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Reviews
Interceptor (2022)
I wasted my time so you don't have to
If at any point in time you find yourself scrolling Netflix, unable to find anything to watch, and you just so happen to come across the "Surprise Me" button, as I did, do yourself a favor and scroll one more time if this movie happens to plague your TV screen.
Upon selecting the "Surprise Me" button, this movie began playing. Curious to know what I was about to be getting into, I backed out to read the summary and immediately had my doubts. However, I pushed forward and let the movie play. Admittedly, the first two minutes were good, hence the two stars. Unfortunately, by the time I had hit the 30 minute mark, I was ready to turn it off. I took a three hour recovery break and came back to finish off the rest of the movie; hoping that maybe there would be some astronomical finish that I didn't see coming. Instead, I discovered more plot holes than minutes left in the movies.
**SPOILERS AHEAD.... In case anyone cares**
To give a brief summary of what this movie is about, Interceptor is a movie entirely about intercepting 16 nuclear missiles that an unknown entity has stolen from a Russian military base. The two Interceptor sites located in Alaska and in the middle of the Pacific Ocean are the only two things preventing this unknown entity from launching the stolen nuclear missiles at 16 major U. S. cities. Within the first 5 minutes, Alaska has fallen. The troops at that installation were apparently using Nerf guns, and the unknown entity easily takes control and decommisions the interceptors. This leaves one remaining site: The rig in the Pacific Ocean.
Following this revelation that Alaska has fallen and the rig in the Pacific Ocean is the only thing preventing the U. S. from being blown to smithereens, Captain Whateverhernameis (the main protagonist) is informed of the ongoing situation. They must be ready to intercept any launched missiles within 12 minutes of a confirmed missile launch.
Fast forward 10 minutes and it turns out half the people on the rig are with the bad guys. The bad guys shoot some of the good guys, and Captain Whatever locks herself in the main control room that enables the interceptors to intercept. This, of course, is the room that the bad guys want access to, as they want to ensure that none of the missiles are intercepted once they have launched them. Captain Whatever informs the White House that they are breached, and a SEAL team is sent out with an ETA of 90 minutes. Sadly, Captain Whatever can't hold out that long. Fast forward some more and the bad guys breach the control room and take control. They launch their first missile while Captain Whatever attempts to free herself of her zipties. With only 6 minutes left, Captain Whatever breaks free, fights off 6 people, locks out three of them from the control room, and intercepts the launched missile. Yahoo, hooray, she did it....
Or did she?
*Cue the plot holes*
Turns out the bad guys have access to a laptop that can sink the entire rig. Apparently sinking the rig from the get-go would've been too easy, so they now choose to initiate the process and the rig begins sinking itself into the ocean. With only 17 minutes left before complete submersion, and an ETA of 20 minutes before the SEAL team gets there, Captain Whatever is low on options. However, she does have an idea... Let the bad guys back into the control room. So she does. Captain Whatever hides and allows them access to the control room.
With the control room once again under the bad guys' control, they launch the remaining 15 missiles. But Captain Whatever is ready. She quietly kills a bad guy by slicing the back of his neck with a scalpel, and scares the remaining bad guy out of the room as she empties a magazine from what appears to be an Uzi, missing every shot. With time counting down, Captain Whatever quickly tries to launch the Interceptor missiles, but discovers the bad guys have broken the button that launches the Interceptor missiles. Fortunately she discovers another way to launch them. Captain Whatever works some magic and hits the buzzer beater with only 3/10s of a second left on the clock. The missiles intercept and badda boom badda bing the US is saved.
This doesn't sit well with the bad guy she scared away with the Uzi, though. He reappears after the missles have been intercepted... and gets his ass beat. With all bad guys taken care of and all missiles intercepted, the movie pans out as the rig is nearly underwater. Fortunately, the SEAL team went through the time space continuum and makes it there before the rig sinks. Captain Whatever is rescued and everyone is happy. The movie then ends.
Now I'd like to say this movie was so bad it was good but I'd be lying if I did. There is a good premise around this movie, and with the right execution I think it could be good, however, what was released was a total flop that I wouldn't waste my time watching.
Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel (2018)
Loved the first Hell House LLC
Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the second Hell House LLC. In this movie, they attempt to add some lore to the series by creating a movie that is much more focused on an in-depth story/history behind "Hell House," or what is otherwise known as the Abbadon Hotel. The story behind it, while not awful, failed to draw me in, and, sadly enough, the scares/creepy scenes in this movie were few and far in-between, and were essentially carbon copies of the scares we see in the first Hell House. I will say some of the scenes were still a bit creepy, thus the reason for rating this movie 4 out of 10; however, the rest of the movie fails in nearly every facet. They fail to create a connection between the audience and the new characters that are introduced in this movie, therefore failing to make me care what happens to any of them; the scares are nothing new from the first movie; and the story is subpar at best. They do well with creating creepy looking props and characters, but that's the only redeeming quality in this movie.
