Ali

ALI

I'll be straight up honest right now, I love boxing. Boxing is a sport where I feel I can always find a clear winner and that nothing is ever left to a tie. It's a sport that demands someone to push themselves to the absolute limit of their physical capabilities in order to rival the abilities of their opponent. Many people in the modern era believe boxing to be a brutal sport for barbaric numskulls who never received a proper education. While the latter portion of that statement may be true, I will argue that boxing is one of the most beautiful sports in human history. It takes a special person to be a great boxer, a person with grit, determination, a will of steel, the heart of a lion, and the strategic mind of a Centurion. There are no excuses, the better man will always win.

Muhammad Ali is one of the finest examples of what defines the term "boxer". Considered the "Greatest Of All Time" for all the right reasons, Ali's life is the perfect story for a fresh take on the boxing movie genre. Almost every movie regarding boxers and their craft involve them living in a crime infested section of a major city with no hopes or dreams and suddenly they get the chance of a lifetime that can only be achieved by two hours of personal conflicts and at least one ten minute training montage with an 80's power rock song in the background (I'm looking at you Rocky). The other type of boxing movie doesn't actually really involve the sport at all, but utilizes the sport as a way for a scrawny child to beat up bullies (Damn you Knockout). However, Muhammad Ali's story is a bit different in a surprisingly refreshing way as evidenced in Ali.

Tackling a biopic is one of the toughest challenges any director can face. The goal of a biopic is to visually tell the story of a famous/infamous person's life as accurately as possible and I don't mean accurate in just the way the story is told. The acting MUST be solid and the actors MUST look like their real life counterparts. In fact, I'd go as far to say that getting the physical appearances is the absolute most important part of a biopic. If you get it wrong, the audience will know and you can be damn sure that it'll make them uncomfortable. If you get the appearances right then you can pretty much do damn well whatever you please when it comes to telling a story, for example take a look at Public Enemies, the biopic about the infamous bank robber John Dillinger.

One of those men pictures is a man who refuses to pay taxes, steals money from the federal government, and isn't afraid to get his knuckles skinned in the regular brawl or two. The other is a bank robber. While I may have exaggerated a little about one of them, it's no doubt that with enough people slapping his face with makeup and a wicked mustache Johnny Depp looks an awful lot like Dillinger except Dillinger wasn't a fucking weirdo in real life. And those eyebrows. Depp just can't grow eyebrows. Gah, I'm getting off topic! Anyone who's ever done a little research after seeing Public Energies (See what I did there? You thought I was going to say enemies!!) knows that while most biopics do a little exaggerating here and there, the director actually toned down the visual telling of Dillinger's life! In the honest truth, Dill Winger's life is more epic than the Django Unchained soundtrack. I won't go into specifics but you can do almost anything you want to a person's life in a biopic as long as you get the resemblance and nobody will give a flying fuck! You wanna see Mike Tyson wrestle an alligator on the silver screen? As long as you have Jamie Foxx with a tattoo on his face you can totally do that!

If any of you cast Jamie Foxx in a Mike Tyson biopic, I demand royalties. My idea assholes!

I suppose the point I'm trying to arrive at here is that casting Will Smith as Muhammad Ali was a great decision and while Jamie Foxx is still in our minds, he plays another boxing personality most of us know as Drew Bundini Brown and the resemblance is actually kinda scary. Like, more scary than the random historically accurate bald patch on the top of his character's head. 

When I stated earlier that Ali is a refreshing new story for the boxing movie genre, I wasn't kidding. The first way this movie breaks the genre stereotype is that Muhammad Ali didn't grow up a poverty stricken child who took up boxing to get off the streets. In fact, he started boxing because some kid stole his bike and he wanted to learn how to whoop ass as effectively as possible. The director, Michael Mann, didn't waste a single moment of the film trying to make the audience feel sorry for Ali because we didn't need to. Instead, Mann took a different approach where he successfully portrayed Ali as a stubborn, cocky-yet-focused, and determined man. In other words, he made Will Smith become Muhammad Ali, notice that I said become. Many good biopics feature a good actor acting like the person they're supposed to but a truly great biopic has an actor becoming the person they portray. Daniel Day Lewis is famous for becoming Abraham Lincoln and it's truly a great performance but Will Smith absolutely blows it out of the water. Will Smith learned Ali's fight style from the man himself, learned to talk exactly like him, and even learned how to move his feet in the ring like Muhammad Ali... Hell he sculpted his body to an exact Ali replica... FUCK THE MAKEUP DEPARTMENT STARED AT TONS OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF FIGHTS TO GET THE FUCKING BRUISES EXACTLY RIGHT. That's not just dedication from the director, that's called love. 

