The King Of Fighters (2010)

Background: The King Of Fighters is a long and storied fighting game franchise from SNK out of Japan. It was, for a long time, the main rival for Street Fighter in Japan. Over in America, we had Mortal Kombat, which never really caught on in Japan, so The King Of Fighters got lost in the mix. Anyone who knows fighting games, though, knew it, and brother let me tell you, I knew it. I remember power dunking with Terry Bogard, Mai not being a good character but people liking her boobs,  and just some great animations. The characters originally came from other SNK games, like Ikari Warriors and Fatal Fury, but the story revolved around Kyo Kusinagi, his rival Iori Yagami and the King Of Fighters Tournament held by Either Rugal or, later Chizaru. At least I assume that's the story that the movie will be using. The King Of Fighters has always been an unusally story heavy fighting game. They've had multiple story arcs over the years, and most people just liked punching dudes so they never really paid much attention. In fact, the ones that people consider to be the best games (KOF'98 and KOF'02) ditched that whole nonsense and just got down to fighting.

Sean Faris, a regular white dude, is playing Kyo, which seems like an odd choice for the role. The story originally comes from ancient Japanese folklor, so it seems especially odd that the main character of the series is played by someone with no Japanese heritage. Mai is played by Maggie Q, a favorite around the internet. She most recently made waves for being in Nikita The CW's reboot of La Femme Nikita, 

Plot: The basis of the plot actually doesn't stray too far from the games. There exists a fighting tournament that is used to find out who really is The King Of Fighters (they say "King Of Fighters" a lot in this movie). And there are 3 relics that were used to seal away the Orochi, a serpent spirit from Japanese lore. That's pretty much all this movie takes from the games. Here, the story revolves not around Kyo Kusanagi, whose clan sealed away the Orochi, but around Mai. Mai and Iori Yamagi are lovers in this world, and Mai is entered into the King Of Fighters tournament. One day, when Mai and Iori are checking out the famous relics, Rugal comes in and steals them. He can use them to set the Orochi free, but little does he know the sword's a fake.

Mai is tasked with finding a man named Kusanagi, the father of Kyo. This man is in a hospital and hasn't spoken a word to anyone in years. Here, Mai runs into Kyo, no reimagined as a motorcycle repairman who doesn't know much about his past. Also, he's a white dude. His father is asian, and even Kyo is asian as a youngster in flashbacks. This is never explained.

Also reimagined are Vice and Mature. As lesbians. Why not? They're pulled into the fighting dimension and Rugal turns them into his minions. As with much of this movie, little attention is paid to their backstory from the game. Enter fan favorite Terry Bogard. Instead of being the nice guy that everyone loves though, he's a CIA agent and a total dick. He's wearing a suit and tie and doesn't have anything even approaching an ass-length ponytail. Turns out he's working with Mai, just like in Fatal Fury!

Rugal changes the stakes of the tournament now that he has the relics, now it's going to be a fight to the death. Mai has figured this out and she and Terry have to stop him. The movie takes a long time to get to this point though. There's some more stuff with Kyo and Iori's family history and the history of the Orochi, but it's the last 20 minutes that everyone's been waiting for. The entire crew is transported to the fighting dimension and everyone has their recognizable gear on. Terry's hat even says "Fatal Fury" which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever in this movie. Anyway, people punch, people kick, people throw fire. Kyo, strangely refrains from throwing fire, even though that's his main deal in the games. Kyo wins using his family's sword and everything's all better.  

What Went Wrong? The King Of Fighters suffers from a lot of the same problems as fighting game movies. The story is close enough to the story of the games, but the story of the games is just a backdrop when you play it. Ryu and Ken were the most popular characters of the Street Fighter games, but only a minor role in the movie. Mortal Kombat's most famous characters Sub-Zero and Scorpion, only appear in a few scenes in the movie, instead the movie revolves around Jax and Sonya, two of the least popular characters in the game. Though it my seem like pure fan service to bring the most popular characters to the front on the movie, these movies are pure fan service to begin with. Those movies often care very little for character's backstories (Like Street Fighter's Charlie being turned into Blanka somehow) and this is by far the worst for that. The depiction of Terry Bogard goes so against the Terry Bogard fans know and love that he's not even recognizable.

