SPIDER-NOIR (2026)

For the last decade, Nicolas Cage has been in a never-ending cycle of "almost comeback" status: Every single movie that comes out are said to be game-changing roles... Here's another; following the original voice-over for the surprise Spiderverse hit that featured Spider-Noir as a side-character, now he's the Live-Action focal-point: A full-blown attempt to combine the old 1940's gumshoe device into modern times: and frankly, it doesn't always work... While always a cool cat on screen, Cage is too old now, and his voice, his narration needed for the typical pulpy cadence, is faltering and not edgy like it should be... Had this been 2010 Cage, it might work...

The special effects, like a villain with a face lighting on fire, is not only too CGI, but takes away from what's attempting a more hands-on/old-school approach... Within such an otherwise antique forum, the expensive special effects simply stand out too much... And the overall timing is mostly off (and fans of Spider-Man in general would not last 10 minutes watching those classic movies, or anything made before the 1990's, and they probably think that Christopher Nolan invented Noir): Cage's Girl Friday secretary over-acts and seems part of a sit-com; the femme-fatales are too breathy and hissy and cornball... And the several culprits (like the usual crooked politician) are too modernized to seem like the Golden Age of Hollywood story-telling that Spider-Noir sometimes tries too hard to replicate, while seeming awkwardly burdened from bringing something old to something new... Overall, despite the nice look and some neat thrills, the time period that should enhance the series is ultimately more of a story-structure bulwark. Basically, Spider-Noir worked best as the best character in an ensemble than when given his own picture. Episode 1 Rating: **

THE NAKED GUN (2025)

It all began in what was basically a shot-for-shot remake of a 1950's Airline Disaster film named ZERO HOUR starring Dana Andrews as Ted Stryker... and the "y" became an "i" and Andrews became Robert Hays... But the scene-stealer was one of three then-veteran actors who were famous for being extremely serious in extremely serious movies, making their otherwise deadpan humor funnier around such non-stop joke-a-second, modern-era hijinks...

Then, Leslie Neilson and the AIRPLANE writer/directors created a TV series that everyone seemed to like, but no one seemed to watch because POLICE SQUAD only lasted a handful of episodes... But there's a thing called "cult following," and SQUAD had it in droves... igniting THE NAKED GUN movie franchise starring Nielson partnered with another deadly-serious veteran actor George Kennedy... The difference between the reboot's modern-day-veteran star Liam Neeson and Leslie Nielson (or Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges and Peter Graves for that matter) is the latter came from a time before affected sarcasm turned everything (from war movies to action movies to horror movies) into partial comedies... Which, back in the 1980's, turned Neilson into a kind of thawed-out neanderthal where the humor relies on him being stuck in a time he doesn't (or his character Frank Drebin doesn't) understand...But Neeson, whose done every genre under the sun ranging from historical dramas to semi-comedies to a barrage of high-octane action-flicks, simply understands too much, so it's really no big deal that he's a hard-nosed cop surrounded by a myriad of jokey gags... he can simply embrace or ignore them and it doesn't really matter... Meanwhile, some of the jokes are kinda funny, some are basically ignored, some even seem made to be ignored and very few make you laugh out loud since somewhere within this NAKED GUN reboot is a genuine detective drama that didn't want to be humorous at all... For example, had they cast Liam as the new Dirty Harry, there would be no difference, really... but neither would work because neither franchise should have been rebooted in the first place.

FORD VS FERRARI (2019)

At one point in FORD VS FERRARI, at about the beginning of act three, or perhaps the end of act two, when Christian Bale wins an important race, the people who he works for are... angry that he won... So here's a feel-good underdog sport film where winning is somehow rebellious... and Bale, as usual, deep-diving into the kind of old-school neurotic character-role that used to vanish into the background, steals the show...