Anyways, the movie is a memoir that covers the events of Ali's life from his first encounter as Cassius Clay when he faced Sonny Liston for the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship. The movie continues with his relationship with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., his joining of the Black Muslim Brotherhood, his refusal to be drafted into Vietnam, his three marriages, his second fight with Sonny Liston, his loss against Joe Fraizer, and the film concludes with the legendary "Rumble In The Jungle" championship fight against George Foreman. Probably one of my favorite parts about this movie is the classic ABC interviews and weigh-ins where Mann makes sure Will Smith quips classic one liners and barrages of clever insults that will put a smile on anyone's face. Will Smith channels Ali's humorous side and his serious defiant side brilliantly and with perfect execution. There isn't a person alive who didn't chuckle a little inside when they watched Will Smith portray Muhammad Ali shaking away his nerves and running out to tell Sonny Liston that he'll "beat the ugliness right out of you. It'll take a long time, but I'll do it!".

The film is accompanied by a soundtrack consisting of black gospel music and I've gotta say, it's pretty rock solid. Some of the songs are very catchy and will still be in your head long after you close out of the Netflix browser. 

The only fault I can really say about Ali is that there are certain sections of the film that just seem to drag at times. It kind of reminds me of Breaking Bad in the sense that the movie will throw heavy drama at you all at once and then you'll sit through about a half an hour of slow paced conversations before reaching the big fight night. I guess this might be to keep the audience excited about the fights, but this movie is not short by any means. Ali has a run time of two hours and forty-five minutes and it takes its time. The most annoying part is right towards the end when the film is building up for the Foreman fight and there's a ten minute slow motion scene of Ali running the African countryside. There's no talking or anything really dramatic, it's mostly just Ali looking at graffiti on walls and looking at locals. But I can't hit this scene too hard because it's trying to establish that the African people are HIS people and he's THEIR champion.

Final Verdict:

With the exception of a few slow paced scenes, Ali is an excellent biopic that almost perfectly visualize the most important parts of the great Muhammad Ali's storied boxing career. Michael Mann delivers a knockout punch with this masterpiece of a film.

9.5/10

The Virgin Suicides

The Virgin Suicides

Movie critics have literally the best job in the world. We get to watch movies and point out the good and the bad aspects of them. We do it because we love movies and believe that our criticisms help better the film industry as a whole. Most of the movies we watch are, at the very least, slightly above average and were made with a decent bit of effort. I personally will never ever slaughter a film in my reviews unless I really think it deserves it and even then there needs to be a certain amount of criteria that must be met before I go all out and destroy the it. For instance, take the movie "The Last Airbender" as an example. Now, I hate M. Night Shyamalan just as much as the next guy and as much as I would love to rip into him and his films I simply can't. I hate pretty much every single movie he's ever directed but I will never obliterate his movies in any of reviews like I did with "The Running Man" because I know that he made an honest effort. I know that M. Night Shyamalan went to work every single day trying to make the best film he could with the best of his abilities. It just so turns out that these movies come out and they're absolute garbage. When I gave an oral review of "The Last Airbender", I never gave a single ounce of praise to it. I also never once made fun of its stupidity because, for the most part, I consider myself somewhat of a semi-professional in terms of movie reviewing ethics. When someone rips apart a decent effort, to me they don't look like professionals. To me, they look like massive dickheads. That being said, a "decent" effort is monumentally different than a "small" effort. If your actors put in the same amount of effort as the hare did in his race against the tortoise, then expect this: I will rip your soul in half.

Fortunately, most movies put in the minimum effort to escape my scathing reviews and that makes me happy. What doesn't make me happy is that most of the crap you see on Netflix is a complete mess of absolutely zero work done to make it a decent movie. 

"The Virgin Suicides" is an example of one of those messes.

Coming-of-age movies are a bit of a gamble and mainly serve as a nostalgia high for older people. These movies usually feature familiar moments in the children's life that the adults will be able to identify with and chuckle about. I'll tell you what, if you want to remind anybody who was a teenager during the 1970's how awful that decade was, make them watch this. 

These are the people/fish/dog that ruined heroin abuse and split up The Beatles.