Focussing the movie around Mai and making Kyo a side character is a complete mistake. Maybe just because I never liked Mai, but making Kyo into a regular dude that gets dragged into the tournament goes against the main story The King Of Fighters games. The parts it gets right get completely overshadowed by the parts it gets wrong

What Went Right? Like all movies based on fighting games, it's fun to see the character's special moves taken into the real world. In this case, the magical powers that the characters have are explained by the fights taking place in a different dimension. This means nothing to people who haven't played the game however and the special effects budget means that we don't really get to see a lot of this. It's mostly just pretty bland shaky-cam fighting. How the characters change into their recognizable outfits when they enter the fighting dimension is never explained, but who cares? Terry Bogard at least looks like Terry Bogard finally (minus ponytail).

Also, I'm of the opinion that even the worst movie can be at least partially saved by a villain that overacts as much as Ray Park does as Rugal.

Verdict: The King Of Fighters '98 is available for download on Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network. Just sayin'.

Score: 18%

The Rockville Slayer (2004)

Background: The story, as usual, here is with the actors. Among them are, notably, Robert Z'Dar and Joe Estevez. the word "notably" might sound a little suspect, as most of the world doesn't know who the hell those people are. Sure, one could guess that Joe Estevez is releated to Emilio Estevez and Martin and Charlie Sheen, and they'd be right, but why care about the weird uncle? And just looking at a picture of Robert Z'Dar is enough to confuse most people. Both, however, are staggeringly prolific. Z'Dar has appeared in at least one movie per year since 1984, twenty five straight years. His total is quickly approaching 100 films made. That's nothing compared to Estevez though. He's been in well over 150 movies.

If you know these names, chances are you know them from Mystery Science Theater 3000. MST3K was dedicated to movies like the ones these guys cranked out. Joe Estevez was in the classic Werewolf, Z'dar in the truly terrible Future War and they both appeared together in Soultaker. All of these episodes of MST3K are available on Netflix, and I can't recommend them enough. Especially Werewolf because that has a great song in one of the interstitial scenes. 

Going into this, I know it's a slasher flick. I'm writing this before I've actually watched the movie, and if I had to guess, Z'dar is the killer.

Plot: The movie gets off to a pretty bland start from the get go. Stock footage of a small town runs under the opening credits (for some reason, the credits are in the Papyrus font). After that we cut to the two stars of the football team about to stick it to two cheerleaders. They're parked in their cars, close to the local insane asylum (yep). The two couples talk back and forth on walkie talkies, competing to have sex first, I guess. They get murdered. Duh.

A sexy lady detective and her bland partner comes in to assist the local sheriffs, Joe Estevez and a younger guy. The young sheriff is the brother of one of the victims. They talk about the murders, and also about a patient that escaped the looney bin. One of the kids it turns out wasn't quite murdered enough and he wakes up just in time to spit blood on Sexy Detective.

The escapee is a young girl, an older sister of one of the victims. Sexy Detective and her partner find her covered in blood in her hospital gown. They take her in, Sexy Detective leaves her alone with her partner, partner is murdered. Girl did it, case closed, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. Sexy Detective doesn't buy it, and neither does the viewer. The survivor claims he did it, but no one believes that either. Then he kills himself for some reason.

Young Sheriff's father cheated on his wife, she got pregnant, kid turned out to be Young Sheriff. I summarized that in one sentence. It takes most of the movie to tell this in the story. Z'dar shows up in the final 20 minutes and he is having a blast in this movie. When he was on screen was the only time I had fun with this movie. I don't want to give any spoilers though about who the real killer was.

Why Was It Forgotten? This movie is a throwback to a bygone era of horror flicks. The deliberate pacing and (attempted) spooky atmosphere harken back to the early days of the genre. It even opens with teens breaking Scream's rules of the genre (and are appropriately murdered). The horror genre these days is all about jump scares, but there are really only a few in the movie. Typically, throwbacks of this ilk are campy or try to blend genres. This one, however, plays it straight.

