SEQUEL CATCH-UP: AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER (2022) *** ½

They say every movie is a miracle.  Just to get financed, shot, edited, and released, a film needs some kind of an angel on its shoulder to reach an audience.  Well, every shot of Avatar:  The Way of Water is a miracle.  It’s brimming with invention and eye-popping imagery.  I’m sure director James Cameron and his team had to work overtime to fill the screen with such an array of technical wizardry.  You can almost forgive them for not giving the script at least one more pass. 

The Way of Water finds Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) living among Na’vi and raising a family on the world of Pandora.  Naturally, those pesky humans return to the planet hoping to colonize it, and basically declaring war on the natives in the process.  To make matters worse, the evil Quaritch (Stephen Lang) has been resurrected in Na’vi form in a younger, hungrier version, and he’s looking to avenge his former human self.  He chases Jake and his family from their forest home, and they seek refuge in an isolated fishing village where they must become accustomed to a new underwater way of life.  When Quaritch takes Jake’s kids hostage, the tribe comes together to make their final stand. 

There are plenty of unique touches here.  I loved the fact they brought Sigourney Weaver back and had her play her own teenage alien daughter.  (It makes sense when you see it.)  I dug the robo-crab soldier guys too.  Visually, it’s a knockout, but it’s lacking a little something in the character development department.  Maybe I need to give it a second viewing as the initial watch is a rather overstimulating experience.  Still, at well over three hours, I can’t see that happening anytime soon (especially when I have tons of movies on my shelf that need to be watched this month). 

The underwater scenes look especially breathtaking, even if some of the characters resemble Sea Monkeys on steroids.  Sure, there are some cheesy moments here and there (like when the movie becomes Free Willy 3000).  The goofiest scene is when a space whale has a flashback.  I kid you not.  Not since the dog flashback in The Hills Have Eyes 2 have we seen something this goofy.  I kinda loved it.  

I also thought it was thematically interesting in that both the villain and heroes have family that aren’t wholly of their own species.  The message is that it’s not so much what a family looks like, it’s how they stick together that counts.  While even that’s a little on the nose, it still works. 

Did it need to be over three hours long?  Hell no!  Then again, YOU try telling the King of the World to trim his movie's running time back, especially when he’s been futzing with it for over a decade. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: ROLLING VENGEANCE (1987) ***

FORMAT:  DVD

Don Michael Paul stars as a young trucker who goes into the trucking business with his old man (Lawrence Dane).  To put food on the table, they are forced to deliver to a slimeball (Ned Beatty) who owns what’s practically the only bar in town.  He also has a gaggle of hothead redneck sons who regularly cruise around town and torment the townsfolk with impunity.  When they cause Paul’s mother and sisters to die in a car accident, the law refuses to punish the guilty.  After the gang hospitalizes his dad, Paul does what any good son would do:  Turn his truck into a flame-shooting monster truck of vengeance.  Then they rape his girlfriend (Lisa Howard), and he gets REAL mad. 

Rolling Vengeance is kind of like a late ‘80s Canadian version of a late ‘70s Good Ol’ Boy movie mixed with a Cannon revenge picture.  That is to say, I had a pretty good time with it.  It was obviously trading in on the Bigfoot monster truck craze of the time as there are plenty of scenes of monster trucks running over rows of cars.  Bigfoot may be cool and all, but did he have a phallic-shaped drill that impaled evading vehicles?  I don’t think so. 

Paul Kersey had a Wildey.  The Exterminator had a flamethrower.  This guy has a drill-dick Bigfoot. 

Oh, and the sight of Ned Beatty dressed up like a greaser from a ‘50s juvenile delinquent movie is really… something. 

Director Steven H. Stern was mostly known for his TV work (most notably, Mazes and Monsters).  He handles things in a workmanlike manner, and wisely doesn’t oversell the potentially silly premise.  He maybe uses a little bit too much slow motion, but your mileage (no pun intended) may vary.  Paul later went on to direct a slew of DTV sequels and wrote the immortal Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. 

AKA:  Monster Truck.

SEQUEL CATCH-UP: CREED III (2023) ****

I didn’t get around to seeing Creed III in theaters.  This was the first film in the series without Rocky, and if I’m being honest, I wasn’t completely convinced they could pull it off without Stallone.  I’ll be damned if first-time director Michael B. Jordan didn’t knock it out of the park.  The first two Creed movies built the foundation for the character of Adonis “Donnie” Creed.  This one establishes that he can stand on his own two feet without the baggage of Rocky’s legacy hanging over him. 

This time we find Creed (Jordan) spending more time promoting other fighters than actually boxing in the ring.  When his former friend Damian Anderson (Jonathan Majors) comes back from a long prison stretch, Creed tries to lend him a helping hand out of a sense of misplaced loyalty.  It doesn’t take long for Anderson to show his true colors and reveal he has a sinister agenda all his own. 

