Movie Review - Lockout

The 4th and mercifully, the last, of my end of the year sci fi marathon. Based on the Netflix description of this movie I was not expecting much, but the movie was actually enjoyable.

This story takes place somewhere in the near future, like around 2050. Guy Pierce is Snow, some sort of agent who gets set up for the killing of an army general. Snow is your quintessential action hero. Wise cracking, able to take multiple punches with hardly any effect, world weary and sarcastic. Virtually everything he says is a cliche but Pierce delivers each line perfectly. He's been in a lot of movies but I mostly know him from "Momento".

Maggie Grace is Emilie Warnock, the US President's daughter. She is visiting the high security prison known as MS-1, in orbit. She has come to investigate allegations at the prison is using the prisoners as test subjects to learn the effects of long term space flight. I spent the whole movie trying to figure out where I'd seen Grace before. She was a major character in "Lost".

The prisoners are kept in some sort of suspended animation. The warden decides to wake up a prisoner so she can interview him. Here is where the movie starts to take one of several ridiculous turns. Three things happen, which if any one of them didn't happen, the whole story wouldn't happen. First, even though the prison warden is trying to impress Ms Warnock, with what a marvelous place MS-1 is, he picks perhaps the most violent, psychotic prisoner he has for the interview. Second, Ms Warnock of course has come to MS-1 with her own Secret Service Agents to protect her. Also for her protection, the interview is conducted through glass, the prisoner one one side, her on the other. But for some reason, they place two of her Agents on the same side of the glass as the prisoner, with the stipulation that no weapons are carried by the agents. Third, one of the agents decides to strap a gun around his ankle anyway. When a confrontation breaks out between the gun-toting agent and the prisoner, the prisoner ends up with the gun and shoots himself to freedom.

Eventually, he gets to the control room and lets all the prisoners free.

On the LOPS (Low Orbit Police Station) are lots of space fighter planes and several are dispatched. They are driven away by the computer controlled cannons mounted on MS-1. Why there is an LOPS and why MS-1 is provided with such powerful protection is never explained.

Back on Earth, Snow has been convicted without a trial and sentenced to MS-1. Why no trial? The President's Security Chief explains "You lost your Constitutional rights when you killed the general". With a crisis on MS-1, they offer Snow an opportunity for freedom if he'll board the station and free Ms. Warnock. He reluctantly agrees.

If you've seen a few action movies you can pretty much write your own script for the rest of the movie. Everything you might expect to happens, happens. Snow gets on the station, when he first finds Emilie, she thinks he's a bad guy and clocks him with a fire extinguisher. Most of the dialog between them comes directly from Hans Solo/Princess Leia. She hates him, he hates her but he's got a job to do, as cynically as possible. Meanwhile, lots of running around with armed prisoners chasing them. Things blow up, guys in orange jumpsuits get shot and the originally released prisoner gets more and more crazy, killing control center crew members until finally, MS-1's orbit begins to degrade.

Above the objections of the President, MS-1 has to be destroyed because it's going to land somewhere on the East Coast of the US. Waves of fighters are sent and the scene from Star Wars where Luke delivers the fatal blow to the Death Star is played out.

Snow and Emilie have found some space suits and leap out of the station just before it blows up. They fall to Earth, shedding the spacesuits on the way. Luckily, Snow is wearing a parachute (really?) and glides them to the ground where they land on a freeway exit lane. The police arrive before they get run over, and Snow is immediately arrested.  Of course, he is let go, he and Emilie walk off into the sunrise exchanging wise cracks.

Although there was enough stupid stuff in this movie for pages of rants, I enjoyed the movie. The movie doesn't have an original thought anywhere but the director does a great job. The action scenes are well done. Special effects are good enough. Pierce and Grace are perfect together. If you run across this on Netflix, go ahead and watch it.

Movie Review - Stranded

Of the three movies so far in this mini-marathon, "Stranded" is probably the most disappointing. 