But unlike THE FIGHTER, it's because the other players... including Matt Damon as the man who hired him to help Ford beat Ferrari at race car driving... doesn't have much to do but spout the kind of pump-you-up cliches that fathers bring their sons to movies for (that Tommy Lee Jones could pull off sleepwalking)... And for that, for pure mainstream popcorn entertainment, this is a fun ride, and simple to grasp... but the characters are either too roguishly-endearing or one-dimensional-greedy for the plot to really work since there's never anything to anticipate, or to be completely surprised about... Meanwhile, as otherwise intense actors, Damon and Bale are doing a general-admission imitation to please the kind of Middle-American/opening-night audience they'd personally detest, and would be better suited to a story with more edge and ambiguity (though the cookie-cutter anti-corporate spin would remain the same)...  So most likely, somewhere along the way, director James Mangold decided that jovial adrenaline was better acquired without too many distractions, which has made for a beloved, popular film... But if you go back and re-watch ROCKY, HOSSIERS or THE RIGHT STUFF, you'll learn how this sort of against-the-odds vehicle can work without trying so hard to always WORK FOR the audience instead of genuinely CHALLENGING them. Rating: ***

CLASS OF 1999

Bradley Gregg in CLASS OF 1999 Year: 1990 Rates: ***

Bradley Gregg was a pretty good young character-actor, and really stood out as a bad kid in STAND BY ME while in NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS he played the sleeplessly troubled hospital patient into puppets with enough melodramatic rebellion for his inevitable doom to really matter...

But in Mark L. Lester's sequel to CLASS OF 1984 titled CLASS OF 1999... where instead of teachers fighting against lethal gang-member students the gangs are fighting against three human/android teachers... Gregg is trying so hard to be stiffly cool (in a kind of Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western style) he has almost no personality at all...

Patrick Kilpatrick, John P. Ryan and Pam Grier in CLASS OF 1999

Instead of being a cutup who learns about how strong those bionic teachers (led by mad scientist Stacy Keach and played by John P. Ryan, Pam Grier and Patrick KilPatrick) really are, he's already done with drugs and fighting by the opening credits, making his transition not matter since it never actually happens at all..

Instead he just frowns and grimaces, even while dating principal Malcolm McDowell's sexy yet scholastic daughter Traci Lind and, more liken to the ironical police-state-future of ROBOCOP than Lester's gritty teen-angst original, CLASS OF 1999 plays like a straight-to-video title that's surprisingly decent for a day off work, school, or whatever you happen to be breaking from.

Bradley Gregg and Traci Lind in CLASS OF 1999

The teacher's house in CLASS OF 1999

Malcolm McDowell with Bradley Gregg and Traci Lind in CLASS OF 1999

Malcolm McDowell with Stacy Keach in CLASS OF 1999

 

SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE (1987)

Most blame the low-budget (yet still effective) production studio Cannon Films for SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE being such an awful movie, but it's instead the fault of Christopher Reeve for the very reason he did the movie in the first, second and third place...

Set in the mid-1980's during the Reagan Administration: when Russia had nukes aimed at America and vice versa... only here the superhero plot demands the kind of urgency where The Cold War's turned into an impending/existential threat... which it NEVER was... an idealistic and childish plot with schoolchildren calling for Superman to get rid of all the nuclear missiles, and Gene Hackman has returned as Lex Luthor, burdened with godawful teenager Jon Cryer as a geek-punk nephew, so it doesn't even feel like Hackman's involved: His goal to sell nukes to opposing countries while having somehow gained the scientific knowledge to create his very own superhero, Nuclear Man, something so corny even a TV-movie would avoid it...

Meanwhile, Margot Kidder has returned, and even flies around with Superman, but she's wedged in during a romance with b-villain Sam Wanamaker's rich girl daughter Muriel Hemingway, who tries her best only she's stuck in the wrong picture... So don't blame Cannon for a lead actor attempting to manipulate audiences into thinking The Cold War was actually red hot... and by 1987 that anti-nukes concept was tired and dated anyhow. Grade: F

WONDER WOMAN 1984 (2020)

The WONDER WOMAN sequel WW84 resembles a straight-to-DVD feature so much you'll want to enjoy that cheap time-filling aspect, which this bloated production doesn't even provide...

