The Mutant Chronicles

I rented The Mutant Chronicles from NetFlix, mostly because I love Thomas Jane in just about anything. I'm not sure I can forgive him this one though. This one felt more like a straight to SyFy (why oh why change your name why?) flick, not even a straight to DVD flick. It was that bad.

In some weird steampunk 1910 type universe, there are 4 corporations. They fight each other using trench warfare. A hole opens up and the mutants come out, slashing in lovely CGI gore. (by lovely I mean BAD. Really bad.) The world is lost (oh no!) and the Fellowship of the Ring must take the one ring to Mordor...wait wrong movie. A rag tag group of super fighters from the various corporations must band together to blow up the machine and save the planet. I know, it is as silly as it sounds.

What seemed somewhat interesting at first only heads pretty much straight into boring, oh-my-god seriously territory very quickly. The idea of a steampunk type world based on WWI rather than the Victorian Age could have been really interesting. In fact it held my attention here and there. Unfortunately the painful acting, awful plot, and ridiculous John Malkovich cameo just killed it. Oh and the, really that's the end ending. That too. I knew the minute the camera panned up to a red-clocked figure and I saw it was Ron Perlman that this movie was doomed. I like Ron Perlman, but with a fake accent and missing his HellBoy make-up, well, it just didn't seem right.

I really wouldn't recommend this one even to die-hard sci-fi fans. It's just too painful. And I like goofy sci-fi movies. Shut off the DVD player and read some Philip K Dick instead.

Rating: Hiss. Hiss I say!

Severance Package by Duane Swierczynski

Severance Package by Duane Swierczynski (besides having the hardest name ever in the world to type) is another one of those Quality Paperback Book club books that I bought on a whim, and after losing my job a couple of months ago, found even funnier and more full of black comedy than maybe if I were still working. It was truly an enjoyable book - dark, bloody, funny, and so, so satirical it almost burns like razor burn.

One hot Saturday in August, the boss has called in his key personnel into the office for a 9 AM meeting. No one knows why, least of all Jamie Debroux, who has been out the last month on paternity leave. After all, he's not really part of the inner circle; he's just a press writer. When he shows up, the conference room is stocked full of cookies, orange juice, and champagne, and the Knox, the boss, announces something very unexpected. It seems the business is a front for the intelligence community, and they are being shut down. In intelligence-speak, that means everybody has to die. They can choose to drink the mimosas and die quietly, or get a bullet in the head. Naturally, all hell breaks lose, because well, Jamie was in the dark, but not everyone else was. It's a fight to the death, with the clique making more alliances than a season of Prison Break, and no one knowing who to trust. Will Jamie survive to see his family again? You have to read to find out.

Like I said, it's very fun. Think film noir crossed with The Bourne Identity and Quentin Tarantino. It's bloody, characters are simply drawn but end up not being who you thought they were when you first meet them, and it's fairly tightly written. Overall, I would recommend it. It's not brilliant piece of literature, but it's higher on the scale than a worthwhile beach read.

Rating: 4 Purrs for a fast, page turning read. I read this puppy in maybe 8 hours.

Live action Cowboy Bebop? Wha?

So Keanu Reeves spilled the beans supposedly.

http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/00020675.html

I can't decide if I am overly excited or scared. I srsly love Cowboy Bebop. Keanu Reeves might not be too bad. After all Spike is kind of laid back, but can still kick ass. Keanu kicked ass in The Matrix. It could work.

No, the real question is, who will play Faye...

And will there be a Corgi...'cause go Data Dogs!

DOA: Dead or Alive

“You can have him. But what about the other 300?”

I rented DOA: Dead or Alive because I can’t help but love Jamie Pressley. I’ve followed her career every since that god-awful and yet somehow impossible to turn off Poison Ivy sequel. She’s gorgeous, funny, and sexy-as-hell. What’s not to like? So when I saw that she, along with some other nice-to-look-at ladies were teaming up in a martial arts film that looks like a ladies Mortal Kombat, I snatched this puppy up in my NetFlix queue and put it right up there at the top.

 In the opening montage of DOA, a group of the best women fighters are challenged and invited to the ultimate martial arts contest – DOA.  These amazing ladies each have a specialized skill, including Christie Allen, a jewel thief who really wants what is in the island’s safe, Tina Armstrong (woot Jamie!), a pro-wrestler who wants to prove she isn’t a fake, Helena Douglas, the daughter of the creator of DOA who wants to honor her father’s memory, and Kasumi, a Ninja princess who has been exiled from her clan so that she might find what happened to her brother, who left the year before to fight in DOA. Off these ladies go to the private island where the tournament takes place. After being told to jump out of the place and make their way to the main fighting location and actually enter the tournament. All of the fighters are put into a pool and pitted against each other where they must knock out their opponents or be sent home. As the usual story goes these ladies fight each other but soon learn to depend on each other when an even greater evil is unearthed. The tournament’s master Donovan is up to something, and the only way good can win is if these ladies can start to work together instead of fight each other.

This movie is fun. Period. The story is silly, of course, but the scenery is nice. The martial arts are fun while not nearly as “true” as a Jackie Chan or Stephen Chow movie. There is this one scene in the film that is hilarious – two of the ladies end up sharing a room together later in the film and one of the girl’s Dad walks in (they are scheduled to fight). The exchange there is priceless. So funny.

I’ve never played the video game DOA was based on, so I have no idea how good of a “video game” movie it is, but as a fun Mortal Kombat flick it rates highly in my book. It’s funny, it has some nice fight scenes, and it’s nice a short. It never takes itself seriously. I’m seriously considering picking it up at the used DVD store just so I can watch it again for a laugh or two. 

Rating: 4 Purrs for the ladies. That fight scene in the rain was very nice.