Robots and Pirates
Cinema Disaster: Robot Riot
Things this movie has: Robots
Things this movie does not have: A riot.
A group of soldiers sign up to train with the “mechs.” (There is, in fact, a mech in this movie. It is the only thing not called a mech).
If you just want to see robots shoot people…okay, make that shoot in the general direction of people…and have your popcorn ready, it’s kinda fun.
The soldiers have their memories wiped so they will think they actually volunteered to fight the robots. They aren’t the first groups,. All of the other groups died.
The one thing that makes this movie worth watching? Jason Leyva as General Dix. He is grinding his teeth on the scenery and looks like he works for Hydra. He is one of the best bad movie villains I’ve seen lately.
It appears that he just accepts he’s in a stinker and decides to have as much fun with it as possible. Might as well just completely overact and scream and have fun, right?
I loved his performance. It is such self-conscious “terrible” acting that you know it’s on purpose.
Everyone else, not so much.
Oh, there’s quite a bit of swearing in this movie.
The special effects are actually not too terrible (this is a 2020 vintage), but the robots’ complete inability to actually be a threat makes it a bit laughable.
I enjoyed it, for what it was, but don’t expect any kind of depth. Or really, much of a plot other than a shoot em up.
Worth a watch if you need brain candy and aren’t very awake ;)
Black Sails 1.2
I have a problem with this show.
Full frontal female nudity. Which is fine, but…
None of the hot guys take their shirts off. Really. I’m not asking for male nudity, just…some shirts to come off. Be equal opportunity, people! (Don’t get me wrong, the ladies are hot, but…)
This show also makes me kinda want a pirate show about a Black crew.
Anyway, things are getting rather hot around Nassau. If they can capture the treasure ship…what will they do? Turn Nassau into a real city? Will people actually give up piracy?
I doubt it. But I don’t know. This is a very…raucous and busy show with lots of crowd scenes, more than a little violence (expected given the subject matter).
And pretty serious, unlike most pirate fiction.
Just give me some shirtless guys!
Black Sails 1.3
Well, at least they didn’t bury the gays, just had them blow up in a spectacular fight.
I do like the bi representation in this, even if it’s in part revealed by dating history, it’s done in a way that involves other characters. Although there’s a surprising lack of biphobia for the setting. (We do see some racism, but not much of that either).
Then again, they’re pirates, and competence tends to mean more to pirates than anything else. And while this is definitely cinematic piracy, they do seem to understand how pirates work.
Still not enough shirtless guys, but we do get an M/F sex scene to go with the lesbian stuff.
This episode is pretty much all drama and jockeying for power. Oh, and I do love the casual historic language, done in such a way you don’t have to look it up because it’s clear from context. The feel of this show is excellent.
Elizabeth Guthrie should wear a little less, though. Sometimes she looks like the idiot Englishwoman who insists on full corsetry in the Caribbean and I think she grew up there, she knows better.
Cinema Disaster: Beyond the Trek
This movie has genetically engineered babies invented two years before it’s released and born three years after. How to turn your SF into alternative history in three, two…
(It’s also called Teleios. They changed the title to typosquat Star Trek Beyond, but this is not at all reminiscent of Star Trek. It’s more in the vein of Alien(s), but not really that either.)
Our protagonists are the crew of a rescue ship sent to investigate the silence of a deep space mining/science vessel orbiting Titan.
They are all GC humans, genetically engineered to be perfect (sociopaths) by Weylan…I mean by GC. And most of the movie is actually decent creepy hard SF. Yes, the science is right. The ship has found a compound that could be used for carbon sequestration on Earth, if it only wasn’t toxic. The crew are starting to go crazy. Obviously it was in the air on…
…alas, that’s not what happened, the movie suddenly left turns into a different explanation for why everyone is going berserk, one which makes, shall we say, a lot less sense.
A lot.
The only Black guy is an asshole. He dies first. Because we have to have classic bad movie racism in its most classic form.
It’s really one of those movies where you go “They were doing so well, then…”
I’ve seen worse, mostly because they do keep it on track for so long. But when it goes off the rails, it goes off the rails like a particularly bad roller coaster. Yeouch.