Taking place in the core of the 1980's, the town centered on has a colorful mall and a nearby museum, resembling BACK TO THE FUTURE had the old fashion 50's timeline morphed into the 1980's... After all, for this younger generation, the 80's is like the 50's was to 80's kids, with corny dated clothes and, best yet, without cell phones while the plot not only lacks action, there's no reason for any since the villain's a slimy oil salesman (a horrendous performance by Pedro Pascel, befitting a social drama parody) who finds the ultimate McGuffin in a Wish Stone, one of the most contrived plot-motivations in any modern superhero movie, which this hardly resembles...With Kristin Wigg as an ambiguous link between heroine and villain (like Richard Pryor in SUPERMAN III), and Chris Pine wedged into a romantic-comedy story that hardly exists, WONDER WOMAN 1984... although made right before the pandemic... bares the lifeless residual of that time: lazy entertainment for lazy viewers.. RATING: *1/2

BATMAN RETURNS (1992)

Something happened to the Tim Burton BATMAN films after the ultra-serious Christopher Nolan vehicles made many long for superhero simplicity, while the Joel Schumaker trainwrecks gave an impression that something good was turned extremely bad, and yet, BATMAN RETURNS is really a tiresome, eclectic mess, not quite certain who and what to center on since there are way too many cooks, all going drastically overboard...

Especially the director himself, who uses so many of his stylized Gothic popup-book visuals that the Jack Nicholson BATMAN seemed tame by comparison... which was more of a BATMAN movie directed by Burton while RETURNS is a Burton movie that happens to involve BATMAN... and not very much, which is why Michael Keaton, with too much screen-time centering on the villains, winded up quitting the role, yet it's difficult to tell who the real antagonists are since Penguin... played by an overacting, bad monologue-spouting Danny DeVito... is so pathetic with a genuinely tragic backstory that he's never quite as evil (or dangerous) as he should be... and Christopher Walken's corporate tycoon makes DeVito's creature as benign as Keaton felt in the titular role: Meanwhile, Michelle Pheiffer's CAT WOMAN seems like her own solo movie's being invaded by characters who should be more important here... but eventually, too much happens in BATMAN RETURNS for anything to really stick, or wind up mattering beyond the overdose of Burton's self-inflicted style over substance. RATING: **

THE WALKING DEAD: DARYL DIXON (2023)

Well if anything happens, and THE WALKING DEAD: DARYL DIXON doesn't become a big hit, then they could easily make a prequel taking place after the original about how exactly Daryl got from Georgia to France laying unconscious on an upturned canoe... and it's funny that Carol was originally supposed to be right alongside him... Although, taking place at a scorched-earth renaissance-era France (with a gigantic convent), the famous lone wolf fits better solo within this MAD MAX/Spaghetti Western hybrid: Making sense that Norman Reedus's primal, strong-silent-type would wind up on a series attempting to start an entire franchise from scratch... 

But there are too many familiar elements for that: like a seemingly innocent group (the nunnery) that eerily keeps very-dead walkers alive (Herschel's barn to The Governor's town)... or protecting a person who might one day save everyone, which was Eugene's initial purpose and a little boy's plight here: basically replacing Daryl's Dog as a chaste sidekick to protect (along with two pretty Frenchwomen that look almost exactly alike, except one's a nun)... And of course there's the vicious living-human antagonist, and that particular character... a dire shaved-head killer... is the most intriguing thing here, but, based on this pilot episode, there's simply not a lot going on for the viewer to keep tuning into... After all, since the entire WALKING DEAD world is so absolutely doomed, battling dead people or not trusting (or taking five minutes in order to possibly trust) the live ones really doesn't make a difference: Because no matter where Daryl wound up, it's all the same formula... one that this series, so far, fails to either rise above or stand apart from. Grade: D

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (NOVELIZATION)

If a novelization flows, it doesn't matter how many times you've seen the movie, since, on the printed page, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK works since it becomes purely pulp adventure... and at the same time there's a closeness to the iconic character, Archeologist/Professor Indiana Jones, that doesn't give away too much of what the motion picture intentionally leaves out... 