Yes, the boxing sequences are great, but I really loved the quiet scenes of Creed’s home life.  The scenes where he has tea parties with his daughter and secretly training her to box are really sweet without being schmaltzy.  Jordan’s domestic scenes with Tessa Thompson have a lot of heart too, and the subplot with Wood Harris as Donnie’s faithful trainer who knows Anderson’s up to no good is strong too.  Majors gives an intimidating performance and makes a good foil for Jordan, who once again carries the movie effortlessly.  I liked too that Anderson was basically a villain from a ‘90s “From Hell” thriller mixed with your typical boxing adversary. 

With Creed III, Jordan announces himself as a director to watch.  He proves he can film training montages and boxing sequences with the best of them.  I especially liked how he slowed some of the fights way down (I guess you could call it “Creed Time”) as he picks out his opponents’ weaknesses and exploits them.  The awesomely over-stylized final match where it becomes so personal between the combatants that the crowd completely disappears, and we see just two guys fighting for their lives was particularly effective.  This sequence alone has me chomping at the bit to see what Jordan will do next as a director.  There are also some nice cameos from the previous Creed movies, which shows that his past opponents are still in his sphere and that they’ve almost… but maybe not quite… buried the hatchet. 

I also liked the new locale, Los Angeles, which helped untether this entry from the previous Philly-set films.  The final fight takes place at Dodger Stadium and there’s a wonderful tweak on the typical Rocky running-up-the-steps motif that I wouldn’t dream of spoiling.  In short, this is a knockout.  The Rocky/Creed series remains undefeated and undisputed.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) ****

FORMAT:  4K UHD

Wow, I can’t believe I’ve been reviewing movies online for seventeen years and haven’t reviewed one of my all-time favorites, A Clockwork Orange.  Then again, what can you say about it that hasn’t already been said?  I mean, you don’t need me to tell you how great it is.  It’s without a doubt one of the best films ever made, and arguably Stanley Kubrick’s best.  (Although I might give The Shining the edge.)  

Rarely, if ever, do films hold the power to shock five decades after their release, but A Clockwork Orange is one such film.  Even today, the film remains outrageous, ballsy, hilarious, and invigorating.  Kubrick somehow was able to top 2001:  A Space Odyssey with a totally unique and wonderfully warped vision of the future. 

Malcolm McDowell amazing as Alex, the psycho gang leader with a penchant for Beethoven.  He plays it to the hilt with a nearly operatic sense of performance.  What’s so amazing is that he actually makes you care about him, even when he's doing completely despicable things.  When he experiences “the tortures of the damned”, you can’t help but feel for the bugger. 

Even after all these years, the film remains visually stunning.  Kubrick was some kind of mad genius alchemist to blend an absurd sense of pop art futurism with jet-bleak nihilism.  The Ludovico treatment scenes still have a kick them and still have the power to make any jaded movie fan squirm in their seat (especially if you have an aversion to eye trauma like me). 

4K UHD NOTES:

As for 4K transfer, it looks gorgeous.  The primary colors of the title sequence really pop, and the darks run a deep, deep black throughout, providing a nice contrast during the scenes of Alex and his Droogs engaging in a bit of the old ultraviolence.  One small background detail I did pick on this viewing occurred during Alex’s arrest.  If you look closely, you can see a police recruitment flyer in the police station, which foreshadows Georgie and Dim’s appearance as policemen later in the film.  Now I’m not sure whether that was due to the sharpness of the 4K transfer and the crispness of the backgrounds or if it was just because Kubrick’s films are naturally filled with tiny details that lend themselves to rewatches.  Either way, if you were sitting on the fence about picking it up, I’d say it’s definitely worth the upgrade. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE SPY KILLER (1969) **

FORMAT:  DVD

A woman thinks her new man is cheating on her, so she hires her private eye ex-husband John Smith (Robert Horton) to get photos of them in the act.  It seems like a simple enough gig, except for the fact that Smith arrives at their pad, he finds a dead body instead.  He’s promptly charged with murder and must find the real culprit to clear his name.  Fortunately for Smith, he used to be a secret agent and can rely on his wily old boss Max (Sebastian Cabot) to get him out of trouble whenever he’s in a pinch. 

The Spy Killer is watchable but forgettable ABC TV Movie of the Week programmer that utilizes lots of talent from the Hammer horror movies both behind and in front of the camera.  It was directed by Roy Ward (Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde) Baker, written by Jimmy (The Horror of Dracula) Sangster (based on his novel Private I), and co-stars Barbara (Dracula:  Prince of Darkness) Shelley as the ex-wife.  Bond fans will also enjoy seeing Diamonds are Forever’s Jill St. John as Smith’s girlfriend. 

