Reviews

Team America: World Police had a fair amount of big laughs, but it's not nearly as consistently enjoyable or as successfully satirical as "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Un-Cut".

To start Team America works best when it's parodying American action films (espeically Jerry Bruckheimer films (e.g: National Treasure (2004), Bad Boys II (2003), Bad Company (2002).) and simply, the puppets in general which are clearly lovingly crafted and perhaps creepily too life-like. This all goes fairly good with the nice 'clearly-written-bad-to-make-it-funnier' dialog of Team America.

This may have been better if it weren't so ponderous at times, as most of the Team America squadron members aren't memorable on their own. Perhaps as they are all too similar as puppets, it's not really clear. And of course, the things that plagues all of Trey's work is the juvenile need to offend, i'm not against gross-out humor, (see The Young Ones (TV Series), or the Monty Python and the Meaning of Life for my praise), but it's a hard art to master and keep fresh and smart. The closest we get in this film is to a hardcore puppet sex scene. While other topics such as Puppet vomit, to puppet gore fall under predictable on Trey Parker's standards. The rest of non-gross out humor in the film seems to fall astray to much repetition as the it's not sharp enough to be repeated several times with laughter coming from the audience (was the Film Actor's Guild funny the first time for anyone?). And on the other point, Trey Parker often try to add some celebrity tomato-throwing at people in their films and shows, but from what we see with Team America, it's hard to catch on what specifically offends the boys with Kim Jong-Il, Alec Baldwin, Michael Moore, and certain others, they just seem to lampoon for the sake of it without giving reasons why what they are doing is funny or why it makes sense.

So overall, Team America has it's moments, Trey and Matt know it does, but they seem to try and repeat them hoping they are funnier in repetition (they aren't) and they have their desire to shock us with poop jokes (no surprises, or shocks here), and they have surprisingly good puppetry ideas (hurray!).

So overall, we have a fairly average comedy. Let's see how we can show them up the next time boys.

Son of Frankenstien is the 3rd in series of Frankenstien films out of Universal, and it surprisingly remains in quality, but not quite as high as done by James Whale with Frankenstien and of course, Bride of Frankenstien.

Son of Frankenstien's main heights are brought in from a stellar cast mainly Basil Rathbone, as the Doctor who makes a great and believable approach as the son of Dr.Frankenstien, Lionel Atwill as the cool wooden-armed Inspector, and Bors Karloff reprising his role as The Monster, who doesn't appear that much in the film actually, but this doesn't bring the film down much at all, considering we have Bela Lugosi in one of his best roles ever, as Ygor, the humorous, and eerie "friend" of the monster. Essential viewing for his role alone, but there is so much more to this film then just that.

Although never reaching the heights of Bride or the original Frankenstien, this film has cool expressionist textured shadows, and probably remains the "scariest" (as far as scares can come from movies made made over 65 years ago) can be. A good example would be the Monster walk with Dr.Frankenstiens child near the Sulphur pit.

This is essential viewings for any fan of film, and probably the last great Universal Horror Flick. If you are in doubt of this film's quality, try watching "Ghost of Frankenstien" after this, and see if you are sit through it without flicking it off half way through

9/10.

Planet of the Apes is easily one of the best films from 1968, even if it does have a bit of wonky dialog in the first quarter and some silly monkey jokes (some intentionally funny, some accidentally funny).

But does this kill the film? Not at all. It just makes it a bit of a guilty pleasure for some. The film is visually quite good, from the excellent make-up for the apes to their stony rock town to the epic ending which sadly has probably been spoiled for all viewers as it has been engraved into the cultural lexicon. It's a definite piece of Americana at it's best with some classic lines and very memorable characters. If you had too see only one movie that a friend might say "it sounds pretty dumb" from the title alone. This is the one to see. Also, if you find Planet of the Apes to not be as quality fun film as some may say, just try and sit through the unfortunate sequels that followed.

Night of the Living Dead is a true classic and without a doubt Romero's best and most influential film.

Of course, being simply influential alone would not simply allow this movie to get a full-fledged star rating if it didn't pull through with it some quality at all, which it does in spades. In Night of the Living Dead, there is good pacing, surprisingly good acting from a list of no-name actors, and the most important part that sticks with the film to this day, the sense of dread in the film. In this movie to this day you get that feeling of hopelessness, people get attacked for no reason and nothing can save them. Whether it's family-togetherness, love between a couple, or even the law-enforcers at the end, this was all tapping into the uncertainty level people were having at the time and still today it has meaning. Topping this off with Romero's (at the time) large use of gore adds to the overall uneasiness of the film. Finally at the film's current times, there is a great subtle final nail in the coffin attack with the sad fate of the character Ben. Being the only sole voice of reason is shot, which, at the time of filming brought harsh realities of such other African-American leaders who were brought down unfairly such as Malcolm X or Martin Luther King, even if this wasn't the original idea Romero had.

Overall, no matter how cheesy some of this movie make look to modern eyes, Night of the Living Dead is a classic for offering horror without a shred of hope, forever influencing every horror movie in it's wake.

Being a sequel to a classic horror film that was released 10 years earlier, Dawn of the Dead had a lot to live up to as a sequel. Did it return? Well...somewhat.

Dawn of the Dead has it's high points, unlike the ultra low budget outings of Night of the Living Dead, Dawn has extremely nice visuals from gnawed gory zombies, to the zombie who gets into accidents with a screw driver, to helicopter mishaps, it's a visual treat. This would mean nothing if it didn't have a background meaning to back it which it does with it's satire of pop consumerism and racism being drawn in, even if they seem a bit embarrassingly drawn out at times, instead of placed a lot more subtly in Night of the Living Dead.

The only items really holding back Dawn are that it's pacing is rather laid back and often story is a little off, as there are times where characters seem a little confusing in their behavior, which was more logical in Night of the Living Dead. Also, even with the film's satirical message, this movie seems more or less a gore-filled action movie underneath it all, with guns shootings, to the gang of bikes taking up more of the film's time then scenes where you feel that truly hopeless emotion that i felt from Night of the Living Dead. Which is a mixed-blessing in the long run, as these scenes can be a nice treat.

So is Dawn of the Dead the true Horror Classic? Well, yes and no, it's more memorable and better then your average Horror, and fans of the genre will definitely want too see this, but if you must see only one Zombie film, your bet is to see the original Night of the Living Dead, but this is still a fairly worthy sequel.

7/10.