Westworld (1973)

Westworld (1973)

7/10

Starring

Yul Brynner

Richard Benjamin

James Brolin

Directed by Michael Crichton

With HBO announcing the release of Westworld series based on the 1973 film set to premiere this fall of 2016, I just had to see the film to know what to expect.

Westworld as a film packs a punch with wonderful directing by Crichton and the actors were on point especially Yul Brynner portrayal of a robot gone rogue. The settings are also something to admire and it is so set that you can picture such a thing happening for real. The movie is also a thriller as we are taken on a ride of man versus machine.

HBO’s attempt to make a series of this movie will be the second, as CBS tried to do so in 1980 but cancelled the show after airing 2 episodes.

For me the movie is well structured from start to finish and not needing any form of elongation, but we have to wait and see what HBO has installed.

This film is more than just fun to see it is enticing the way the movie is written. Michael Crichton who wrote and also directed this film, went on to also write another book based on a failed theme park, the name of the 1990 classic and later over a billion dollars’ film franchise is Jurassic Park.

This sci-fi film is set in the near future and Crichton was able to capture the idea of what people would love to see in the near future, these things are very much available now.  Today there are numerous parks where you can go to see the reenactment of events that happened in the past.

Not aware if such existed during the time of writing this book, but what I do know is that this was the first movie to introduce the concept of computer virus corrupting a program or machines in a movie theme.

The movie starts with the introduction of the park called Delos, which has three segments. West World, which is a reenactment of the old American west. Medieval World which is a reenactment of medieval Europe and Roman World. Although the movie concentrates more on what happened in West World, we get to see what is going on in other worlds too.

A newcomer to this park Peter (Richard Benjamin) meets an old timer John (James Brolin) on their way to Delos. John explains to Peter that everything in Delos appears to be real, you get to live and experience how life was in the world of your choice. In the West World where they were going, you can kill people and decide to either be good or bad.

The whole west is composed of both humans and androids and you can only tell them apart from their hands. They are also given real guns which is managed by the computer program which runs Delos not to shoot a real human.

The manager of Delos notices that the machines were breaking down more often than they should and witnessed from a monitor the machines breaking protocol. These led to them closing down Delos from new guest, but decided to allow the guest already in Delos to enjoy what they paid for.

Before long the theme park went rogue and machine and human turned on each other.

Westworld is a fun movie one I’m glad I saw.

Angry Birds (2016)

Angry Birds (2016)

4/10

Starring the voice of

Jason Sudeikis

Josh Gad

Danny McBride

Maya Rudolph

Directed by Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly

Other than being clear why the Birds hate the Pigs, this movie had nothing to offer me the viewer and I had to keep fighting to stay awake thanks to the massive dose of boredom the movie served.

It is not all the time you have to go with the critics rating on a movie, but when both the critics and the audience give a movie a bad rating on rotten tomatoes, I guess you just have to believe the movie is bad or you see it for yourself to conclude.

For me the writers and producers were served an empty plate as this Angry Birds movie is based on an app game, whose objective is to knock down obstacles and take down as many pigs as you can along the way.

The app has no concrete storyline and the writers and producers could have spun this movie anyway they wanted, but they chose this boring route.

The Angry Birds movie start with the introduction of an island filled with birds who can’t fly. Then we are introduced to Red who is bird with anger problems, and goes off the handle when the opportunity presents itself. He is avoided and sidelined as different as the other happy birds live their lives with no care in the world.

The one day a ship docks on their island and pigs led by the ship captain Leonard come on the island as friends wanting to get to know the birds of the island.

Red suspects that they were up to no good and decides to find a way to stop these pigs.

Thanks to the massive popularity of the game during its weekend release it took first place, a feat I don’t expect it to maintain as Angry Birds showed up during the time when Disney has gotten the family weekend entertainment locked down. The bad reviews the movie is getting may cause families to go Disney this weekend and opt for second helpings of Zootopia (2016)(which I saw thrice), The Jungle Book (2016) or Captain America: Civil War (2016).

This year we are expecting four video game based movies coming out with Ratchet and Clank (2016) starting but it’s bad reviews and is affecting its box office performance. Angry Birds on the other hand has for a long time been a crowd puller with the games having been downloaded millions of times over and for the reason of popularity this movie should be profitable at the end of its run.

For me, I’m so disappointed at the movie’s storyline.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

2/10

Starring

Christopher Reeve

Gene Hackman

Jackie Cooper

Marc McClure

Directed by Sidney J. Furie

Plagued with a horrible storyline and graphics that practically shit on the last three Superman films, here is a movie that 20 minutes in you are sure you have wasted your time and you start to feel sorry for Christopher Reeve for even being part of this film and wrecking a wonderful franchise of him being Superman.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is a movie where the story is based on Lex deciding to take on Superman on his own turf. As fun as that may sound the problem is the writers and producers found a way to wreck it, based on the numerous ways the writers could have spun this which could have seen the introduction of Bizzaro, the writers decided to go with Nuclear Man.

Before you start cracking your brain on who this man is in the comic world, he is not there just a character the writers made up to fill that void.

Now other than the numerous plot holes in this movie from, how did Nuclear Man know where Lex is, how come when Lex called Superman he said only you can hear me, but yet his picture is shown on a large display screen.

Then there was the whole playing Clark and Superman double dating scam, which made the women look like idiots from not figuring out that Clark didn’t come back up when he missed his elevator. I can carry on punching holes into this movie’s plot, but there is no point.

The movie was both a critical and commercial failure mostly because the producers of the first three films (Alexander and Ilya Salkind) wrecked a good series with Superman III (1983) being comical instead of serious. They tried bringing back life into the series with the critical and commercial failure of Supergirl (1984), after these concurrent failures they sold the franchise.

The new owners then made this film with the minimum budget available and the crappiest script they could find. Jon Cyrer who played Lex nephew Lenny Luther was noted for saying the movie is an unfinished project based on the studio running out of money.

As said from above the movie plot is based on Lex getting even with Superman on his own turf, Lex’s plan gets on their way when his nephew Lenny broke him out of prison.

Lex stole a hair of Superman from a museum and used it to create a clone, not just any clone a clone whose source of power is solar energy. The new villain was named Nuclear Man. Now Superman has to face up with this clone who is as powerful as him.

I so much wish this film was never made.