Overall, not a terrible movie, but a disappointment after watching and loving the first Hell House.
Crown Heights (2017)
What a fantastic movie...
Having gone into this movie knowing nothing about this case, I must say this movie captivated me and kept me intrigued throughout the entire movie. As the movie progressed I found myself sitting up in bed, not daring to look away from the screen. It pulled all of my emotions into it making me angry, sad, excited, happy.. and I found myself yelling at the TV time and time again out of frustration. And being based on a true story and getting to see some of the live footage at the end of the film was the cherry on top.
This is a truly fantastic movie that I cannot recommend enough. It will pull you in and make you truly care for the characters. When the characters cried, I cried, when the characters were mad, I was mad. I've always believed that a great movie is one that makes you forget that you're watching a movie, and this one did exactly that. Highly recommend watching this movie.
Black Summer (2019)
Don't Let the Bad Reviews Stop You
First, and foremost, I would just like to state that Black Summer is not a prequel to Z-Nation, it is not a sequel to Z-Nation. It has no relation to the Z-Nation world. The only relation between the two shows is the company that produces them and the co-creator that was behind Z-Nation is also a part of Black Summer. That is it. Nothing more, nothing less.
As far as Black Summer, definitely give it a shot. As someone else stated, these zombies are very much like the zombies in 28 Days Later, if not worse. They can run, jump, climb, break through fences, the whole nine yards. And it really does get your blood pumping from just watching these things happen, as you never feel truly safe from these things. I watched all eight episodes within two days and have minimal complaints. The good outweigh the bad, but I will explain the bad for reviews sake.
So, without further ado, the complaints:
1) My first complaint is with the chaptering system that is implemented within the show. Oftentimes, more than not, the chapters seem very meaningless and oddly named. It even makes the show a bit awkward, as scenes will randomly end and then chapters such as "Drive" and "Dog" will pop up on the screen. At the beginning of the show I was a big fan of the use of the chaptering system, as it introduced the names of the main characters you would be seeing throughout the show. However, once the characters were done being introduced, the chaptering system seemed very pointless and unnecessary.
2) The characters seeming ability to understand Korean despite not speaking Korean. Many times throughout the show, one of the main characters will yell out Korean due to not speaking English and, more often than not, the other characters seem to understand what she is wanting, despite not knowing Korean, and the same will happen vice versa.
3) The episode lengths. Starting out with the normal 44 minute episode, you quickly find that the episode lengths vary incredibly throughout the season. By the second episode you're down to a 35 minute episode. The third, fourth, and fifth episodes are all a fair 40 minutes again; however, by the sixth episode you're back down to 34 minutes for the entire episode, and then suddenly you're down to a 25 minute episode for the seventh episode. Then, for the eighth and final episode, you're down to a 20 minute episode for the finale of season 1. Extremely weird, I felt, as season finales are usually longer than normal length episodes, and the shorter the episodes got, the more it felt as if the writers didn't know what else to do for those episodes so they simply cut down on the runtimes.
4) My last complaint is comparably minuscule, but still bothered me a ton every time I saw it. But trigger discipline. Throughout the entire first season, I only ever saw one character practice trigger discipline. Every other character would have their finger directly on the trigger every time that they had a gun, and I couldn't help but scream at them every time I saw them with a weapon. Not a huge deal, and a counterargument could be made that these individuals were not properly trained on how to manage a weapon, but it did bother me nonetheless.
Despite this complaints, I found this show very fun and intense to watch. The incredible speed, stamina, and effort it takes to kill a single zombie (if you do not have the ability to shoot them in the head) made the show very intense to watch as you wonder what the character will do in order to kill or escape the zombie that is chasing them. Moreover, the acting is well done throughout most of the season (although there is one very poorly done stunt, where an explosion goes off and three seconds later the actor jumps back as he gets "thrown" against the wall from the explosion) as well, and the character development does a great job of getting you to pick sides for certain characters as they make certain decisions.
On one last note, despite the fact that Z Nation was an awful show (I watched four seasons purely for my liking of Murphy), and despite the fact that Black Summer was made by the same co-creator and producers, this show is much, much better than Z Nation. From the acting, to the story behind it, this show is 100x better. Don't let the bad reviews ruin it for you. Give the first half of the season a shot, and if you don't like it then decide from there. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though, despite the minor complaints.