Ark is a mining outpost on the moon. We don't know what they are mining be we do see a CG mining rig apparently shooting a laser into the moon's crust. Why it is called Ark is never explained. The base has a four person crew. Colonel Brauchman (Christian Slater), Dr. Lance Krauss, the base medical doctor, Bruce Johns, the base alcoholic engineer and Ava Camaron who's purpose is to have an alien baby later in the movie. By the way, the scene depicted on the poster doesn't exist in any way in the movie.

Suddenly, the base computer voice announces a storm coming. A storm? On the moon? Oh, my bad, it's a meteor storm. Apparently the base builders never thought there might be a meteor storm on the moon and provided absolutely no protection for such an event. The base suffers a lot of damage, including getting their solar panels knocked out of alignment and their communication gear damaged. They manage to get out a distress call to Earth before everything goes to hell.

Due to the damage, carbon monoxide starts leaking into the living quarters. I swear they were saying carbon dioxide which doesn't make any sense either. Why would the have a large supply of either? I could imagine carbon dioxide perhaps to cool the laser. That would actually make sense. Several reviews I read on this said it was carbon monoxide. The doctor starts explaining the effects of poisoning of whatever they were talking about. What he describes is carbon monoxide poisoning. In fact he sounded like he was reciting the Wikipedia article on it.

Whatever. Cameron is sent somewhere in the station where she has to wear a space suit. She finds all of them damaged except one. Luckily it fits. She finds a football sized (and shaped) rock jamming up the works and gets it out, nearly killing herself in the process. She notices something she thinks are spores on the surface.

The Colonel says to get that rock into isolation, we don't have time for this shit, we're trying not to die in the next 5 minutes. But Cameron and the doctor decide to investigate the rock anyway and sure enough, it's got something living on it. In an isolation box it starts to grow. Cameron, working with a small sample, and not even taking the simplest of precautions, manages to get herself contaminated with the spores. About 10 minutes later she's 6 months pregnant.

At this point the movie is starting to look like a cheap Canadian rip-off of "Alien". It was also reminding me of "The Thing".

Cameron has the baby (it actually crawls out of her from where you'd expect, instead of bursting out of her chest, thank God). It gives her a little kiss and takes off. It looks more or less human. The doctor and the engineer arrive too late to actually see this but arrive just in time for the afterbirth. The engineer gets blood all over his arms and face. He also manages to get bit on the leg by the alien baby but nobody believes him.  Since the doctor had warned about hallucinations from the gas poisoning, I was wondering if maybe the baby was just a hallucination. The director kept this pretty confusing for awhile and I didn't appreciate it.

The alien baby grows to man sized in another 10 minutes or so, kills the hapless engineer and assumes his shape. He manages to fool the rest for a couple of minutes but then they all start to try to kill it. Cameron, having just given birth to an alien baby is already pretty fit. They attempt to flush it out an air lock, but the doctor ends up outside.

The Colonel and Cameron realize there is only one thing to do, escape in the remaining undamaged escape capsule. For some reason, this takes a lot of confusing coordination between Cameron in the capsule and the Colonel in the base control room, which gives the monster enough time to get in the capsule himself and get blasted back to Earth. "Damn!" says the Colonel.

With the big red numbers on the wall saying they've got only 17 minutes of oxygen left, they settle down on the floor of the control room contemplating their deaths and the probable deaths of every one on Earth. With 3 and a half minutes of air left, they hear the rescue shuttle from Earth finally arriving. The Colonel says their rescuers will never get to them in three minutes. So they decide to run out of the base, unprotected on the moon's surface to the shuttle. The director, perhaps wisely, doesn't show this.

In the last scene, the capsule has landed in what looks like an abandoned industrial facility in Saskatchewan. The Colonel, now safely on the shuttle, calls back to his superior on Earth that whatever comes out of the escape shuttle needs to be killed immediately. Too late for that, the monster has already escaped and is busy turning it self into something that looks like the alien in "Predator". Roll the credits.

Besides the obvious bad things, like the wooden dialog badly delivered, the overall senseless behavior of the crew (like spending time on the stupid rock instead of trying to survive) and issues with continuity (the engineer kept alternatively appearing covered in blood and clean), I always have a problem with science fiction movies when the science doesn't make sense.