Baker and Sangster try to meld the spy and private eye genres with mixed results.  The idea of an American secret agent now making his living in London as a gumshoe had potential.  However, because of the Made for TV production values, it winds up feeling like a Hammer version of a Quinn Martin production.

Horton is kind of bland, but since his character’s name is John Smith, I think he was supposed to be nondescript.  Cabot seems to be having fun as a more sinister version of M, and some amusement can be had from seeing the usually gregarious Mr. French getting embroiled in international espionage.  St. John is kind of wasted in a thankless girlfriend role, but she still looks great.  Unfortunately, Shelley pretty much disappears after the opening. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: FROM BEYOND (1986) ****

FORMAT:  4K UHD

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on August 18th, 2007)

A year after making the seminal horror classic, Re-Animator, director Stuart Gordon and much of the same cast and crew returned to the work of H.P. Lovecraft for this batshit insane flick. Although not quite the classic that Re-Animator is, it remains one of the best horror flicks of the 80’s and has a manic charm all its own.

Even after more than twenty years, it’s still the best sex starved S&M scientists turning into slimy mutant rubbery sex monsters movie of all time.

The plot has the inimitable Jeffrey Combs returning to a rundown house with sexy psychologist Barbara Crampton to prove that he really isn’t crazy because he turned on the “Resonator” machine that brings moray eels from another dimension to Earth to eat human heads for dessert. Crampton finally believes him when she turns on the machine too long and is soon running around in bondage gear wanting everyone in sight to give her the high hard one. Luckily Ken Foree, the man who uttered the immortal line “When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth” in Dawn of the Dead is around to keep a cool head and make sure everyone doesn’t sex each other to death. Things start getting weird though when Combs is almost swallowed whole by the sea serpent in the basement and emerges with an enlarged pineal gland that jumps out of his forehead and starts running around sucking people’s brains out of their eye sockets. And I’m not even going to talk about the kinky doctor who returns “from beyond” as a slimy monster (he looks like John Carpenter’s The Thing but with an overactive libido) who’ll stop at nothing to get into Barbara’s pants because it’s just too disgusting to think about.

In short, it’s a classic and you’re gonna love it. It’s a worthy successor to Re-Animator and even though it’s not as great, it comes pretty damn close.

QUICK THOUGHTS:

Since I wrote that review seventeen years ago, my admiration for From Beyond has only grown.  Now, I’m often torn between which is better, Re-Animator or From Beyond.  I guess my copout answer is this:  How do you top Re-Animator?  You make From Beyond.  Then again, this one has Barbara Crampton in a dominatrix outfit for a quarter of the movie.  Whichever one you prefer, one thing is undeniable, it’s one of the greatest one-two punches by a director ever.  It also remains the best S & M KY Jelly monster movie of all time. 

4K UHD NOTES:

The 4K presentation from Vinegar Syndrome is nothing short of amazing.  The purples and blues that permeate the movie really pop.  (Stuart Gordon was doing bisexual lighting before anyone.)  In short, this flick looks like a million bucks.  From the slimy monsters to Crampton’s array of sexy wardrobe changes, From Beyond is a feast for the eyes and definitely worth the upgrade. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: ED MCBAIN’S 87TH PRECINCT: ICE (1996) ** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Ice was the second in a string of three Ed McBain adaptations for television.  I’ve not seen the third installment, Heatwave, so I can’t say for sure it’s the best of the trilogy.  What I can say is that it was definitely a step up from the first film, Lightning.  This one was directed by Bradford (Darkman 3:  Die Darkman Die) May and boasts a script by none other than Larry (It’s Alive) Cohen, who is a good fit for McBain’s hardboiled style. 

A hooker comes home to find her pimp has been murdered.  Later that night, a dancer is murdered with the same gun.  Detectives Carella (Dale Midkiff) and Meyer (Joe Pantoliano) have to figure out the connection and solve the case.  The investigation becomes personal when the killers come after Carella’s deaf girlfriend. 

Midkiff and Joey Pants are solid in the leads, even if the briskly moving plot doesn’t give them much time to develop their characters.  It was also good seeing Family Ties’ Michael Gross as their no-nonsense lieutenant.  Their performances help elevate the material, even if the plot is just perfunctory. 

The Cohen touches (like a pregnant hooker giving birth in the middle of being arrested) help, and the scene where a thief holds up a laundromat and attempts to rob the ladies of not only their jewelry, but their panties as well, is memorable.  Also, the lovebird murderers have a kind of Honeymoon Killers vibe to them as they are (SPOILER) a sleazy guy and his obese girlfriend.  Despite those little flourishes, Ice still has the distinct feel of an average police procedural drama.  You know, something your dad might watch.  Ultimately, there are too many half-baked subplots and supporting characters that get in the way of investigation, but May does manage to bring a little bit of style to the proceedings.