"The Virgin Suicides" is about a group of neighborhood boys who's raging hormones attract them to Mr. and Mrs. Libson's five teenager daughters that move into the neighborhood. The youngest one, the thirteen year old named Cecilia, commits suicide because none of the boys talk to her when the family throws a party and invite them over. No seriously I'm not kidding, the movie impales a thirteen year old on a fence and the movie hasn't even reached the twenty minute mark (17:42 to be exact). This movie starts out stupid and continues to be stupid throughout the film. In fact, you can't even call this a review because all it's going to be is an endless rant and mocking of the entire thing. If you're a dreamy teenage girl who's still high off "The Fault in Our Stars" (ugh) and you found some amount of good in this movie, just get out. Your kind isn't welcome here. Seriously, I went on Twitter last night and looked up the movie's hashtag. People loved the shit out of it and then there was my tweet: "This movie is fucking abysmal." all alone by itself. Now that I think about it, I don't remember seeing any user praising it that wasn't older than fourteen.

Before I go on, I should mention that the only bright spots in this whole movie that I could see were Spider-Man Lady *ahem* I mean Kirsten Dunst and when The Styx played "Come Sail Away" at the homecoming scene. Even Dunst (Mary Jane) can't save it when you realize that when this movie came out in 1999 she was eighteen years old and was playing a fourteen year old... Who's name was Lux...

Now that that's out of the way, I get to slaughter the stupidity of this movie. So after Cecilia dies, it cuts to a scene where the hearse is carrying her to the cemetery and for some random reason the grave diggers are on strike, protesting things... And then they get out of the way and are never seen again. That scene as a whole doesn't really make a ton of sense in my mind and doesn't provide any sort of emotional drama. There are all sorts of these scenes littered throughout the film and none of them even matter, which is the most grating part of the whole movie. There's really not much to talk about when it comes to reviewing the story because it's largely the result of trying to adapt a teenage girl's young adult novel into a series of unconnected, unimportant moments.

Now, I want to jump forward to the climax of the story where some dude bangs Lux on the football field after the homecoming and the dickwad leaves during the night. She comes home late, blah blah blah, her parents ground her and her sisters for life or something. Stupid. My favorite part of the whole movie is when the parents force Lux to burn all her vinyl records because they believe rock music is the driving force behind rebellious teenage behavior. I found it absolutely hilarious when Lux went and begged at her mother's feet to let her keep her KISS record, which in all fairness would've been an improvement to the music industry. I listened to KISS once, in fact I've got a vinyl record of their "Rock and Roll Over" album. Once I set the needle onto the record I was slapped in the face by Gene Simmons' "creativity".

Future Rock and Roll Hall of Famers. Let that depressing fact sink in.

Final  Verdict:

2/10

The Perfect Host

The Perfect Host

I hate dinner parties. Really, I hate them. I've been to many of them and I've been to all sorts of them but in the end I've hated all of them. There's just something about a crowd of egotistical middle-aged people sitting around a dinner table talking about the successes they've seen since the last time they got absolutely hammered in college that I find particularly unappealing. In fact, I would actually go as far as to say that most dinner parties are actually pretty sad when you get down to the core of them. The hosts invite the friends they haven't seen in years to catch up on the times and drink themselves into a happy stupor so that they can momentarily forget the fact that they won't see one another again for another three years when they have to leave. So, as I watched "The Perfect Host" I found myself really appreciating the dark humor that mocks the idea of a dinner party itself. It's seriously one of the funniest black comedies I've seen in a long while and really shows that the independent studios make some of the best movies despite their low budgets.

So let's take a quick look at the cast before we get into the movie's story. "The Perfect Host" doesn't necessarily have an all-star cast; in fact the only actor you might recognize is David Hyde Pierce who plays as the story's main antagonist. Pierce is absolutely brilliant in this movie and it does well to showcase how talented Pierce actually is. There are several scenes that call for him to be gravely serious and then to immediately turn around to be lighthearted. Pierce absolutely nails this and it's incredible to witness. The other main actor in the movie is Clayne Crawford. Never heard of him? I don't blame you since his biggest role to date besides this one was a recurring role in 24. Crawford plays the story's protagonist and I regret having to have inform that Crawford's performance is generally pretty wooden throughout most of the film, which is pretty disappointing because at the same time I'd like to see Crawford in other movies.  

