Genre Mashing On The Cheap..."Daylight's End"

Daylight's End (2016)

Not Rated

Starring Johnny Strong, Lance Henriksen, Louis Mandylor, Chelsea Edmundson

Directed by William Kaufman

The Story:

A drifter (Strong) saves a cop (Edmundson) from an ambush that kills her partner. She takes him back to the police precinct promising him a car and all the gas/food he needs to be on his way. However, they are trying to escape to a sanctuary to get away from the bloodthirsty savages that lurk in the shadows.

File this one under wanting to make a budget horror end of the world film but they couldn't choose between zombies or vampires, so they kind of combined the two into one.

That way you can get the best of both worlds without working too hard.

Throw in a dash of Mad Max, Assault on Precinct 13, I Am Legend, videogames and just about whatever else you can think of, and this movie has got you covered.

Henriksen of course is the face and name you recognize.

Everyone else in the cast is competent, but no names or faces that I recognized.

It could have used a little more tweaking and originality and a bit less borrowing from everything else, but it was good enough to keep my interest.

Final Grade: C

Voltron Was Busy That Weekend... "Pacific Rim"

What if Godzilla and a Transformer had a baby?

The Story:

In the future, a portal opens in the depths of the ocean, and giant monsters begin coming to Earth.  So destructive, the world throws out their petty differences and works as one to create giant robots that 2 pilots will navigate into battle to defend the world against the marauding hordes.  Ah, but the times are a changing, and the robots are being de-commissioned in favor of a protective wall.

But when the wall fails, can the remaining robots and pilots save the world before it's too late?

Easily the best movie of the Transformers franchise.

A shame that it had nothing to do with the Transformers franchise.

The fight scenes and special effects are great.  The scenes, even those taking place at night in, around and underwater are all clear and laid out very well.

Transformers should take notes.

Idris Elba gives a great performance as the leader of the program.

Everything else though, it's just a long...really long... exercise that simply takes about 45 minutes too long to tell.

Pretty to look at, but nothing of substance.

Wait, was this a movie or a supermodel?

If that's how you like 'em, you'll love this one.

I was simply whelmed.  Neither over, nor under.

Final Grade: C... maybe C+

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: My kids liked it more than I did.  Like I said, nothing terrible, but nothing I'm going out of my way to watch again.

Take A Cruise Into..."Oblivion"

It's the end of the world as Tom Cruise knows it... but he feels fine!

The Story:

Jack (Tom Cruise) is a repair technician on Earth who repairs the drones that protect the planet from the Scavs.  The drones are protecting these giant processors that are converting the ocean water to send to the human outpost on Titan since Earth has been abandoned due to the wars.  But Jack is having some serious flashbacks to events that happened before the war and things just aren't making sense.  Then a spacecraft lands on Earth, and Jack's world is about to get turned upside down.

To say more would spoil the fun this movie is trying to serve up.

I'll admit, I went in with low expectations for this film.

And the film managed to hit those low expectations easily, and turn in quite the nifty little story by the time it was all said and done. ;)

Cruise always serves up a serviceable role.  To be quite honest, he plays Tom Cruise better than anyone else in Hollywood.

:)

I'm pleased with the events as they unfolded as we learned more and more about what really happened, so bonus points to the writers for writing a story that didn't just follow the numbers, but didn't serve up any gratuitous "AHA, we fooled you!" twists and turns.  Everything was logically created.

Directed by 2nd time director Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy), based on a graphic novel he wrote, I'll have to say I'm pretty impressed.

Absolutely loved the apocalyptic future earth that they presented, great special effects.

Nothing earth-shattering, and while I don't know that this will go down as a Sci-Fi cult hit, it's not bad at all.

Final Grade: B

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: While I have no plans for either, I also wouldn't be opposed. :)