Movie Review

Title: Zoltan; Hound of Dracula
Starring: Michael Pataki, Jan Shuton, Reggie Nalder, Bob Miller
Rating: 2 Demonic Hellhounds
Review: This wasn’t as bad as the movie Minotaur, as I actually turned that off, but since this got a low score, you’d better believe I didn’t enjoy it that much.
The story is that for a long time, the descendants of Dracula have been hunted down and killed, and when a tomb is found, a guard is left there over night to guard it. Now, no one told the guard what to do and what not to do when it comes to vampires, because when a coffin unearths itself, not only does he have the brainlessness to open it, but he also removes the stake, which brings life to Zoltan, the hound of Dracula. Zoltan, in turn, unearths and revives his master, Veidt (Reggie Nalder). His master is a half vampire. Suffering from a few of the weaknesses, but has no need to feed. He also has some of the powers of a vampire. But what he needs is a master. Well, luckily for him, the last living descendant is in the US of A awaiting him unknowingly.
Now it is a supposed race between Veidt and his hellhound and one Inspector Branco (Jose Ferrer) to get to the last descendant and either turn him or kill him.
The descendant, named Michael Drake (Michael Pataki) has a wife and two kids and two dogs and two pups. zVeidt and Zoltan follow them on family vacation and this is where the fun begins. Night after night is an attack by dogs and the slow but sure decline of sane dogs as they all get turned into hellhounds. When the Inspector finally catches up, the family goes home and Michael stays to finish the hunt, or the game.
So he and the Inspector stay in a cabin during the night, and it doesn’t take long for Zoltan and the other hounds to find them. Now, over the course of the night, the dogs are slowly but surely bust into the cabin and launch their attack. But lo, the sun rises and Zoltan flees, not turning his master.
The Inspector is still unsure WHY there were two empty coffins back at the tomb site where Zoltan and Veidt were resurrected, and he still doesn’t seem to put it together until the last 2 minutes of the film. He does stake Veidt and help in the fight against the hellhounds. They think it is over and that Dracula will never rise again, but one puppy was turned and is still alive.
MASSIVE disappointment! This movie had no suspense, no thrill of the chase, no action, just a lot of dogs howling while running around in circles. Veidt almost never opens his mouth, his role is to communicate mind to mind with Zoltan from start to finish. Whoop-dee-doo for those acting classes, my ife has been leading right up to this.
In the end, there is only one violent murder and it isn’t very well staged. (-1). The Inspector, seemingly an expert in vampirism, is brainless on how to deal with vampires or even put together that vampiric hounds are after him for 8 hours straight (-1) and if I want a wholesome movie about family values in the face of horror, I’ll watch the Addams Family.
Put simply, there is a major lack of horror that this film gives air to. No one dies, not even the minor disposable characters, and the only person who dies is only ever on screen for that. Michael, the ‘last living descendant of Dracula’ is always wearing a silver cross against his skin (-.5) and it is this thing that makes Zoltan jump off a cliff and kill himself (-.5). No, I have no issue about revealing this ending; it’ll save you 80 minutes of your life.