The Story:

The film begins with the protagonist, John Taylor, running for his life after a successful bank robbery. John is a career criminal so the very first thing he does is dispose of the evidence. Fine, but what bugs me is what he does next. John apparently had some difficulties somewhere along the line during the score because he's got a cut or a gunshot wound (it's not quite made clear) on his foot. As he's slowly bleeding out, John decides to go into the nearest convenience store to buy disinfectant and first aid supply despite the fact that the police have an entire description of him and the car he's driving... Which oddly enough he doesn't abandon the car with the rest of the evidence... Or try to conceal his facial features which kind of backfires since a television in the store plasters his face to the public for everybody to see. Fortunately for John, the stereotypical foreign cashier is busy with a robbery. This is where movie first establishes that this isn't an entirely serious story. In fact, when the lady robber demands that the cashier place the register's money in a bag he gives her a look like she's some minor inconvenience to his day and asks: "Paper or plastic?" 

The whole scene is actually pretty funny and kinda plays out like this familiar segment:

John's whole "master criminal" character kind of goes down the drain though the minute he actually does decide to drop the car as he proceeds to attempt to break into people's houses to dodge the fuzz. Luckily enough, he finds a really nice house with a surprisingly hospitable owner who let's him in. After introductions that don't consist of "Sup bro, I'm the guy on the news that the entire police force is putting all of their resources into to capture."

Here, we meet Warwick who's quite busy preparing for a dinner party with several friends and he even invites John to join them. Eventually, John's past catches up to him and he attempts to take Warwick hostage and orders him to call of the party. Warwick obeys and John proceeds to drink away Warwick's red wine. 

Now, the previous fifteen minutes consisted of Warwick just being a really nice guy that doesn't want to turn a poor sap away. I even believed this persona myself despite the fact that I had some idea of what was going to happen! But as I was taking notes throughout the movie, one of the main points I wrote down was that Warwick is the story's figurative onion. He's got plenty of layers that get peeled away as time goes on and the first major rotten layer is revealed when Warwick reveals to John that the red wine is drugged. So already we see a layer of sincere hospitality and an all around nice guy just looking to have a good time with his friends and we see the layer underneath showing that he's incredibly clever and clearly has some sort of insidious agenda.

The rest of the movie peels the rest of the layers of the onion away and it's revealed that Warwick is actually a depraved serial killer and all the guests attending his party are actually just figments of his psychotic imagination. It's actually quite funny at times when you see Warwick flirting with a female guest, that guest has her very own actress but it's show that he's doing nothing but talking to a wall. It's particularly hard to describe what I mean so I figure I should show you. For example, in this scene we see Warwick chatting up his guests at the dinner table...

Oh really Phil don't worry about this one. His wrists are bound to keep him from spilling wine all over the tablecloth!

But less than two minutes later the perspective shifts to John's point of view and we really see how crazy Warwick is.

 WHAT THE HELL DID I SAY ABOUT THE TABLECLOTH!?!?!

Now for the most part, this movie maintains the key elements of a true black comedy. Quick movie lesson kids! Black comedies are one of the hardest stories to tell because it's vital that the story maintains a serious story and setting but keeps a lighthearted tone without getting too ridiculous because after all, you're telling a story about a serial killer who takes people hostage during your pretend dinner parties that turn into full blow pretend house parties. It's not exactly comedic material. If you don't use enough comedy then you end up with a thriller that doesn't take itself serious. On the flip side however, if you use too much comedy then you run the risk of losing all your credibility and you get a comedy with a stupid premises. The balance has to be exactly right and if you're making a movie, witty dialogue and ironic moments just aren't enough. I've see plenty of movies do almost everything right except they leave one key feature out that ruins the rest of their work. What is that key feature? Your soundtrack. This is true for every single movie ever made, even if you have a great movie with a great story and outstanding actors, the music makes all the difference. "The Perfect Host" is absolutely perfect in this aspect. Even in the most grisly situations the music keeps the tone relaxed and in some cases hilarious! One scene I can clearly remember had Warwick pulling out a scrapbook and showing John all the people he's butchered in the same manner he plans on using on John. Next, Warwick takes John into the next room and shows him an 8mm short movie consisting of Warwick standing naked in a bathroom cutting himself with a blade in a ridiculously sexual manner. And you know what? Call me insane but it was freaking hilarious.

What? Are you saying that Hannibal Lecter isn't your favorite comedian?

If I was watching any other movie, this wouldn't strike me as funny because the material itself isn't a joke. It's the exact opposite of what a joke is but the director, Nick Tomnay, made a creative decision to accompany this scene with classical piano music. Sometimes these scenes are accompanied by 70's guitar riffs. It's funny! Really! 

For the most part, the balance is perfect. The movie almost never goes overboard and makes you think "Well that was just stupid." 