For example, this moon base was huge. It didn't look too big on the outside, but inside it was a labyrinth of hallways and hatches. The monster was hiding out in the ventilation system which had duct work large enough for it to walk around in upright. There were only 4 crew members, what was all this space for?

Also, the last time I was on the moon, the gravity was only 1/6th Earth normal. These people were walking around like they were on a sound stage. There was one mention of artificial gravity when Cameron went out to fix something and found the contaminated rock. Before she opens up the final hatch, she says she is turning off the artificial gravity. She then pushes a button on her boot which cause some lights on her boot to go from green to red. Was the artificial gravity built into her boots? How would that work? Then she climbs through the hatch and walks around like normal. I can accept a lot of things in science fiction if either it makes sense, is an established science fiction device (like artificial gravity or faster than light travel),  or it's alien. Alien baby crawling out of a women's vagina, I'm OK with that. Artificial gravity built into boots? Sorry, I'm not buying it.

I think there's going to be one more movie but haven't decided which one yet so stay tuned.

Movie Review - Meltdown: Days of Destruction

Yesterday, I reviewed "Alien Uprising" and said it wasn't the worst of the movies I'm watching in this end of the year science fiction movie marathon. "Meltdown: Days of Destruction" is certainly worse.  I couldn't find a larger version of a poster so you'll just have to squint.

A big rock is whooshing through space, seeming headed right for planet Earth. Luckily a bunch of plucky scientists are sitting around with computers, aiming a nuclear tipped rocket at the rock. The chief scientist is worried. Apparently, the rock is actually going to miss Earth. He's afraid that hitting it with a 40 megaton explosion might be a bad idea. He tries to convince his boss that he should call off the denotation, that the company (this is apparently a private enterprise, not the governmnment) has demonstrated it's capabilities. But the scenery chewing boss is more concerned with giving the 'public' a big show. Of course, the bomb explodes, the rock splits up and one big piece, is now directly aimed at Earth. How big you ask? "Is as big as Iceland big enough for you!" exclaims the chief scientist (who's name, by the way, is Nathan). As luck would have it, the rock only grazes the atmosphere and skips off back into space. Whew!  Wait a minute, not so fast. Ignoring any sort of actual science, the story takes an ominous turn.  The rock pushes the Earth out of orbit and closer to the sun. Meltdown!

Meanwhile, back in the big city (Vancouver, standing in for the big city) Officer Tom (the studly guy on the poster) and his partner are on a stake out which unexpectedly turns into a gun battle. When they subdue the bad guys, there's a flash in the sky which they don't pay much attention to.

The next day, temperatures start to raise. "I thought it was April" says Tom's sweaty partner. On TV, they helpfully explain that there is an unexpected heat wave. CGI fires are breaking out all over the city, people are rioting, crime is up, power is out, it's crazy out there. Tom and his partner head over to the TV station where Tom hopes to get help from his television reporter girlfriend, Carley. I'm not sure what kind of help he was hoping to get but almost immediately they hear of yet another fire and Tom and his partner head out. A building is engulfed in flames with valiant firemen playing water on it. A crowd of angry people have gathered with buckets and are prepared to beat up the firemen to get the water. This is only a day after the bomb went off. How have things gotten so desperate so quickly. Well, the movie is only 90 minutes long so the director had to move things along.

Tom tries to break up the near riot, just as Carly arrives with a camera crew. Then the water from the hoses stops. Over the police radio they hear that the mayor is giving up and it's every man for themselves. Somewhere along the line, they picked up Nathan, the scientist, who just happens to be Carly's brother. He's got a friend who is flying down from an Arctic weather station to pick him up. He'll take them all. But first they have to pick up Tom's ex-wife, Bonnie, a doctor at the local hospital who we met earlier and their 17-year-old daughter, Kimberly. Kimberly is at home with her ex-con boyfriend CJ who is protecting her from looters just as the rest of the crew shows up.