Title: Lone Wolf and Cub; Baby-Cart at the River Styx
Starring: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Akihiro Tomikawa, Kayo Matsuo
Rating: 4 all-purpose baby carts
Review: Being one of the two films of Lone Wolf I have seen before today, I knew good portions of everything that was going to happen, but I couldn’t pause to read the subtitles then like I could now, so all plot holes have been filled in for me.
Ogami (Tomisaburo Wakayama) and Daigoro (Akihiro Tomikawa) start off being guests at a motel for ‘respectable samurai’. But it appears that 500 Ryo (which is the proper name for the currency, my bad) is enough to make anyone respectable.
While they’re resting here, we discover that the villains from the last movie, the Yagyu family, have got a problem in killing Ogami. If he crosses into a certain territory, they cannot follow him because of a the laws between the two lands. So, the Yagyu clan hire Sayaka (Kayo Matsuo) and her clan of female ninja to take on Ogami. The lady ninja prove their worth very quickly, cutting down a man who was claimed to be ‘the best’. All he is now is the best 20 piece human jigsaw.
Ogami is then hired to kill a man being taken to the Shogun, and if this ma talks, he will completely ruin the Edo clan. He is being transported and guarded by three assassins known as the ‘brothers of death’, as the three of them have such a long kill list. So Ogami has two problems.
So, first thing is first, the lady ninja. Simple really, they divide into disguised groups and attack Ogami in stages. While he takes a little damage from each fight, it is not dramatic until after the last fight. We also learn that Daigoro can use the hidden blades in the cart to cut down unsuspecting attackers. This applies both to the ones Ogami can detach and ones hidden in the wheels.
Suffering wounds from the fight and having not killed Sayaka, Ogami succumbs to his injuries and passes out. It is here we learn that Daigoro, for being all of four at the most, is rather resourceful and intelligent. But you can only expect a four-year old to know so much, and he gets kidnapped by the enemy, who are down to about five fighters from both ninja clans (oops!). They think that in kidnapping Daigoro, they can force Ogami’s hand. Well, that went south very quickly and of two ninja clans, Sayaka is the only one left standing (oops again!).
Now that one problem is out of the way, another is still to be dealt with. Ogami finds the target assassins and their protected, but getting to them is not easy. The assassin brothers prove twice that they are not easy to beat.
I can’t go into more detail, as it will ruin the ending and that would be disappointing, since this movie is good entertainment, and they fixed the music problem. Now, there are lots of pluses and minuses to get to where we are.
-1: It would have been easier if the lady ninja did what they did in their demonstration.
-1: Sayaka goes through such a pointless personality shift, and doesn’t display her training when she should and vice versa.
+1: The music problem has been fixed and is enjoyable.
+1: Daigoro’s scenes were highly believable.
-1: Some scenes are so dark I can’t see a damned thing.
-.5: Title has stuff all to do with the film content except for a brief mention.
+.5: the shadowed scene was done very well, despite it being too dark.
4; total. Replacing Mrs Doubtfire at number 9 and eliminating The Skeleton Key completely.
In this film; baby cart has at least 4 hidden blades, and two in the wheels, can float, is almost fire retardant and is self-repairing (only in continuity error).

Title: The Orphanage/El Orfanato
Starring: Belen Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Princep,
Rating: 3.5 Ghostly Children
Review: Please note that I have not been able to do accented letters, so names are their spanish translation, not the English.
When it comes to movies about charitable people who believe in the paranormal, I am starting to think that the only way to get what you want is to make a very big sacrifice that will change you forever. The Skeleton Key made this point; The Orphanage is here to back it. Being a charitable person who believes in the paranormal, I don’t like my prospects for the future.
This story is about Laura, an orphan. She and six other children live at an orphanage, but Laura is soon adopted out. She returns many years later to live in the orphanage with her husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) and their adopted son Simon (Roger Princep). Simon is not very good at making friends, and spends his time with a lot of invisible friends. Carlos, a doctor, thinks this is childhood psychology (oh boy!) and Laura (Belen Rueda) is unsure what to think.
The ultimate goal is to reopen the orphanage for children with special needs. Then over the course of a day and a night, an elderly woman comes along snooping into the shed where all the old things from the orphanage are stored, and is sent away.
After a visit to the beach, Simon has a new friend and a new game to play. The children of the house want you to find the six coins, and if you do, you are granted a wish. He shows Laura how to play, as the children have set it up. She gets annoyed with Simon as he works out he is adopted and has HIV.
During the opening party, Simon and Laura get into an argument, and shortly thereafter Simon disappears. Supernatural things start to happen as Laura and Carlos use every possible resource to find out where Simon is. Laura works out, after nine months that she has to play the same game that Simon showed her how to play. (Took her long enough, even I knew that from square one. -1). She and Carlos decide to move out after a visit from a team of psychics and Mediums split their views. Carlos goes ahead while Laura gets ready to say goodbye to the house she loves so much. She takes the advice of the medium, and a now aging adage of movies. “Seeing isn’t believing, believing is seeing.”
But how do you summon a handful of dead children? Re-enactment with their dolls is one way, playing games that they enjoyed back in the day is another. But when you summon something, dead or alive, child or not, you better be ready for what it is you are going to get.
I didn’t mind this movie, as it was a bit of a build-up to a fair climax. It becomes easy to work out where Simon is if you read the subtle clues closely enough, but they are easy to miss, as we have nine months of mystery to fill. Laura will learn that she is the luckier of all the orphans of that time, as none lived to see their next birthday after she left.
But on the whole, what I really wanted was for things to move a little faster. The clues she needed were placed into her hand by Simon himself, and she had the beginning clue, she just didn’t follow through, for 9-10 months. I was getting ready to lean through the screen, grab her by the hair ad explain to her exactly what she needed to do to find her son. But then we’d have an extra 40 minutes of film to fill in.
If it were down to me, I’d be leaving clues that took her time and memory to fill in, or that she would have to work out form the things around her. True, you cannot expect kids of that age to leave such a detailed clue, but there is a way around that too. After all, she shared that elaborate house with them, did she not?
There is another .5 to remove, and that point comes from Carlos and his behaviour. Seriously, there was more than enough evidence before him to suggest that this is not just a child’s game, especially when Laura finds the remains of the children. He brushes it off as something Simon set up. HELLO! What child in their right mind leads their mother to five bags of ashes, bones and other fire proof things like glasses as the climax of a game? I’m sorry, I fail to comprehend. The evidence is pretty damning. I know Simon might seem to have a screw loose, but there is a long distance between full on conversations with imaginary friends and leading someone to the burial place of five dead and burned kids. DUH!
As a last thought, the way to escape a similar fate is not to do charity work in large houses/manor houses. The Skeleton Key and this film are set in buildings which are at least two storeys high, depending if you count the attic. Avoid large houses with supernatural history and I’ll be fine.