Well, the operative word in the sentence is almost. I really don't want to give away the scene because should you choose to watch "The Perfect Host" I want you to feel the same WTF feeling I had. But I will give you an idea of what I mean by ridiculous. The scene features the song "Car Wash". I do not care who you are and what kind of message you mean to send. Any time a movie features "Car Wash" loses all its credibility it's built up and this destroys any tension during a dark comedy story. I don't mean to say it's a bad song or anything but Rose Royce isn't exactly the most gritty song writer.

If you squint really, really, REALLY hard, you might be able to pretend it's a scene from 2Pac's "Juice"

Final Verdict:

"The Perfect Host" is the result of a restricted budget and hiring actual writers for your screenplay. Clever dialogue, humorous moments set in serious settings, an excellent soundtrack, and an original story filled with twists during the late movie make for a great movie. I would most definitely recommend this movie to anyone who's looking to watch a movie with a different story that doesn't fall victim to endless cliches. Dan Hyde Pierce overshadows every other actor in the movie with his madman acting antics and that's just fine. You could get rid of every character in the film and just have Pierce interacting with his imagination and the movie would still be great. If you enjoyed this movie, remember that this is an indie film which is a genre that does not get the attention it deserves. So give not only the movie a chance, but the genre itself  a chance.

7/10

Cheers,

The Netflix Martyr

The Running Man

THE RUNNING MAN

Ah the 80's. I was born after that decade but I've heard people talk about the 80's like it's some sort of divine being that needs constant praise with a healthy dose of friendly ridicule to be appeased. I've heard of it's greatness, oh yes! It was a simpler time for everyone in the United States; all anybody had to worry about was The Scorpion's next album and utter nuclear holocaust from the Soviet Union. The 80's is famous for a few cultural trends that high school and college age girls today try their absolute hardest to duplicate. Honestly, have you ever been to a 80's themed party? It's horrible. All the girls go out and buy brightly colored leggings, miniskirts, and hand warmers. Meanwhile, all the guys go out and dress up like rockers and movie characters. In fact, my best friend once dressed up like Martin Castillo from "Miami Vice", fake mustache and everything.

  I may be mistaken but Uggs weren't quite a style at the time last I checked.

However, I shouldn't be talking too harshly since I dressed up like Bruce Springsteen with the leather jacket under the denim jacket on top of the jeans. I'm ashamed to admit that I even wore a red bandanna to complete it. 

But enough about all that. This evening I was scrolling through Netflix for a movie to review and I came across a particular film starring the wonderful "Governator" himself: Arnold Schwarzenegger. I've never been a giant fan of Arnie. I enjoy actors who try to play their parts as though they're actual human beings with their own individual hopes, dreams, fears, thoughts, etc. But Arnie is an action movie hero and I suppose I just need to get used to it. As I saw that "The Running Man" was finally up on Netflix, I read the description just like everybody else looking for a movie to watch. I had heard this movie was pretty good from several sources and I had read Stephen King's novel the movie was based on. I enjoyed the book and the Netflix description made it seem like it would be like the classic science fiction novel with maybe a few minor changes, which is to be expected from any movie based off a book. I hit play on my remote and sat back to enjoy the drama and fight for survival like I fondly remembered reading. 

Holy crap. Holy crap. HOLY CRAP. There are very few movies that grab you by the throat and scream "LOOK AT ME! I'M A RELIC FROM THE 80's! SEE?!? I HAVE BRIGHT COLORS, ANNOYINGLY LOUD SYNTHESIZER MUSIC, AND A BITCHIN' TITLE SCREEN! LOVE ME!!!" "The Running Man" covers all the minimum requirements of a 80's action movie but goes above and beyond the call of duty. The 80's was a time when Hollywood was busy reinventing the action movie genre and I don't fault them for experimenting. Not at all, it's important to keep things fresh in movies or else things get stale. But somebody in the casting department should have realized that after "Rocky III" came out, having a cast that has even ONE professional wrestler already destroys the serious tone the movie might be trying to establish. This is especially true in 80's movies, given the cartoonish state of the World Wrestling Federation at the time. But when you add a bodybuilder to the pro wrestler/cinema equation it just gets plain silly. You would've thought that somebody pointed out to the director, Paul Michael Glaser, that having almost your entire cast consisting of none other than bodybuilders, pro wrestlers, and former 007 villains might be a fabulously terrible idea.

Oh don't worry, I fully intend to review this glorious masterpiece. 