The scenes that roll over the opening credits are very pretty. Well shot, good depths of field effects just some good shooting. I bring this up because the rest of the movie looks like garbage. The shots are rarely in focus and the lighting is as dull as lighting can be. The sound quality matches the visual quality to boot.  Watching this movie  practically requires to to jockey the volume knob between the way too quiet dialogue and the way too loud screaming. All this leads to watching the movie becoming a chore. I found myself anticipating the louder parts and turning the volume now in advance, often guessing wrong and having to turn it back up.

What Went Right? Joe Estevez clearly outclasses all of the rest of the actors. Though ol' Joe has never reached the fame levels of his kin, he is not without his talents. It's just unfortunate that his muted tones are barely audible throughout the movie. It also puts the rest of the cast into stark relief. Particularly the teens in the beginning, those guys were the worst. Other than that... well not too much went right. The tone is way to serious, the entire movie shows way too much restraint. Those are my two least favorite qualities in a horror movie.

Verdict: I was lying about the spoilers. Z'dar was the killer.

Score: 10%

See This Movie (2004)

Background: This movie stars Seth Myers and John Cho, even has them right on the front of the box. Seth Myers is now known for being the head writer of Saturday Night Live and host of the very popular Weekend Update segment. John Cho is probably best known for being Harold in of the Harold and Kumar movies. he's also had roles in the short lived (and lamented by me) show Kitchen Confidential and was Sulu in the recent Star Trek movie reboot. Most people will recognize him though from the American Pie movies. See This Movie was made after those, but before Harold And Kumar and well before Seth Myers hot his head writer gig, he was only a featured player at the time.

Director and Cowriter David M. Rosenthal has only a few other credits to his name and nothing of any real note. He has definite credentials though. He holds a master's degree from the American Film Institute. This was his first feature film, which is why it's curious that it appears from the outside to be another Hollywood satire. These never go well...

Plot: Seth Myers and John Cho are students in a three day film school taught by an incredibly mumbly Jim Piddock. Seth's film, a short where he rants for a few minutes and not a lot more, wins the student choice award. When celebrating, he finds out that his ex curates the Montreal Film Festival, and he decides that this would be an easy door to get a film in. The problem is, the festival is three months away and he doesn't have a film yet.

The movie he decides to make will be a meta-fiction about the film industry, a dramatic mockumentary, or Drockumentary as he calls it. It's called Shooting From The Soul. In order to bang out the movie as quickly as possible, he decides that he only really needs a few scenes, the ones people remember. The fight scene, the love scene and the redemption at the end.  There are a few scenes where they're shooting those important scenes, but it quickly becomes apparent that those aren't the important parts.

Things kinda run off the railes from there. There are a few times where characters will address the fact that there's a camera in the room, looking straight at it and talking to it, things like that. Then Seth Myers starts directing the movie that we're actually watching, or editing a scene that we just watched, as if the movie we're watching is the movie he's making for the festival.There are other scenes though where this premise doesn't make any sense, like how no one else ever acknowledges the cameras.

Myers accidentally takes ecstasy. You can predict how that goes. His freakout goes on a long time. During this time he can't get an erection when he tries to get back with his ex, but then he comes in his pants. Fuck this entire part of the movie.

Things become increasingly erratic on the set. One of his actresses is selling ecstasy and she ends up almost leaving. Every girl wants a piece of Jim Piddock (He's supposed to be really cool or something. This is shown by the fact that he is almost never shown not smoking). Myers goes through an existential crisis. His ex sleeps with with Piddock and Cho tells him several times that he can never ever tell Myers. That can't go wrong.

There are a few more scenes where it's impossible to tell what's the movie Myers is shooting and what's just the movie we're watching. There's also a pensive reflection scene over some appropriately pensively reflective music. Another pretty terrible trope. Myers then runs down to the venue where his movie will be shown, where he tearfully admits that he doesn't have a film. Turns out, Jim Piddock took all the footage that we've been watching and turned it into a movie, and that's shown to the audience. They like it a whole lot more than I did.

