Sci-Fi September: Clockstoppers (2002)

Clockstoppers has such a great idea that it's hard to imagine it failing, which makes the fact that it DOES fail so disappointing. Director Jonathan Frakes (still best known to many as Commander Riker from Star Trek: TNG) had shown such potential with his work at the helm of a couple of Star Trek movies, including one of the best in the series, but shows here that he's not quite as comfortable when away from the comfort zone of the USS Enterprise.

A scientist (French Stewart) has invented a device that can send people into "hypertime". It may seem like the rest of the world has suddenly frozen, but that's not the case. Everything else just moves really, REALLY slowly in comparison. Some others want to get their hands on this technology, of course, but that isn't something that young Zak Gibbs (Jesse Bradford) is aware of. He just finds himself with a watch that can almost stop time, and he starts to have some fun with it. While he's impressing the new girl at school (Paula Garces) and helping out his mate, Meeker (Garikayi Mutambirwa), Zak is also putting them all in potential danger.

The potential fun of this movie is twofold. First of all, bringing time to such a grinding near-halt is something that we'd all like to do. Secondly, anyone moving at such high speed then becomes invisible to those still running on normal time. Unfortunately, the writers - Rob Hedden, J. David Stem and David N. Weiss - take the premise and stretch it way beyond breaking point, breaking the basic rules of the time trickery in almost every scene, which makes suspension of disbelief pretty impossible.

Thankfully, there's still fun to be had, but it's a much more basic kind of fun. Some of the special effects are great, especially in the first few scenes showing Zak discovering hypertime, and a few pranks raise a smile, but most of the film is standard teens in peril stuff that could be pulled from 101 other films.

Bradford, Garces and Mutambirwa all do well enough, and Stewart does much better with his role here than he's done in other family films, but the one actor raising everything up a point is Michael Biehn, playing the main villain who wants to get his hands on the technology at any cost.

The good and bad aspects of the movie balance out to provide viewers with an experience that's distinctly average. The sad fact is that everyone involved, from the cast, to the writers, to Frakes in the director's chair, could have done a bit better. It wouldn't have taken too much effort either, which makes this flat end result all the more frustrating.

4/10

http://www.amazon.com/Clockstoppers-Jesse-Bradford/dp/B00005JKZM/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1409931905&sr=1-2&keywords=clockstoppers

Rise Of The Zombies (2012)

Another zombie movie from The Asylum, and another one directed by Nick Lyons (who also gave viewers the poor, but slightly better than this, Zombie Apocalypse), Rise Of The Zombies features the usual selection of jobbing actors trying to invest their paper-thin characters with something, anything, to make the movie more watchable as it repeats the same cycle for 90 minutes until a weak, weak ending.

Things start off promising. Survivors of the zombie outbreak are holed up in Alcatraz. There's potential here, but it's soon squandered. Zombies still get in and the main characters all make stupid decision after stupid decision, culminating in the moment when they set off from the island in search of safety elsewhere. Because that's a better decision than killing the zombies that managed to get in and reinforcing the huge stronghold that is Alcatraz. Zombies munch on folks, people bicker, zombies munch on folks, people bicker, repeat ad nauseum. Oh, there's also LeVar Burton, stuck with having to play possibly the stupidest doctor that I've ever seen in any zombie movie. Ever. He is determined to find a cure that will save the one he loves.

There are one or two decent moments here, with one scene showing how easy it is for zombies to climb up the Golden Gate bridge being as enjoyable as it is ridiculously stupid, but there's no reason to ever seek this film out beyond stumbling across it accidentally on the TV schedules. Lyons isn't the worst director, but writers Keith Allan and Delondra Williams didn't make his job any easier by churning out such a laughable and lame script.

The cast includes Mariel Hemingway, Danny Trejo (currently tied with Ving Rhames in the "pay me and I'll turn up for anything" category), Ethan Suplee, the aforementioned Burton, French Stewart, and Chad Lindberg. The rest of the cast is made up of the usual supporting players for The Asylum AKA people who can rack up a long list of credits on IMDb thanks to their portrayal of "screaming zombie victim #8". Hey, nothing against that, a job is a job, but all I'm emphasising is that the rest of the cast features nobody truly memorable. There are one or two other main characters, but the cast can't do enough to overcome the weak script. Without having any recognition factor they just blur together into one featureless crowd.

Rise Of The Zombies isn't good, in case you didn't gather that already. Some of the effects are okay, but a lot of the film just feels rushed and/or lazy. Critics of The Asylum may rush to tell me that ALL of their films feel that way, but I'd disagree. Sometimes they do appear to be trying. Just not on this occasion.

3/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rise-Zombies-DVD-Danny-Trejo/dp/B00BFCJLT8/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1395320665&sr=1-1&keywords=rise+of+the+zombies

30 Nights Of Paranormal Activity With The Devil Inside The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2013)

You may remember Craig Moss as the man who gave audiences The 41-Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall And Felt Superbad About It and Breaking Wind. I actually thought the former movie was okay, but the latter film was so bad that it may have inadvertently led to the break-up of Kirsten Stewart and Robert Pattinson. Oh, okay, maybe it couldn't have done THAT much damage, but it certainly felt that way while watching it.

And now we have his latest mishmash, another arduously long title that makes no sense whatsoever and simply allows Moss to name-check most of the movies that he pillages from: 30 Nights Of Paranormal Activity With The Devil Inside The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which I shall be referring to for the remainder of this review as 30-something.

Most people know my tolerance for bad movies. I'll admit that on many occasions I will enjoy what other people despise, one man's trash is another man's treasure, and I have even been known to face a prospective movie viewing as more of an endurance test than an actual way of enjoyably passing the time. That may have to end soon or, at the very least, I need to become smarter with my scheduling. In the past week I have suffered through Movie 43, Top Cat and this. It's hard to single out the one that broke me down, that's like trying to find out which of the many bacon sandwiches I have eaten in my life contributed most to my middle-age spread, but I was defeated. At least temporarily.

30-something is a film so bad that it makes you wonder what could have been created if Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer had been involved and that's the kind of thought process that nobody should have to go through.

I actually feel sorry for the cast (well, all of them except French Stewart, who I can never forgive for his part in Home Alone 4 . . . . .  a movie even worse than this one). Kathryn Fiore, Flip Schultz, Olivia Alexander and Arturo Del Puerto don't really do a good job, but it's hard to judge people in this. Think of trying to evaluate someone's aftershave after they've been doused in excrement and you'll be in line with my way of thinking.

The blame can be laid squarely on the shoulders of writer-director Craig Moss and he needs to be stopped. Don't see this movie and don't allow anyone you know to see it. You'll be doing them a big favour. Anyone who rents or buys the thing will almost certainly regret it. If I can save some people from the pain that I went through then this review might have been worthwhile.

3/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nights-Paranormal-Activity-Inside-Dragon/dp/B00AAG0AOU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362373523&sr=8-1