And you know what? It turns out that it was a fabulously terrible idea! Every single actor performs with such a wooden and emotionless acting that just watching them speak their lines makes you cringe. Arnold always seemed out of it in almost every single scene as though all he thought about during the scene shootings was the steak dinner back at the trailer.

Before we get into the story itself, it should be clear that "The Running Man" embraces one last 80's action stereotype and that is that the main character is a cop. Arnold starts the film as an awesome cop and uses his amazing cop skills throughout the movie. Did you know that police recruits in that decade were taught terrible one-liners at the Police Academy? I was surprised that Arnie didn't end up putting on a robot suit and travel through time like a true policeman should and it wouldn't matter anyways since the movie throws out almost every aspect of the  novel, leaving behind the bare skeletal remains of the original "The Running Man".

Let's do a quick comparison of the beginning of the book and the movie version of "The Running Man". 

Book:

Set in a dystopian American society in the future, our story features a man named Ben Richards. The year is 2025 and the United States is a complete police state that blacklists members of society based on their trades. Richards is blacklisted which puts his family into total poverty since nobody will ever hire him. With absolutely no income, Richards finds that he cannot provide money to pay for the medicine to treat his daughter's terminal illness. After his wife resorts to prostitution to earn some sort of money, Richards volunteers to join "The Running Man", a government funded and broadcast reality game show. In "The Running Man", contestants have 30 days to stay alive and run from the Hunters: Government hitmen hired to kill the contestants. The contestants can run anywhere in the world to escape from the Hunters as long as they send two video messages a day back to the television studio.

Movie:

By the time the year 2017 rolls around (three years from now!) the United States has run short on resources and for some reason decides that they need to turn themselves into a totalitarian police state run by the TV show producer and host of the game show "The Running Man" the man himself: Damion Killion. In the year 2019, Ben Richards is a helicopter pilot of a police chopper and he is given orders to massacre a large group of poverty stricken people receiving food for absolutely no reason. Richards goes against his orders and is sent to a labor camp after his immediate arrest. Some underground resistance movement is formed in the prison and eventually the prisoners plan a daring escape. The only issue with their plan is that the border of the labor camp is surrounded by a radio signal that alerts the prisoner's dog collars if they go past the border. If this signal is sent out, the collars will explode along with the heads of their wearers. The prisoners find out they can shut down this radio signal by entering in a specific code that only the guards know. Fortunately, the guards have the intelligence of mentally deficient Star Wars stormtroopers and one of the prisoners finds this code by looking over the shoulder of the radio signal operator. That's it. No cool hacking sequences only an 80's movie can provide. No torturing the info out of a poor guard. No bribery. Nothing cool at all. All he does is look over the guard's shoulder like a middle school student cheating on a math test.

If you think I'm exaggerating I'm not. He LITERALLY LOOKS OVER HIS SHOULDER.

After the prisoners escape with a simple iPhone passcode and the sheer power of Arnold's biceps. Surprise surprise, Ben Richards is a lone wolf and won't join the resistance movement because he wants to find work and start his life over. Long story short, the cops arrest him and he's forced into "The Running Man" game show because Damion Killion thinks he looks cool.

Well... At least the director got the names and the basic premises right! Everything else in the movie is completely different in every way possible. Thank God Stephen King wrote "The Running Man" under the alias of Richard Bachman because I personally would be ashamed to see my name in the title credits. The original story was a tale of desperation and taking the absolute last option possible because a man will do anything for his family. I'm not going to lie, the film adaptation isn't an adaptation. It's just flat out stupid and the logic is flawed all over. For example, Ben Richards escapes prison and goes to look for work so he can renew himself or some bullshit. Do I need to mention that it's incredibly difficult to maintain a low profile when you look like this:

Oddly enough, if you Google "Arnold Schwarzenegger 80's" about half the images are of Sylvester Stallone

Now I'm no expert on dystopian America stories but I'm pretty sure that the country wouldn't be flooded with thickly accented Austrians, so that's another giveaway. 

After about an hour, Ben Richards is finally put into "The Running Man" and the games begin. Except the rules are much different in the book. The Hunters are actually called The Stalkers and the only way to win the game is to kill or subdue all the Stalkers. Interestingly enough, Killion doesn't release tons of Stalkers all at once but releases each one at Arnold Musclehead one at a time and to nobody's surprise, the creative staff behind this movie was so focused on making cool characters that the Stalkers end up just being stupid. One of them is Oddjob that plays a deadly game of hockey named Sub-Zero.

"Guys seriously, what is this nonsense?!"

The next one that is released is Buzzsaw. All I could say about Buzzsaw was that he's essentially a slightly overweight Scott Steiner with a chainsaw.

