MINI-REVIEWS OF MOVIES I WATCHED IN 2020 [PART 3]

Part 3 of my little reviews/comments on movies I watched the past year. Part 1 and 2.

Minority Report (2002)

This one was kind of a big disappointment, but not bad in and of itself. I didn’t realize this was a Dreamworks film until starting it up – and boy does it ever show the entire time. Random comedic moments mixed in heavy drama, cartoonish cinematography to play up the ‘fun’ aspect, boring as fuck music, all while it’s this really dark story about stopping crimes that don’t even exist yet. You can see how this influenced Psycho Pass pretty clearly but the similarities stop at police overreach.

Kill Chain (2019)

This was an okay Cage movie, not one of the better ones by any means but totally a midline enjoyable one. He doesn’t play up his role or anything so it’s not as fun in that way, but an overall alright action movie with him in over half of it. It’s been awhile but I think there were a couple of okay twists in the story too if I remember right. This post has a lot of Cage!

The Man From Nowhere (2010)

Absolutely fantastic Korean film about an ex-special forces guy trying to save a loli neighbor of his after she’s kidnapped due to her parent’s drug abuse. Extremely emotional, amazing action sequences, really incredible music, and just all around a great movie.

It starts off sort of feeling like The Professional and then turns into some kind of mix of Yakuza 1 and proto-John Wick with way more emotion to it, and honestly way cooler choreographed sequences especially near the end than that ever had (Koreans are amazing at big multi-people fights I’ve noticed, especially because they don’t do the Hollywood “waiting my turn” bullshit). The main antagonist’s right hand man is a really great character too and adds a lot to the overall film with his own small developments and his sort of rivalry with the lead. It’s not just a mindless action thing though, the story is great and really it is very emotional especially by the end and even during some of the most brutal fight scenes there is this focus on not just the hyper violent shit going on but on the emotions behind it all. True Kino. Watch it.

Total Recall (1990)

This is THAT Arnie movie, the one where the entire intro sequence is him just doing his ARRUGHHH UURHHGHG noises a bunch for like 5 minutes – and he pretty much does that shit the whole movie to an extreme even compared to usual. He’s great, the movie’s story is exciting, the whole concept of it is really cool too – though I disagree with the stupid arguments about the ending and whether or not the whole thing was just the dream machine thing giving him this experience and was not real as the end of the movie VERY CLEARLY answers if this was or was not the case so I don’t even feel the movie was leaving it up for interpretation in the first place. Regardless, very fun, very ARUARUHGHG, and loads of the usual great one liners. The only thing I really disliked is that it is very much an 80s/90s film where they just obsessively and pointlessly throw in loads of gore or visually disgusting imagery in general.

Between Worlds (2018)

From my Letterboxd Review;

I can’t even rate this movie, I don’t know. The woman’s acting is maybe the worst I’ve ever seen, she is an awe-inspiring level of terrible. The whole movie is terrible but so-bad-its-good in a very birdemic/a talking cat?!/neil breen way but with even worse acting from everyone aside Cage. The cinematography is something high school kids would do for a ‘movie’ back before everyone just made tiktoks and vines, the story isn’t even something that deserves to be called one, it’s just all around godawful and it’s pretty boring most of the time because it’s so bad…But it does have Cage plowing some 18 year old daughter of some woman he was banging who is now possessed by his dead wife while reading and reciting a book Nicolas Cage (the actual Nicolas Cage, canonically) wrote about his “Golden Cock” so I mean it’s worth watching. Also has like a 30 second scene of Cage screaming into the air on his knees as he’s hosed down.

It really is absolutely fucking hilarious. Let me reiterate again; Nic Cage playing a character fucking a teenager who is possessed by his dead wife while reading a book WRITTEN BY Nic Cage with his name prominently displayed while yelling about his Golden Cock as they fuck and then being sprayed by a hose in a sequence of scenes where he screams and does “sexy” poses like a woman in a wet t-shirt contest.