Title: The Medallion
Starring: Jackie Chan, Lee Evans, Claire Forlani
Rating: 3 Ancient Medallions
Review: Seriously, in hindsight, and even during, this movie seems nothing more than what is the grand scale of all Jackie Chan movies gone bad, or simply what was thought to be everything that made a Jackie Chan movie loveable and blew them out of all proportion. Things moved too quickly to get to the final point (which was a letdown) and there were so many things left up in the air. Jackie Chan becomes immortal and everyone just accepts it once they get their minds around that he is not dead.
In short, Eddie Yang (Jackie Chan) has been working with Interpol, especially officer Arthur Watson (Lee Evans) to catch gangster lord Snakehead (Julian Sands). Snakehead is after the artefact known as the Medallion. These two pieces of a Medallion coin, one of a snake and one of a fish, grant immortality, strength, speed and so on. The keeper of the medallion is a child who (apparently) lives for 1000 years. The chase is on as Eddie works with Interpol to save the child and (as they discover) protect the Medallion. This will require the help of agent Nicole James (Claire Forlani)
You can always tell when I am not impressed with a movie because the amount of time it takes for me to write out the plot is equal to the amount of time it would take to sing your ABC’s. And while the martial arts action is not too bad, I can certainly think of movies where Jackie has been cooler. But considering the year this was made, he is getting on a bit and I don’t suppose you can expect him to be doing as much as he was. He is still doing his own stunts, but I wonder how much more they are hurting.
In looking at it, Jackie Chan is doing more jumps and dodges more than martial arts, and of all the moves, the ones I enjoyed came from Claire Forlani, with Jackie showing me how to continue some moves I already know.
I took a point off because everyone just seems to accept things. Jackie Chan survived a drowning and that is perfectly natural, considering he just fell ten storeys. The movie had so little plot on the human interest front that it seemed to be a throw-together. In comparison to what one might call its Sister Movie in Style, Rush hour, the Medallion misses out on all the interpersonal relationships between the characters. They all just move ahead with the plot because the script says to, not because there is logical need to.
Another point came off for the lack of motivation behind the characters. If yu think Alicia Silverstone in Batman and Robin sounded bored with her role, this movie certainly gives it a run for its money, and it is only better because of the graphics, CGI, martial arts etc. There is just no life. Jackie Chan continues to play the same character he always does when he is playing a cop, and the whole thing might as well just be connected to Rush Hour anyway. It is the same damned character.
Three good things about this movie are 1: The bad guys had little comic relief to them. 2: The martial arts and stunts, while not as great as in the past, still pack a punch and make you cringe at points. 3: The child actor, Alex Bao, was convincing in his role. I think I’ll go back to baby-cart, it Is at least convincing.

Overall Top 10
1) Silent Hill (4.5) (Own)
2) The Color Purple (4.5) (Own)
3) The Frightners (4) (Purchase)
4) The Prestige (4) (Own)
5) Shortbus (4) (Purchase)
6) The Addams Family (4) (Own)
7) Splinter (4) (Purchase)
8) Night of the Living Dead (4) (Own)
9) Lone Wolf and Cub; baby-Cart at the River Styx (4) (Own)
10) Mrs.Doubtfire (4) (Purchase)