"HOLLER IF YOU HEAR ME USING A PROP CHAINSAW WITH THE SOUND MIXING COMPLETELY OFF!"

And the absolute worse Stalker in the whole movie, this guy:

He sings opera and shoots lighting. Plus, his armor lights up like a Christmas tree. His name is Dynamo. I'm not making this up.

There were two more Stalkers that were in the movie for all of five seconds each but they're so unimportant it's not worth the time looking for pictures of them on the internet. The only thing you should care about those two is that one of them was Jesse "The Body" Ventura and his name was Captain Freedom. There's a scene where he outwardly rebels against the TV show crew and angrily spewing about how "The Running Man" is a sport that showcases the beauty of combat between two humans and shouldn't have men in funny armor using useless weapons. It was kinda cool except I think that Ventura forgot he was in a movie and was still in his wrestling character. I think he thought he was arguing with Vinnie Mac about the current state of 80's WWF and the film crew just kinda recorded the whole thing because after that scene, Captain Freedom never comes up again for the rest of the movie.

I would probably give the blatant stupidity of the Stalkers a pass if it wasn't for the fact that Ben Richards disposed of them so easily. None of the five Stalkers lived longer than about ten minutes during the movie and each one had to listen to Arnold quipping stupid one-liners about their deaths.

Which is another thing that got my attention. Holy crap are there one-liners. Here's a few of my favorites:

"Hey Killion! Here's Sub-Zero! Now he's Plain-Zero!"

"Jam the network? Jam it up your ass!"

"I love this saw. This saw is a part of me and I'm gonna make it a part of you!"

You know the famous line from The Terminator that Arnie utters because the cops won't let him into the police station? That one famous line that's on freaking t-shirts? This one right here:

That line was spoken in 1984 which is three years previous to "The Running Man" release. Guess what? THE PAY HOMAGE TO ANOTHER STUPID 80's ACTION MOVIE FEATURING ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER COMING FROM A DYSTOPIAN AMERICAN FUTURE AS A ROBOT! In the movie "The Running Man"! Take a look:

One last thing I noticed about this movie is that the sound mixing is absolutely dreadful. In the beginning there are several scenes where I cannot hear the actor's lines because the sound of gunfire is cranked up too freaking loud. I don't just mean I can't hear Arnold's thickly accented lines, I can't even hear some of the lines the American actors are speaking. When you add the music on top of the sound effects, the only thing left over is a blurb of sound coming out of the actor's moving mouth. They could have been lip syncing their lines at several moments in the movie and I wouldn't have noticed. 

FINAL VERDICT:

I have complained about "The Running Man" way longer than I wanted to. This movie appeals to only the audience that wants to watch awful 80's action movies. If you're looking for a movie that takes itself seriously with actual actors then look somewhere else. Sometimes the movie has its moments where it's actually kind of fun to watch and the movie might even be pretty fun if you watch it with other people. The only other part of the movie I enjoyed is seeing the ending credit scroll down the screen to the terrible 80's power ballad "Restless Heart". But for the most part, the only reason somebody should watch this movie is because for some reason, modern culture references this movie all the damn time. Also, for some reason, you can't seriously call yourself a movie buff unless you've seen this movie. Why? Hell if I know.

4/10

 

A little bit about my purpose and a short history lesson

                      

                                        The Netflix Martyr  

Alright folks, it's been fourteen years since we, the people, entered the twenty-first century and it's been roughly four years since we entered the 2010s. Society has definitely changed rapidly since the 2000s and the changes it's undergone may seem small in our minds at the moment, but when we look back at the last decade and our current one, we can see how different things truly are. Ten years ago today the vast majority of us probably didn't have cell phones and if any of you did, then I applaud you. Owning a cell phone at that time was pretty much being a hipster before it was cool to be a hipster.

"ZOMG! The Nokia 7280 doesn't support Instagram?! Heathens!"

You'll probably remember using some kind of landline telephone service with an answering machine for all  your incoming calls. When people found themselves in awkward situations they had to soldier through it and stare at their shoes uncomfortably, unlike today. Today, if I find myself in the middle of a family quarrel or striking out with women there's a simple solution to make it seem like I'm not the anti-social freak I really am: my smartphone. When people take out their iPhones and Droids and tap around on the screen, I used to assume they were busy talking business with important people or at least actively trying to be social. It wasn't until a couple years ago when I bought my own phone did I discover I was doing the same thing, but I sure wasn't being social. In fact, I was usually pretending to text or I was playing a game to avoid communication with a physical human being in front of me but I didn't want them to think I was socially inept.