Trespass (2011)

Another Cage movie and this one was…pretty alright? Cage plays a very subdued role which was quite surprising, not only because it’s him but because the ENTIRE MOVIE EVERYONE IS JUST FUCKING YELLING AT EACH OTHER. It’s got a good twist and some okay smaller ones and is basically a movie about Cage having loads of money or diamonds or some shit and some people trying to steal it all but it gets way more complex than that, albeit entirely taking place in his mansion home. And seriously EVERYONE IS ALWAYS YELLING even when they have no reason to be.

Pay The Ghost (2015)

Pay The Cage is, sadly, one of those very rare just absolutely abysmal ones where Cage IS present the majority of the runtime. Usually the rule is the bad movies with him in them are the ones that basically only have him as a 10-15 minute cameo but pretend he’s “featured” or “starring” and throw a picture of him on the poster, but every now and then you get a Joe and this was just slightly less shit than Joe. This was just abysmal – the writing was shit, the cinematography was shit, everyone’s acting was shit. The “best” thing about it all is that at one point he comes across this big like satanic celebration taking place in town (this is not a plot point, it’s just treated as a normal thing in new york) and one of the freaks is a local school teacher who just completely infodumps deep pagan lore and explains step by step the entire plot of the film. It’s hilarious but not worth watching for. Absolute shit movie.

The Raid : Redemption (2011)

Another absolute kino piece from a foreign land, but not Korea – this one comes from Singapore amazingly enough and yet is probably the best action-focused film ever made. It is nonstop and yet it’s not mindless, it’s so well thought out and has so much depth to the violence itself. This is a movie that starts out as a, well, a raid on a massive gang hideout by a shit ton of what is essentially SWAT and the higher they progress up the building the more and more the tides turn and by the end it becomes a survival horror – not a joke, it feels like some kind of ultra hardcore Resident Evil by the end and the feeling of desperation grows and grows and makes this unbelievably tense. This is another film that has massive fights – including many vs 1 – that are not done like stupid Hollywood ones; everyone is doing shit nobody is taking turns, nobody is waiting conveniently for their chance to attack, it’s a fucking madhouse especially by the end after watching what is basically a de-evolution of human violence where it starts with assault rifles and now by the end it’s fists, broken glass, and machetes; anything that can kill and enemies crawling up the fucking balconies and shit with knives in their mouths like monsters and hordes chasing anyone left alive. It gets intense and it’s crazy and it’s so good and the whole feeling of mankind devolving and the MC going from the stronger force to one that is just desperately trying to survive is shown so fucking well throughout. Seeing him have to ditch his police morality over time is also an interesting part of it, as at some point his life depends on not holding back.

I actually recommend watching this with the dubbed audio because it is such an active fast moving movie and there is so much choreography and shit going on that it’s not worth being picky about how the actors sound when it might take your eyes or thoughts off of the visuals for even a second.

The one negative I have is that the camera work in this is very wobbly, it shouldn’t be a problem for anyone but in VR it made me really motion sick to watch it on a screen in there.

Hotarubi no Mori e (2011)

This is a short film rather than a full on movie, which is my biggest complaint as the ending felt like the mid point of what I thought was a 90 minute film. Aside that, the movie is INCREDIBLY sweet and really a very touching story showcasing this little girl in like early childhood all the way up through her later high school years falling in love with a spirit she sees over summer breaks. It really is comfy, soft, and heartwarming even though it ends on a pretty sad moment. I really liked it and it’s only 45 minutes. Watching it without knowing it was a short thing and only doing so in VRChat – and thus having no scroll bar or time-left counter like a video player would have, it was really jarring to have the credits just suddenly roll, but really it’s a very sweet little short movie.

Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

“Shit, it’s the Ya-koo-zuh”. – Ice T

What if Keanu Reeves played Nicolas Cage playing a cyberpunk courier with data in his head amid the InfoWars while being chased by evil techno-priest Dolph Lundgren who spews one-liners like “Jesus time” while crucifying people such as Henry Rollins while every single other relevant 90s figure plays supporting roles and the finale takes place in mind-internet?