Most of the rest of the movie concerns their slow-motion crawl across the city. Nathan is helpfully carrying a thermometer (It's now 121!). Carrie, seeing how Bonnie looks at Tom wants to have relationship talks every time she got a moment alone with Tom. Tom continuously sneers at CJ for having the effrontery of being his daughter's boyfriend, even though he seems to be the only one with any sense this group. They lose their car when it gets so hot that the gasoline in the tank blows up. Nathan get's kidnapped by some guys in a car that's been rigged so that the air conditioning is piped into the engine to keep it cool.

Nathan is kidnapped, of course, because he's got the friend with a airplane coming to rescue him. It's not clear how the bad guys knew about this or managed to arrange the kidnapping. The rest of the gang goes to a nearby police impound where Tom conveniently knows is a refrigerated truck. CJ, who may be an ex-con, but is apparently a master auto mechanic. He and Tom rig up the truck so that the refrigeration system cools the engine. CJ wants to tell Tom how much he loves his daughter but Tom isn't having it.

Anyway, they all finally get to the airport. Nathan is on the radio with his buddy to guide him to the airport. But it's so hot, his airplane explodes. Nathan manages to hide this fact from the bad guys when Tom and company arrive and get the drop on them. Nathan gets shot in the leg, CJ gets shot in the arm and the chief bad guy gets shot by Tom and the other bad guys run off.

In a scene that illustrates how slowly this movie moved (except of course for the Earth getting knocked from orbit), the chief bad guy lethargically hauls himself upright and carefully takes aim at the back of Tom's head. Carley sees him and yells "Tom!". Tom, as in a dream, turns around, takes aim and shoots the bad guy dead. OK, they are all safe, except that the world is burning to a cinder around them.

Earlier in the movie, Kimberly had asked Nathan how this happened. He explains about the rock, etc. She asks what can be done. Nathan says that maybe, the other planets, in some sort of solar system solidarity, would pull the earth back into it's proper orbit. How will we know? Kimberly sensibly asks. Nathan explains that so much moisture is being evaporated that when the temperature begins to return to normal it will start to rain. Perhaps the only bit of real science in the entire movie.

So our heroes are in the airplane hanger, contemplating their fate and attempting to treat several gunshot wounds when Kimberly perks up. She hears something! She runs out side! It's raining!  They all go out and dance in the rain (the sun is also shining brightly) and the credits roll.

You may recognize Tom as Casper Van Dien, from 1997's "Starship Troopers". He's worked a lot since then but in movies you never heard of like "The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation".  He did an OK job as the studly policeman. Carly was played by Stefani von Pfetten. She was actually pretty good but all she was really given to do was anguish over her relationship with Tom. In the midst of the end of the world. She hasn't gotten much work since then. Kimberly was played by Amanda Crew who has gotten a lot of work in little known movies. Ryan McDonell (CJ), Venus Terzo (Bonnie), and Vincent Gale (Nathan) have also had a ton of work. When you think about it, considering all the TV shows and how many movies are made each year. I guess there is plenty of work for actors like these. They are never going to be big stars but at least they have interesting jobs.

Next up" "Stranded" with Christian Slater.

Movie Review: Alien Uprising

I was reviewing the list of new additions to Netflix and saw a few science fiction movies that I missed when they were released. Actually, I didn't just miss them, most of them I never heard of. So I'm going to post a few reviews over the next few days.  First up, we have 2012's "Alien Uprising".

I picked this one first because, based on the description, I thought it would be the worst. It wasn't. I was surprised, it wasn't terrible. It wasn't great but mostly that was because the movie had a pretty small budget.

Here's the premise. Best buds and housemates, Michael, Robin, Dana and Vincent are out for a good time at the local pub/rave. Robin and Dana spend most of the evening sitting on the roof of a car outside the place. Robin's idea of romantic, he even proposes. Michael connects with Carrie and Vincent gets drunk enough to get tossed out. Michael and Robin rescue him from the bouncers and they all go back to their house, including Carrie. Sex happens, except for poor Vincent, who spends the night hugging the toilet.  The next morning, the power is out. They go outside and talk to some neighbors and find out that not only is the whole neighborhood out, but maybe for hundreds of miles around (all the way to Leeds!).