Without a doubt, smartphones are the most definitive piece of technology of this generation, much like how the creation and spread of the internet was the big technology oriented achievement of the last generation. By owning a smartphone, a person's life totally becomes easier and simplistic in some ways. Owning one of these devices practically defeats the purpose of purchasing a thousand dollar computer when almost every feature on a personal computer comes with a smartphone, only easier and more accessible for even the most technically disabled people. For example, my grandfather was born during the 1940s where using terms like the internet, web browser, touchscreen, and WiFi would've put you in a mental institution or at least draw some funny looks towards you from the folks walking by your street corner pulpit.

Needless to say, Jesus Against Terabytes isn't a popular group even in modern days

But see, my grandfather's generation learned how to live without these twenty-first century conveniences and still managed to rack up an impressive list of achievements for their generation, albeit the minor little thing we call the Cold War. Heck, it's hard to imagine what life would've been like if they hadn't gotten around to creating duct tape! One could even go as far as to say that generation was pretty much full of MacGuyvers when you consider the fact that the scientists of that era figured out how to maintain the lunar lander module's temperature with aluminum foil and tape. However, modern technology is where those geniuses get a little funny. Tell a member of "The Greatest Generation" or "The Silent Generation" to perform a task on a computer beyond checking their email, googling, using Facebook to stalk their family members, or any other basic functions. Odds are, they'll probably ask for your help even if they just want to know why their web browser has suddenly slowed down to a crawl.

"No grandma it's not the computer mouse's fault. Yes grandma there's a reason the IT Guy is screaming."

But a little company called "Apple" has solved the issue of making technology more accessible for everyone. With Apple's iOS and Mac OS X operating systems, literally everything a person needs to perform the basic functions of a computer is right at their fingertips. Today, Apple's operating systems are famous for their easy to understand user interface and all around accessibility for all age groups. One of the great results that have come along with senior citizen friendly smartphones are the wondrous apps. In short, smartphone apps allow you to do anything a computer can in a simpler and sometimes more accessible fashion on your phone. I've even found some apps to be designed specifically to be used on mobile than on your computer. Instagram can be used on a PC but why would you do that? The Instagram app is easier to use and more effective when used on a phone.

Now, there are some apps we use specifically for streaming video content. Hulu, YouTube, Amazon Instant Prime, and the whole reason I started this blog in the first place: Netflix. Netflix is a video streaming service that boasts more than 2,000 films all available for streaming at anytime. Because the service cost is roughly the same amount as buying a Subway sandwich once a month, more than forty-four million people worldwide are using Netlix, earning the company a revenue of a whopping $4.37 billion.

Many people I talk to about Netflix treat it like it's some sort of gift from God Himself but I beg to disagree. In fact I call B.S. on those kinds of statements not because I have a burning hatred for the service or because I think I hate mainstream media. No, it's because I don't think God hates humans enough to give them titles like "Class of Nuke 'Em High", "Mega Shark vs Mecha Shark", and "Return of the Killer Tomatoes".

Jesus died for this.

Netflix is littered with all kinds of utter crap like the titles mentioned earlier and to me that's unacceptable. Obviously people who buy and use Netflix are movie and television fans in some ways. Regardless of who you are, NOBODY wants to watch a movie that looks like it was produced and directed by teenagers at film camp. For every one movie on Netflix that people have actually heard of and will probably enjoy, there are about ten other films produced on the budget of an eight-year-old. There have been many a time when I have had somebody over to watch something on Netflix and the hardest part is trying to find a movie and NOT in the positive way. Never have I logged onto my account and thought "Sheesh, this gonna be tough! There's just so many great Oscar winners here!" and in a way that kind of angers me. But, I do understand that there are some low-budget independent films that are actually worth the time to watch. Despite the fact that in these movies the boom mic operator keeps dropping the mic into the scenes, the talent is actually better than the A-list actors we see today. Sometimes, the movie even manages to (take note Michael Bay) tell a great story!

I am the Netflix Martyr. I am here to dive into the deepest depths of Netflix and review the movies you can usually only find after an hour of scraping at the bottom of the bargain barrel at Wal-Mart. I watch these movies so you don't have to. If you're ever unsure of whether or not a certain movie you find recommended to you is worth it, check out my posts and consider my opinion. I'm always open to requests for certain movies and suggestions on how to better my blog.

Cheers,
The Netflix Martyr