sense of it's own mess.

And speaking of things that are unneeded, that's actually what I could say hurt this movie the most. So much of it was completely unneeded. For 40 minutes it takes us through an entire subplot following a pair bimbo lifeguards that argue over who should get to date the hot new guy only to have them both be killed instantly during their first encounter with Super Shark. Another scene includes a really long photo-shoot with two other girls who are even bigger bimbos than the lifeguards. The scene goes on for five straight minutes before Super Shark gets fed up and puts an end to that bullshit.

As you watch this film, you may wonder why no one ever seems to even attempt to run away from the shark. All anyone ever opts to do is stand there and scream about it. Obviously Super Shark is going to get you if you don't move, he's not a fucking T-Rex, he's goddamn Super Shark. One of the photo-shoot girls tries to be brave and fend off the colossal fossil with a nearby beach umbrella instead of being somewhat intelligent and taking her leave. She had plenty of room to run away and it's not like the monster is very fast on land, all it does is kind of drag itself along the beach.

But maybe I'm over-thinking it. I mean, we're talking about a "cost-efficient" shark flick here and I put emphasis on the cheap part. The special effects at times are laughably poor and at other times depressingly poor. That aside, the acting is alright for the most part but some of the throwaway characters are as obnoxious as they are indistinguishable. The cameras also seem to have been bought on a limited allowance. They're obviously not going to be Hollywood blockbuster status machines but it made the whole thing look pretty cheap and several scenes looked more like an impending porno than an impending shark battle.

But the duration of the movie is spent largely talking and trying to figure out if there even is a shark at all, which is stupid because we knew that right from the goddamn title. It tries to 'tide' us over (pun intended) by throwing in the occasional shark attack scene but it's just a tease and made me want to hurry up and get to the real action. The "real action" by the way? It consists of a brief fight between the shark and some retarded camel/tank thing which is pictured above. Speaking of which, check out this conversation between Kat and the some General.

"What is that thing?"
"Special prototype designed to handle the deserts in Afganistan."
"A walking tank?"
"Walking tank for a walking shark."
"That's brilliant."

What the hell sort of logic is that? So, anything that walks should be combatted by your weird walking tank? The shark makes mincemeat out of it and defeats it by tipping it over. Some secret weapon.

And I always love how the solution to a shark menace is to bomb the ever-loving shit out of it. Is that really how the government would react? Just send in the machine guns and bombs!

inb4: Political debate

But anyway, Super Shark, as awesome as the name implies, is actually pretty boring and more or less just a waste of time. It may still be fun to watch with friends but I wouldn't really recommend it.

Shark Week: Jaws

Welcome to motherfucking Shark Week

It's Shark Week and we're kicking it off with a classic but not just any old classic, the classic. Jaws. The film that started it all. Anyone would recognize that famous John Williams "dun-dun... dun-dun" score without a moments hesitation and the movie poster is no less recognizable. Despite that, with all of the knock-offs, sequels and spoofs, it can be pretty easy to forget the simple ingenuity that made the original so thrilling. If you strip it down to it's core, all Jaws really is is a big-budget monster movie, kind of like Alien. A killer shark goes around picking off innocent swimmers and soon there's only three men and a boat that stand in the way of Jaws and the beaches.

I would say that Jaws is a pretty all-around perfect film and actually consider it to be one of my favorite movies of all time. I admit, I was too young to see it in theatres during it's original release but I still saw it at a fairly young age so there's a bit of nostalgia clinging to it for me. Of course, this film doesn't need to bank on nostalgia in order for anyone to realize it's a fantastic milestone of cinema history.

Like I said, the concept is pretty simple. The first act of the film is all just the set up, the shark goes around killing. Contrary to what popular belief may hold, Jaws actually has a fairly low body count (I think it's four), so the film relies mostly on suspense to 'reel' the audience in (pun-intended). Once all that is out of the way, the real movie kicks in when all three of the main protagonists set sail to capture the bastard, dead or alive. The three acting greats are Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfus and I certainly don't need this Jaws movie poster situated on the ceiling above me to remember that. All three are defined and stand-out from each other. One of the best scenes in the movie depicts the three talking about how they got their sea-scars which then shifts into Robert Shaw talking about a horrifying experience he had with a shark back in the navy and then shifts again into all of them singing. It's all in just one scene and it's great acting to say the least.

It's one of those movies where you keep waiting for the monster and then it comes when you least expect it. The tension just builds and builds right up until the very end. I remember that when I first saw the film, I stood up and cheered at the climax. If you haven't seen Jaws yet, I ask you: what are you doing with your life?