They head into town to get supplies and find that nothing is open but a mob has gathered and even though the power has only been out for several hours, it's already starting to look like Mad Max time.  Later in the day they discover the reason things aren't right, there's a giant spaceship hanging over head. Yikes.

Michael, who's ex-military, takes charge. He's going to head over to his former base to see if he can pick up some spare weapons. And then they can all get out of town. Carrie goes with him. On the way, they rescue a little girl from a car wreck that killed her parents. She's bleeding and they head to the local chemist to find some bandages. For some reason, there is a lone policeman guarding the place, in a town that, otherwise, seems completely deserted. He grudgingly lets them in but then attacks Michael. The ensuing fight is very well staged. The cop is about to kill Michael when Carrie, in a gesture that screams "Oh, alright, I'll save your life", breaks a bottle and ruthlessly slices the cop's throat.

They head back to the house with the little girl. By now, the giant spaceship is being attacked (apparently by the British Air Force, although it's not too clear). They all decide they have to get over to George's house. George is ex-Special Forces and is actually Jean-Claude Van Damme so maybe that's a good idea. Or maybe not. Along the way, they pick up two British soldiers who had managed to shoot down an alien fighter craft or something with an RPG. George reveals that he has a secret radio that is picking up alien broadcasts. He also tells them that the government has known about the aliens for years and that some are disguised as humans. The only way you can tell is by the purple triangle tattooed on their upper thigh. OK, that explains what we saw on the cop in the chemist shop. through a tear in his uniform.

Since none of them know Carrie well, they become suspicious and the soldiers what to rip off her clothes right there. Michael, the gentleman, who had just hopped her bones the night before, offers to take her into a back room and discretely check her thigh. After closing the door, Carrie rewards his sensitivity by shooting him in the back of the head. WTF. Then she has a big knock down fight with George and escapes. Lots of shooting, running around in the dark, and explosions in the sky follow. Carrie gets beamed up into a fighter which then blows up George. Van Damme's entire contribution to the movie was about 5 minutes long. One of the soldiers also gets killed.

Now we're down to Dana, Vincent, the other soldier and the little girl, who scurry back into the house. I haven't mentioned Dana much. She starts out as pretty much a sex doll but by now she's the prime mover. All hell breaks out in the house as Vincent basically goes crazy and tries to rape Dana. The soldier intervenes. The little girl screams and screams as the three adults really thrash each other. Then the lights and the TV come on. A woman newsreader is saying that things should be back to normal soon. They all settle down and watch the TV.

Meanwhile, a group of soldiers are creeping up on the house. They are not dressed like the British soldiers and I suspect they are actually aliens. They burst into the house and confront our little band sitting on the couch. One of the soldiers speaks into his radio asking for orders. His orders: shoot them. The camera view switches to outside the house. Screams and gunshots follow and the final credits roll.

OK, so why wasn't this terrible? Mostly because it was pretty well acted. Carrie is played by Bianca Bree who is Jean-Claude's real life daughter. She's pretty credible. Her behavior in the chemist shop was very odd, but all made since when we find out she's an alien. Michael was played by Sean Brosnan, son of Pierce. He was pretty good as well. He starts out as a drunken lout but believably takes charge. I mentioned Dana played by Maya Grant. When Michael isn't with the group she holds them all together with sheer force of will.

The movie is more about each character's reaction to the disintegration of their world, so some decent acting is required. The special effects are OK, considering the budget. Most of the spaceships and fighting is going on in the background so not much detail is required. Things whooshing past and explosions are all you need.

The director is Dominic Burns, who also wrote the movie. This was his first film. He's made a couple of movies since that I've never heard of. I think he gets a lot out of his cast and there is some real tension in the fight scenes, especially the fight between the alien cop and Michael, and the kitchen fight between Dana, Vincent and the soldier. I had no idea where that was going. On the whole I think he used too much shaky cam stuff. Also, the movie started with a bunch of short, jumpy flash-forwards which were totally confusing.  All-in-all, a pretty good first effort.