Downpoints are Indy making out with one of his students in his house... we don't need to know that he plows the flirting eye-lid girl; or learning that Marion, to purchase the tavern, worked as a prostitute after her father, Indy's mentor, died; or, later on, Marion fighting lustful temptation after Belloq's polite kidnapping and yet, on the other hand, we get to follow Indy going from a crowded Cairo airport to a dark highway, driving through the pouring rain, searching for Ravenwood's place while being stalked by another mysterious vehicle and, along with other nifty insights during the many adventurous sequences, it all works since the chapters are long, thoroughly expressive, the action precise, the dialog intentionally corny (pulpier than the film): and no matter how many times you've seen RAIDERS on the screen, while reading it feels like reliving the legendary classic for the first time. Book Grade: B—

THE GUNS OF NAVARONE (1961)

In FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE the men-on-a-mission actually seem to be outside, behind enemy lines in exterior locales as opposed to the original, GUNS OF NAVARONE, with studio-shot close-ups of characters speaking more exposition to the audience than real conversations with each other... 

Which FORCE 10 has plenty of... an eclectic group, mostly at bickering odds, with genuine chemistry while GUNS moves along too sluggishly for an action flick, has very little intrigue for an adapted twist-filled espionage, and for what's a worthy ensemble on paper, the characters, from stalwart mountain-climber Gregory Peck, explosives-expert-second David Niven, vengeful widower Anthony Quinn, patient middleman Anthony Quayle (these four far too old), machine-gun blasting youth James Darren and strong-silent-type Stanley Baker, all seem... despite collectively sent to destroy the Nazi's strategically-placed gigantic title gun on the titular Greek isle... in entirely different movies. Rates: **

THE LAST ACTION HERO (1993)

The problem with THE LAST ACTION HERO is not the film itself, but the film-within-a-film it's poking fun at, named after the super-cop character JACK SLATER, which in itself is a lame title for a franchise that seems very made-up. So basically THE LAST ACTION HERO is bagging on an Action Movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, which would be like Jerry Lewis looking down on lovable klutzes or Rod Serling sneering at a twist ending...

The main problem is, Arnold did this movie way too soon. After TERMINATOR 2 he was at the peak of his powers, and he winds up showing audiences how stupid those kind of movies are. The funny thing is, Arnold's most popular "Action" films are really Science-Fiction... Not just TERMINATOR 1 and 2 but TOTAL RECALL, THE RUNNING MAN and PREDATOR... plus the CONAN films which are sci-fi's sibling, Fantasy...

Many of the cliches through the JACK SLATER universe do NOT exist in actual action movies... In those they're part but here they are glaring stereotypes that serve no purpose at all. Especially unfitting is the CARTOON CAT that shows up as a working cop in the police station. No Arnold or Sly Stallone or Bruce Willis movie has EVER had a cartoon mix in with humans (and the central kid actor is a bore)...

The only two good things are the tall/lanky, totally scary-looking Tom Noonan as an ax-killer who should have been the ONLY MAIN villain instead of Charles Dance making fun of Charles Dance.. And F. Murray Abraham as Jack's fictional cop partner turned backstabber could have had more merit than two quick scenes, so the fact is, the film-within-the-film is treated with no respect, and it's simply not entertaining (like Arnold's following years' comeback, a real action movie, TRUE LIES): For instance, JACK SLATER IV opens with a five-minute scene between two very old men having a conversation (Tony Quinn and Art Carney), which would bore the daylights out of any kid watching on opening night. And, after all the nonsense, by the time the fictional characters do a TIME AFTER TIME meets THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO and enter real life, the audience is exhausted. A shame since THAT movie was far better than the other. SCORE: **

 

MINORITY REPORT

year: 2002
rating: *1/2

Looking as if filmed with a lens splattered with icky green goo, MINORITY REPORT takes us into yet another Philip K. Dick future where the government does what seems the best for society (preventing murder) but is actually... no good at all...

The entire set-up is preposterous: Like MACBETH had three witches igniting the plot, there's a trio of half-naked bald people (one a hot chick) in a large tub of liquid within a formidable police station, projecting images of murders that haven't yet happened while Tom Cruise arrests the semi-guiltys and is soon enough... like the Film Noir/Wrong Man movies that inspired Steven Spielberg to try replicating (pun intended) the Neo Noir magic of BLADE RUNNER... framed for almost-murder and chased down like the criminals he used to... chase down: But the over abundance of now dated CGI, and the fact no characters have any chemistry with each other or the altered-reality world in which they reluctantly and awkwardly exist, makes MINORITY REPORT a tedious, tiresome waste of noisy bedlam.

