DVD Collectors Online

Terminator: Salvation, a review by Rich

Title: Terminator: Salvation

Runtime:110
Certificate:12
Year:2009
Genres:Science-Fiction

Plot:My Review:
Stylish and grim, in tune with the original Terminator, director McG breathes some life back into the franchise.
Christian Bale is ok, perhaps not my first choice for the role of John Connor, but does a fairly decent job with little charisma. Apparently he is signed up for 2 more of these films so will be interesting to see how he develops into the role. The introduction of new character Marcus Wright, without giving too much away, adds a new twist to the future and was an interesting addition to the story.
The effects are of course first rate, particualrly the clever human features of the new T800, and I definately want one of the bikes. The machines seemed to be less invincible than before, which was a pity, and some scenes were a bit too much 'paying homage to the original' than I personally liked.
In my opinion the Terminator run should have ended with Judgement Day in 1991, and nothing since has come close to changing my mind on this. With 2 new films due, lets see if they can make this special or if its just a case of cashing in on the franchise.


(From December Marathons - DISCUSSION AND REVIEW THREAD on December 7th, 2009)

Planet Terror, a review by Jon

Planet Terror
4 out of 5

I watched this in a double-bill with it's Grindhouse twin, Death Proof. It's great fun and actually far more successful as part of the experiment than Tarantino's contribution.

The story could just about work as a genuine stand-alone multiplex movie, but it's characters and effects frequently defy logic and could only work as seats of the pants grindhouse style filmmaking. I loved it. Rodriguez has long been a favourite of director for me because he's the sort of filmmaker who could make anything watchable. Send him two elastic bands and a milk bottle top and he'll give you something worth paying to see. His style has always been grindhouse exploitation and the 10 minute film schools you usually find on his DVDs are always a joy.

The story is... erm, something about some sort of chemical weapon... er... Sod it. Zombies. That enough for you?  Raging viruses, body parts swimming in gore, hilarious characters with fantastic dialogue and questionable ethics, it's just great fun. No motivation of any kind except to entertain and take the piss out of cliches. That said, on one of the Death Proof featurettes, they mentioned that they were inspired to hire Kurt Russell after thinking of this movie as the one Carpenter should have made between Escape From new York and The Thing. I know what they mean, and the spirit certainly is there, but surely he never made anything quite this mad?

Look, there's a girl with a gun for a leg. Think about it just for a moment. She could have stuck with the peg leg (hilarious sex scene because of that!) and used both of her working hands to aim and fire properly, but that would have been far too sensible. And just how does she fire the damn thing? Who cares? Watching her spin on her arse while blowing heads of zombies is far more important than mere logic!

Don't bother trying to follow the story. There's even a missing reel and when it rejoins the movie a fair bit seems to have happened. I know Pete reviewed this film before and was disappointed that so much effort was made on this score. But I really got what they were trying to do and I reckon I could watch this thing every week! It's not as good a film as Death Proof, but it's certainly more fun and more successful as a grindhouse flick.

 



(From Planet Terror on June 15th, 2008)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: Starfleet is fighting the battles and has to retreat all the time. But Sisko has developed a plan to re-take DS9 and thus re-taking control of the wormhole. He assembles huge parts of three fleets to hit the bajoran system in a decisive strike. But he's also running out of time, Damar will take down the minefield within a week and Dukat has a fleet to intercept Sisko.

My Opinion: Finally they strike back! And they use an appropiate number of ships. 650 Starfleet ships versus 1254 Dominion ships! That's how fleets are supposed to look like in space. Let's get ready to rumble!

Synopsis: The battle has begun and Sisko tries to punch holes in the Dominion line to get through to DS9 but both the Jem'Hadar as well as the Cardassians hold their line. Sisko needs a miracle to save the Alpha Quadrant and he even gets two of them. Finally the Klingons show up and they show why they call their spaceships "Bird of Prey". But against the 28,000 ships on the other side of the wormhole only divine intervention will help.

My Opinion: As much as I liked this entire arc since the end of season 5 and as much as I liked these last two episodes I felt that the conclusion was very dissatisfactory. "Deus ex machina" means literally "god from the machine" and that's exactly what they did. They invented a fleet of 28,000 Dominion ships and suddenly had no clue how to resolve that problem so they used the Prophets/wormhole beings to get rid of them.
But I liked the twist that Dukat went insane after he was so sure to already be the master of the AQ and after losing his daughter. This will give the character yet again a new direction and is the basis for a number of good episodes.

A while back I found this fan-made trailer about Favor the Bold and Sacrifice of Angels and I think it's very well done:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cVCjutQ8b4

Synopsis: Worf and Dax decide not to marry after the war but within a week. For this Worf invites Martok, Alexander, Sisko, O'Brien and Bashir to his "klingon bachelor party" while Dax must get the approval of Martok's wife to get invited into the House of Martok. And of course she has her own kind of bachelor party...

My Opinion: After all these fighting that was a nice change of pace. I found it so funny how everyone imagined a "klingon bachelor party" and how it really was. Especially O'Brien should have known better because he had been to some of Worf's rituals and they were never fun. And I really liked the wedding ceremony and the legend about the two klingon hearts - it sounded like real klingon mythology.

Synopsis: Mirror-Barail beams onto the station and Kira is quite shocked to see him. But that Barail is nothing like her Barail - and he is a thief. Kira tries to help him find his way on this side of the "mirror" and she can't resist being attracted to him. He is seemingly willing to change but even though Kira might be blinded by his appearance, Quark can see right through him and suddenly Kira finds herself in front of ... Kira.

My Opinion: This episode was not so interesting even with the appearance of Mirror-Kira.

(From Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Marathon on February 21st, 2009)