The next movie is 2006's "Meltdown: Days of Destruction". Stay tuned.

2013 Baseball Card Windup - What I bought in 2013 Part 10

Continuing with my review of card sets I bought in 2013. These are the cards that made it into my Reference Album.

Topps

Continuing with Topps inserts. It's Friday, the 13th, but we're not going to let that bother us.

Topps Calling Cards

I pulled 4 of this 15-card set which honors players idiosyncrasies.

Topps 1972 Minis

in 2012, Topps featured 1967 minis. This year it's 1972.

Topps Chase It Down

A 15-card set featuring good catches. If you haven't noticed a theme with Topps inserts, your assignment is to go back and read yesterday's post.

Topps World Baseball Classic Stars

Honoring the Baseball Classic Stars

Topps Manufactured Patch Card

This is the manufactured patch in Series 2 Walmart blasters. These I like.

Topps Making Their Mark

A Series 2, 50-card insert highlighting young players.

2013 Baseball Card Windup - What I bought in 2013 Part 9

Continuing with my review of card sets I bought in 2013. These are the cards that made it into my Reference Album.

Topps

Continuing with Topps, we'll move along into the inserts.

Inserts - Part 1

Topps Chasing History

Beckett.com and baseballcardpedia.com disagree slightly on this insert set. There are apparently 4 different versions of each card, each type available in different packaging. These are Silver, Silver Holographic Foil, Gold and Gold Holographic Foil. I managed to some of each except for the Gold.

This is the Silver. The backs are all the same.

The silver and holographic silver don't look too much different in the scan, but in person, the difference is striking.

All the cards come either horizontal or vertical.

Topps Chasing History Relics

You can usually expect that any insert card which has a rectangle with just a team logo will have a relic version. I got this on eBay for $6.75 There are also autographed versions.

Topps Chasing The Dream

This 25-card insert set features younger players. Presumably full of dreams.

Topps Commemorative Patch Card

For several years now, blaster boxes have some with manufactured patch card, separate from the packs in the box. Usually the Walmart and Target versions have different themes. This I got in a Series 1 Walmart blaster.  I didn't buy an blasters of Topps from Target this year.

Topps Cut to the Chase

A nice looking 50-card set of die-cut, Chrome refractor cards.

Topps The Greats

I didn't pull anything from this 40-card set. I had to get this one on eBay.

2013 Baseball Card Windup - What I bought in 2013 Part 8

Continuing with my review of card sets I bought in 2013. These are the cards that made it into my Reference Album.

Topps

Continuing with Topps, we move on to the parallel cards. By my count there were 7 Topps parallel sets this year: Back, Camo, Emerald Foil, Gold. Pink, Platinum, Blue Walmart, Red Target and Purple Toys R Us.  I only have a few of them. From the base set I added the straight player card, rookie, All-Star Rookie Cup, League Leaders, Individual Awards, Postseason and Checklist subsets to the Reference Album.

Parallel Cards

Emerald Foil

 Baseball as played in The Matrix.

Of the 11 of these I pulled I only got 3 of the 7 subsets.

Topps Gold

For a number of years, the Gold parallel set cards are serial numbered to the year of issue. This is 1446 of 2013.

This is a checklist card, numbered 0592/2013. Gold cards are a tougher pull and I only got these two.

Topps Blue Walmart

Only available at, you guessed it, Walmart.

I pulled 51 Blue cards but only 4 of the 7 I wanted. You may have noticed something about the cards I'm showing, they are all horizontally oriented cards. Every one I pulled was a horizontal card.

Topps Red Target

I bought most of my Topps cards at Walmart this year and only got one rack pack at Target just to get a few Red Cards. I got 15 of them, but only 2 filled my needs.

Topps Purple Toys R Us

I don't normally buy cards from Toys R Us since they don't have much of a selection. I bought one pack and was rewarded with 3 purple cards.

Purple is not my favorite color and this green on purple is particularly hideous.

The blue on purple isn't much better.