Why Was It Forgotten? Hollywood satires are rarely very popular. Even when they gain recognition, they're almost never heralded outside of film nerd circles. The film also has super low production quality. The sound level is all over the place and it was obviously filmed on a fairly cheap digital camera. There should also probably be more jokes, or maybe the jokes should just be funnier. I dunno. The movie tries very hard to be smart and biting and misses the mark on both counts really consistently.

Also, that goddamned drug freakout scene. Ugh.

What Went Right? The two stars are pretty consistently enjoyable. John Cho is playing essentially his Harold role of peacekeeper with his idiot friend. He's a guy that's in way over his head and his friend just keeps digging him in deeper. It's a role he plays often, but it's a role he plays well. Myers for his part, even when the jokes might not be great, he always sells them. The drug freakout may be a horrible trope, but you can never say he doesn't go for it.

Verdict: I really have to stop watching Hollywood satires.

Score: 15%

Andrew W.K. Who Knows?

Background: Andrew W.K. is an interesting character. He made quite a splash back in 2001 with his first album, I Get Wet. Songs like Party Hard and It's Time To Party were crafted to be as loud and as large as possible, the entire album stays in this vein, really. His brand of unironic joy caught on quickly and his flame burned bright. Andrew W.K. loves to party, and he wanted everyone to know it.

His followup album however, titled The Wolf, failed to capture the same zeitgeist, despite being a more accomplished album and actually selling quite well. It had the same humongous hooks and yelling about how awesome partying is, but America had moved on. Japan, on the other hand, totally dug it, so he catered to that market. Close Calls With Brick Walls, his next LP only came out in Japan for many years (it's since been released here). He even released an album of songs from the popular anime series Gundam, about people controlling giant robots and doing battle. Though not specifically about partying, it's actually a pretty logical step. He also, simultaneously, released the opposite album, 55 Cadillac, which is entirely piano instrumentals.

He continues to have success, though. Fans still love him, I know I do, and he has one of the most entertaining twitter feeds out there. He's also spent some time doing motivational speaking, and hosting the Cartoon Network show Destroy, Build, Destroy. This movie came out shortly after The Wolf, let's check it out, shall we?

Plot: This is mostly a concert movie, so there really isn't any plot to speak of. All the performances are taken from seemingly random parts of his career, even switching between certain performances within the same song. This uses a pretty neat process that stacks all the audio together and it makes a seamless thing. The audio quality is far from perfect, in fact it's not very good at all, and that might be a product of this stacking, but I'm not sure.

Audio issues aside though, watching Andrew W.K. on stage with his band is a damn blast. If you're watching this movie, chances are you know the music anyway. The band, for all their jumping around and energy, remains totally solid too. They don't drop notes because they're flailing too much and W.K. seemingly never gets winded. Even "Totally Stupid", which he performs in a wheelchair, doesn't fail to bring the party.

Now let's talk about the interstitial stuff. It's pretty damn strange. And that's awesome. A lot of it is narration over piecemeal concert footage. The narration is really deliberately paced, which stands in such stark contrast with the music that it ends up sounding downright insane. Also, throughout the movie, if you're paying attention, you get to pick up some great advice from the man himself, including "We don't have fans, we have friends" and "The only place that's impossible to go is nowhere".

Why Was It Forgotten? Andrew W.K.'s fanbase just isn't what it was when I Get Wet came out. A lot of people couldn't believe that someone could be as sincerely positive as he is.people saw his lack of irony and thought there must be a catch, but  if you follow him on twitter and read more about him and watch this movie, you find there most definitely is no catch. He's just a totally cool, totally positive dude. Also, I'm sure some people will get turned off by the sound quality, but who cares? The music is still great.

What Went Right? The music. If you like Andrew W.K., you love Andrew W.K. Simple as that. I like Andrew W.K.

Verdict: PARTY TIP: Watch this movie.