SUPERMAN RETURNS (2007)

You got to give credit to X-MEN director Bryan Singer for, in 2007, trying to make his SUPERMAN RETURNS literally that: returning from the 1978 original (with the same opening credit look) and starting out after the fantastic sequel SUPERMAN II, basically Brandon Routh is really, literally supposed to be Christopher Reeve and not just Superman who's Clark Kent up front...

If there's any one thing Reeve did best in the title role is playing Kent in an endearing underdog manner. Something Routh just can't pull off: Instead of clumsy for the part he seems awkward in the role, and while on paper Kevin Spacey's the dream Lex Luther, he seems like he doesn't want to be there, and with the same exact world-damning land-deal goal as Gene Hackman's Luthor, it makes the arch villain feel even more bland, unoriginal, familiar and basically a frustrating afterthought...

Meanwhile, an otherwise witty (in Christopher Guest movies) Parker Posey is perhaps the weakest moll in film history... But worse yet is Lois Lane... Played by a much too young Kate Bosworth, not only is she too inexperienced an actress but the character lacks Margot Kidder's charm, screen presence and, in having been in her thirties, and while looking older than Reeve, Margot really did seem like what she played: a reporter who's been in the game and knows more in the area of reporting and taking risks: The latter giving Kent turned Superman a reason to protect her, constantly...

But the biggest shame here is James Marsden's throwaway role as Lois's seemingly too-perfect boyfriend, trying too hard to be "dad" to a horrible child actor who's really Kent's Superboy. And come to think of it, Marsden, under Singer's direction as Cyclops in X-MEN, would have made a much better Superman: Being the right age he seemed more in tune with the natural fit Reeve had in the part, and he's great looking, has a properly muscular build, and to play the clumsy Kent, he's a good actor... How could Singer not know what/who was staring him in the face? GRADE: F+

CITY BENEATH THE SEA (1953)

cast: Robert Ryan, Anthony Quinn, Suzan Ball, Mala Powers
rating: **

What a complete letdown, and this coming from a viewer who loves movies about treasure hunters...

Unfortunately, the main character, played by a stiff Robert Ryan, is so uptight, not only does he NOT go along with more energetic and assertive partner Anthony Quinn, to find gold on a sunken ship in a literal CITY BENEATH THE SEA from a volcano explosion hundreds of years ago, but he moves in to snake the booty first, just to teach his partner a lesson. That lesson is also taught to the audience, who must weather this bland fine-feathered friend who's also an extremely weak central hero, keeping this movie from being edgy, or entertaining...

And the two lovely ingenues are both gorgeous, and initially tough, independent and assertive, making their characters mean more than just looks and providing a built-in feeling of suspense within the anticipated romance. One is the captain of a small boat (Mala Powers) and the other a calypso singer (Suzan Ball). But without Ryan or Quinn having to do much at all, both ladies melt to their touch in such a pathetic way. The singer actually asks Quinn, "What are you thinking?" after they'd known each other ten minutes.

This is a b-movie, so the low budget is deliberate, and mostly works... including scenes of the boys trudging in heavy "Diver Dan" style underwater gear with matte painted backgrounds. The technicolor is great looking, and otherwise these are capable actors and actresses. But this oceanic thriller is devoid of thrills, and pretty much... sinks upon impact.

GATOR BAIT

year: 1974

rating: ***

There are revenge flicks where the protagonist/hero seeks revenge on the villain/villains. Then there are those reverse revenge flicks where the antagonist/villain seeks revenge on the hero/protagonist. This film has both as a Cajun hottie played by b-movie vixen Claudia Jennings gets falsely accused for murdering a man attempting to rape her, and his family, and the local cops, take to the swamps — her territory — to find her. Along they way they murder her younger sister and now it's Claudia's turn for vengeance. She leads them further into the swamps — where she has the upper hand — and kills them off one by one. It's that basic, folks. And believe it or not, some of the acting isn't horrible. The camera moves around nicely and gets you involved with the action. And there's Claudia Jennings wearing close to nothing. Need I write more?

