lostflix

This film feels like someone took three or four more well known slasher flicks and tried to copy & paste scenes from each one to make one master film. The problem is the quality and acting is so sub par, not to mention the cinematography and writing. The music is absolutely horrible and does not go with the film at all. It really feels like this film had no QA department or anyone guiding the director and editor in a cohesive path.

The movie itself was really quirky and slow... but it's definitely worth the watch to see what a young Bill Paxton does with the material. The most nostalgic thing however about this old film (credits say 1981) is that there are a few scenes from a roller rink named Skating Plus. Just for giggles after the film I happened to google it to see if any old photos existed. Turns out the rink is still in business and is in Ventura. They have FB & IG as well. What is bizarre is that there is no mention of the rink in the credits even though a lot of footage was shot there. Really cool to see the dated lingo and outfits of the early 80s too. Definitely worth a watch.

The first five minutes of Guardians of the Galaxy is a hook and gets your teeth sunk in for what looks like a fun, creative, and quirky ride. Then after 10-15 minutes went by I couldn't help but feel I've seen this EXACT movie before. I had. It was a film entitled Raiders of the Lost Ark. You may of heard of it. If you were to watch the first 10 minutes of each of these films and overlay them you would pretty much be watching the same film. So they updated it with a LOT of CGI and super heroes because super heroes are the current trend right now. Of course pepper in a cameo with Stan Lee right? The movie gets worst from there on out. The CGI is over the top, the characters are thrown at us with no development at all but with the assumption we are to care about them. One minute they are trying to kill each other (or not kill each other for some reason... why put him in a bag? I don't get it. Just take the orb). Then about 60 minutes in the producers decide to blast us with a 20-30 minute CGI jack fest that looks just like another film. This time they decided to duplicate Star Wars Episode II (not a good film to replicate). A space chase with CGI only Lucas could love. Ten million things happening on the screen in the span of one chase scene all while blasting our eyes and our ears with brutally piercing effects. Your ears will be ringing for 48hrs after seeing this film. You might have an epileptic seizure if you try to follow all the action as well. This leaves us a little later on with Peter Quill mysteriously smitten over a girl that he has no connection with that has been established. Matter of fact he decides to risk his own life to save her and depend on the undesirable to save him. Sure. Cue more CGI and miraculous healing a minute later to his face.... after all he isn't mortal is he? Or is he? There is also a tree in the film that walks and conveniently regenerates limbs when handcuffs are needed to be placed on him. They have a prison suit that fits a 2' tall raccoon (who doesn't know what a raccoon is even though he speaks English) but not a prison suit that fits a 8' tree. I think this was a case of the CGI department having no problem rendering walking branches instead of a walking rodent. The tree has a case of the Hodors but not unlike Chewbacca he can be completely understood as he speaks articulated sentences. Except with Chewbacca we could infer Solo was guesstimating what Chewy was saying and having fun with it. This is not the case. The raccoon actually understands everything. The film got so bad that we saw a few people get up and leave about 90 minutes into it. We took their cue ten minutes later (the person I was with kept looking at me like... really??) and left as well. The film was an obnoxious capitalistic CGI jack fest that had no story (that wasn't stolen from three other high grossing films), no character development, and no creativity. To give you an example of how uncreative it is, after ripping off the entire intro to Raiders of the Lost Ark the director (I assume) tried to pull a song from the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack and use it to lighten the film. In this case "Hooked on a Feeling" was used. When? When the characters were entering prison of course, why of course they were hooked on the feeling of going to prison. Contrast this with the brilliant work of Tarantino's use of the same song in Reservoir Dogs. It's like the director never saw Reservoir Dogs or he had no say in the music used in the film. What happened to the clever 70s music to be sprinkled in for comic relief? It just disappeared midway thru the film and didn't return til later. They had to have the Episode II CGI jack fest scene to take up half the movie and the pretend romance scene. I could go on from there about how bad this movie was but I would have to go back and watch the last thirty minutes. Maybe after my ears stop ringing and they release the fifth special edition DVD (at which point 99 cents will be the going rate for all other versions) I might just do that. Until then I'll cross my fingers and hope JJ can save the Holy Trilogy that this film and so many others try to rip off while turning a blind eye. It's no coincidence that the poster looks exactly like the poster for Episode IV.