Jimmy P's House of Movies

It has been twenty years since we have gotten a real Predator movie. The AVP movies don't count as they are not true Predator movies. Since Predator 2's release in 1990, we have seen the original and the sequel got multiple video releases, including the much debated second blu-ray release, but we have not gotten a true Predator sequel. Well the time has come and the sequel is good.

Earth's top killers are drop into the jungle without knowing how they got their. Eventually there are eight of them, including Adrian Brody, Danny Trejo, Topher Grace, and the guy with big teeth from The Shield. They figure out that they are on a different planet and that they are being hunted.

What do you get when you take Enter the Dragon, take out anything that is remotely cool or even interesting and replace it with some of the dumbest ideas to come out of Hollywood? Well, you would get Gymkata, a movie that so desperately wants to be a good movie that they just copied other movies in hope of striking gold. Too bad they took all of the bad parts of those movies.

Editor's Note: This review was originally posted over at my horror blog, Horror in Retrospect.  I have posted it here in it's original form. No modifying allowed here.

I am proud to introduce a new segment here at Horror in Retrospect: Guilty Pleasures. These are my favorite types of horror movies because they are so fun to watch. The movie may be bad, but you have a great time watching it. Today's focus is going to on Q: The Winged Serpent, a movie that I had heard about for a long time, but up until a few years ago, had never seen.

Monster movies are one of my favorite sub-genres. Many of them are the most ridiculous movies you have ever seen, but they hold a special place for many, including myself. I remember when I was a kid, there was a channel that would show monster movies on saturday nights. So every saturday, I would be home by 10:30 to enjoy the current movie. I saw everything from the original King Kong to many of the Godzilla movies.

Back when Live Free or Die Hard (which I will refer to as LFoDH) was released there was a lot of shit flung at the movie and the studio releasing it. The studio had announced that they were releasing the movie with a PG-13 rating instead of an R rating like the previous movies had gotten. This cause a lot of outrage among film fans because they felt that the movie was going to be too toned down and therefore would not feel like a Die Hard movie at all.

But a funny thing happened when the movie was released. Despite having a PG-13 rating, the movie was actually good. In fact it was great. The movie held true to what a Die Hard movie should be, just minus the f-word and graphic violence. The movie was still as hardcore and badass that it could be.

This time around McClane has to face off against cyber-terrorists who plan to shut the United States down via computers. This of course would have a terrible impact on the way we live because we rely too much on computers.

I was not looking forward to viewing Percy Jackson. The trailers made the movie seem like it was a Harry Potter rip-off and in some ways I guess it could be viewed that way. But what I saw in the movie was a grand adventure and a nice spin on Greek mythology.

Percy Jackson is just your ordinary teenage who finds out that he is the son of Poseidon. He doesn't really find this too weird because he can hold his breath underwater for an absurd amount of time. He discovers his heritage when he is at a museum and is attacked by his substitute teacher. Right off the bat we know that this is not going to be a "kiddie" movie. I mean, this movie is more for older teenagers and adults.

Has there ever been a more badass movie that The Expendables? I honestly can not think of one off of the top of my head. This movie is packed to the brim with one-liners, over the top action scenes, and almost every character gets a true blue badass moment.

Stallone knew what he was doing when he cast this movie. Not only is he here but so is Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Gary Daniels, Eric Roberts, and Mickey Rourke. We also get cameos from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis. This is a dream team of players that will probably never be seen of the screen together again (unless they make a sequel.)

The movie is about a team of five guys (you are going to have to guess which ones they are.), who call themselves The Expendables (catchy, right?). They are mercenaries for hire. They don't really have any type of lives outside of the group (except for Statham, no one has a wife or a girlfriend or even a pet of some type.). These guys live and breathe the group.

I love jail movies. I don't know why, but it is a sub-genre that I really enjoy. I can watch almost any prison movie and be entertained, but the ones that I like the most are the breakin' out kind. Like a good heist movie, a breakin' out of jail movie offers a lot of thrills in one package. While The Escapist isn't one of the best I have seen, it is a pretty good movie.

The movie star Brian Cox, one of the best charcter actors working today, as a man who has been in prison for at least fourteen years (they never specify how many years he has been in there, but it they do say things like "nine years ago this happened"). He really misses his daughter and constantly writes to her, but his letters keep coming back "return to sender." One day he gets a letter telling him that his daughter has become a junkie and may not be long for this world. So naturally, he decides to break out of prison to see her before she ends up becoming another dead junkie.