Score: 85%

Home Of The Giants (2007)

Background: There's only one real story here, and that's actor Haley Joel Osment. This movie is the only credit to writer/director Rusty Gorman's name. Other stars include Ryan Merriman (whose main credits are lousy horror movies) and Danielle Panabaker (whose main credits are lousy horror movies). Haley Joel Osment was once on top of the world though. He was one of the hottest kid actors on the scene for a while, but we all know that it can be hard for kid stars to find work once the cute wears off. He stole the show in movies like The Sixth Sense and Pay It Forward. I may not like either of these movies very much, but a hell of a lot of people did. By the time Secondhand Lions rolled around, you could see the writing on the wall for Osment's career. Since then, his roles have dropped off dramatically, appearing in the video game series Kingdom Hearts (a mashup of the Final Fantasy games with Disney characters) and precious few other things. His only major movie role of the past 8 years since Secondhand Lions was this, but why did he choose it?

This movie was screened at many film festivals, including Cannes, though it never saw an official release in theaters. Weirdly, Wikipedia lists the cast as including Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson as a character called "The Night Time". but he's nowhere to be found.

Plot: The phrase I keep seeing about this movie in the various press kits still floating around the internet is "Hoosiers with a dark edge". It's not an unjust comparison, but there's a lot of other junk thrown in there.Sure, the core of the movie is about an Indiana high school basketball team, The Giants, and their quest to the state championship. It's the side garbage that brings this movie crashing to the ground at a meteoric pace. To set it up, Haley Joel Osment is Robert Garland, who just goes by Gar. His friend is Matt Morrison, top scorer of the basketball team. The movie opens with Gar and Morrison speeding down the highway and getting pulled over The cop recognizes Morrison and says "Shouldn't you be at the game?" and escorts them instead of ticketing him. The untouchable nature of the star player is touched on once or twice more throughout the movie, but not often enough to really matter.

The meat of the plot comes from Matt's older brother. He's fresh out of jail, and hatching a fresh crime. He wants to hire Matt to help him steal some money from a drug dealer. Things, of course go wrong because the guy sees Matt without his mask on. He took it off because it smelled bad. Those kinds of realistic situations and decisions are the real meat and potatoes of Home Of The Giants. Two people with no criminal past hop into a top tier crime with little reservation. They leave with only $400.

After the crime, Matt starts getting messages from the man he took the money from.  He gets mysterious calls and letters, all of which freak him out. Turns out, the guy is after him hard. He chases Matt, and Gar since he's with him. Why? Because Matt's brother cut off the dude's finger looking for more money. He demands Matt doesn't play in the big game.

Turns out, the whole thing was a scam. The guy turns out to be in cahoots with Matt's brother, never even lost the finger. Matt's brother just has money riding on the game and wants Matt to throw it. Gar is onto the plan though, he gets to the big game to tell Matt. He enters the game in the second half and the Giants win.

There's a whole romantic subplot with Gar and a girl that reads the school paper he writes for, but the movie doesn't get to spend enough time on that plot to make it at all meaningful. Shame really, as it could have been a lot more interesting 

Why Was It Forgotten? Allow me to give you a little look behind the curtain, a little inside baseball from The Depths, I'm going to type a snippet of my notes on this movie verbatim. "Gar makes decisions that don't make sense - In fact every one does." The whole plot of two straight laced kids committing armed robbery because Matt wanted to help his brother and Gar wanted to help Matt.  These are all things that would never ever happen. Completely nonsensical characters make for a tough watch.

One more peak behind the curtain: I wrote that at what I thought was about an hour into the movie, but was actually about 20 minutes. The movie is glacially paced. Shots linger for what may only be a second or two too long, but it's poor editing like this that can just destroy the way a film moves along.

What Went Right? The film has a lot of big ideas. It tries to be a commentary on jock culture and on high school in general. When the movie focusses on these things, it's not bad. It doesn't say anything new, but it never really gets the chance to. There's one sequence where Matt tries to get kicked off the team as a way of getting out of the big game that could be interesting, but doesn't have time to say to what it wants to say because it gets lost in the rest of the movie.

Way too much of the movie revolves around the whole crime plot, which is just pure story. A film like this thrives on the ability to relate the characters, and when it delves into the crime plot, all realism is lost. Not that the characters are too well drawn in the first place, but it doesn't help.