THE GLOVE

aka: BLOOD MAD

year: 1979

cast: John Saxon, Rosey Grier

rating: ****

They don't make them any better than this. A big black guy (Rosey Grier) wears a riot glove that was used on him by brutal prison guards and donning the glove kills all the guards one-by-one. The main character isn't Grier but John Saxon, as a narrating bounty hunter who hunts him down. Most of the film consists of Saxon's adventures: going after various criminals... which then leads to the climax verses Grier, who really isn't a bad guy and can play the guitar really, really good. It feels a lot like McQueen's THE HUNTER. All in all there's never a dull moment. This is modern noir mixed with blaxpolotation style violent melodrama and in a nutshell, everything fits like a...

SEARCH AND DESTROY

year: 1979

cast: Perry King, Don Stroud, George Kennedy, Tisa Farrow, John Kerr, Bill Starr

rating: ***1/2

In Vietnam a company of American soldiers try saving a South Vietnamese man from "Charlie" and fail. He is captured by the enemy and now we cut five years later and the Vietnamese man is back in the States for revenge. He kills one of the vets and this peaks the attention of Perry King, an auto shop worker, as he is next in line. Along with fellow vet Don Stroud, a happy-go-unlucky drunkard boat captain in Niagara Falls, they try first finding who the killer is, and then stopping him. But he's trained in killing and is almost unstoppable. Great action scenes all set in the gorgeous Niagara Falls area, and lots of violence makes this a real treat: a fun ride that never derails. George Kennedy adds a little something as a small town cop who winds up allowing Perry King to take care of matters his own way.

HELLS ANGELS ON WHEELS

year: 1967

cast: Adam Roarke, Jack Nicholson, Sabrina Scharf, John Bud Cardos, Jack Starrett

rating: ****

You'd expect a positive review of what seems like a cookie-cutter 60's biker film to stem from the fact that a young pre-Easy Rider Jack Nicholson delivers a terrifically subtle performance as a mellow but tough gas station worker who joins ranks with the Hell's Angels, but the real credit must be given for the star, cult actor Adam Roarke, and how natural he is on screen. His slowburn, devil-may-care attitude is just right as the leader of the Hell's Angels. While he's not big and burly, his wily-assured cockiness makes him the perfect centerpiece of a biker flick that delivers much more than you'd expect from the usually vapid genre. He and Jack have terrific chemistry: and with Sabrina Scharf in-between it's a spontaneous ride, full of the road, random parties and even some decent dialogue with overall development in-between. Too bad, in the future, Adam couldn't follow Jack into at least a quarter of his success. He deserved better... Although FROGS is a classic.

THE GAUNTLET

year: 1977

cast: Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Bill McKinney, Pat Hingle

director: Clint Eastwood

rating: *1/2

Imagine "Dirty Harry Callahan" replacing his morning coffee with a flask full of booze. Would that make him meaner, tougher, or blander? The latter describes not only Eastwood's character... an alcoholic Arizona cop sent to Las Vegas to pick up a prostitute the mob wants dead... but the entire film. This is one of Clint's worst action flicks, full of cliched characters and horrendous dialog. Even the shootouts are boring. And Sondra Locke... Clint's girlfriend and co-star of many of his films, who I enjoyed in "Sudden Impact" and "Bronco Billy"... as the hooker with the heart of gold and mouthful of sass: couldn't be more annoying. You'll want Clint to turn from protector into hitman just to shut her up.

THE OUTFIT

year: 1973

cast: Robert Duvall, Joe Don Baker, Karen Black, Timothy Carey, Robert Ryan

rating: ***1/2

A bank robber, having done two years after being set up, gets out of jail, learns his brother was killed (the first scene in the movie) by the same mob that fingered him and, with the help of his former partner and a very cranky gun moll, hit the road, killing all the encroaching thugs and sometimes take out the baddies in their homes, fortresses, banks, and even a church. The two main characters played by Robert Duvall and Joe Don Baker seem protected by the gods. Nothing can stop them, and it's pretty unrealistic in that they get away with everything with ease, but then again, who cares? It's a cool ride... and what a cast!