So why did Haley Joel Osment choose this role? That's a question only he can answer. There is a scene that uses The Flaming Lips' Yeah Yeah Yeah Song, and that's cool.

Verdict: I don't like sports movies usually, and I would have like it more if it were a sports movie

Score: 30%

Warhead (1996)

Background: We're back with more action from star Frank Zagarino, previously seen on The Depths in Armstrong. He gave such a truly fun performance in the truly middling Armstrong that I needed to watch more of him. Here's to hoping that his star shines as brightly in this movie. Though the title Warhead may be a little generic, other titles he stars in are far more bombastic like an entire series of Airboss movies, and perhaps most fittingly, a Command & Conquer game. C&C, as it's known, is a series of real time strategy games where the player builds bases and commands large armies to battle either for or against an evil faction known as the Brotherhood Of Nod. The games have long been known for their use of live action video, and the really cheesy acting contained within.

Moreover, he's squaring off once again against Joe Lara, A.K.A. Ponytail from Armstrong. He is again playing an evil man who strokes his evil beard in an evil way. Whereas Armstrong had him in a weird secondary position, this movie has him as the head of a paramilitary group, so he should be able to flourish in the same way as Zagarino.

Like Armstrong, this movie was released by Nu Image, a company known for releasing action movies big and small. Though they feature big titles like The Expendables and its impending sequel on the main page of their website, another featured title is called Spiders 3D which looks just crummy enough to possibly be a future entry into the Depths.

Plot: The movie starts with nazi imagery in France, and links it quickly to American Neonazi skinhead groups and the KKK. We learn all this through a narrator over some stock footage. The narrator has a weird high pass filter on his voice that doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. In fact, none of this makes sense, because it doesn't connect to the movie at all. We next meet Senator Brickman, who is giving a speech on television, denouncing the actions of the United Patriotic Movement, or UPM, led with great aplomb by Joe Lara. He's watching the televised address of himself from his office, which explodes.

Turns out this was also the work of the UPM, one of whom remarks that Brickman was "Thrown out of office" because action movies are awesome like that. The UPM is holed up in a compound that's soon to be raided by the army, led by Frank Zagarino. Frank and his boys (and one girl) don't even suffer a casualty as they take down dozens of Lara's men, though the big man eludes them. He flees to Haiti (I think) with one Dr. Evans, who has devised a program to override nuclear launch codes.

Zagarino and company chase after the UPM until one fateful ambush on a bridge. Here, instead of the the rout of the UPM of the first action scene, the army takes wquite a beating. In fact, after this, only Zagarino remains alive. And now he's mad. Not quite as mad as Lara though who just plain hates government. He gives some strangely libertarian leaning diatribe before announcing that unless the President steps down within 12 hours, he'll launch a nuclear warhead at Washington. You can guess where it goes from there. That's right. Action.

Why Was It Forgotten? Well, just because names like Frank Zagarino and Joe Lara ring loud in the top secret Depths Of Netflix headquarters, a good 98% of Americans have never heard of either of them. This movie clearly spent a lot on action set pieces and it shows. Big explosions, quality film stock and more shine through, all things that Armstrong sorely lacked. The big problem is that the director, Mark Roper, doesn't seem to have a damn clue what a military operation might look like. People dive for cover, but spend way more time way out in the open, fist fights break out in the middle of active firefights and small things explode in gigantic fireballs. Also, small 9mm handguns appear to have the stopping and penetration power of high caliber rifles. The action may move well, but it doesn't make a lick of sense.

What Went Right? Okay, well, I sorta like that it doesn't make a lick of sense. When given the choice between realism and over-the-top ridiculousness, Warhead always chooses the latter, which is always the right choice for an action movie. I need only to point to the recent hit Crank with Jason Statham to prove this point.

Also, while Zagarino is slightly nondescript in this role, Joe Lara is hammier than Easter dinner. He knows he's the bad guy and even his character seems to know it too. He watches along with the (apparently infamous) ambush on the bridge scene from afar, pantomiming explosions and generally just acting like he he thinks a sociopath might be. 

Verdict: The plot is asinine, the action is ridiculous. Who could ask for anything more?