donald-martin-175-873978 Reviews

Superhero Movie (2008)

A masterpiece as both a spoof and as a Superhero movie

[10/10 · 22 April 2023]

I absolutely loved this deconstruction of the abbsurdity as well as the formulaic nature of the modern Superhero movie genre.

Drake Bell is perfect in the role of awkward teen transformed into the insect powered Dragonfly, fighting a Doc Ock type supervillain and his hilarious hero's journey to win the girl's heart and save the day. Leslie Nielsen lends his talent for deadpan humor in his supporting role. The ending had me busting a gut because as with most Superhero story arcs, all his efforts ended up bring for nothing as he's unceremoniously killed by a passing aircraft in mid-narration. Legendary writing and film-making. Stands as one of the greatest parodies and Superhero stories of all time!

The Scorpion King (2002)

Story of a man destined to become a cgi atrocity

[1/10 · 20 April 2023]

This film is weak on every level. Anachronistic costumes, poor acting, lame comedy spots, clumsy action sequences, bad cgi and dead-end story "Nothing lasts forever...". Rock plays his WWE role just with a different costume.

There is no attempt at any historic accuracy. The bad guy is of an ethnicity that wouldn't even had existed in that region at that time (but Johnson is barely passable as a middle-eastern person). The story is instantly forgettable, and I can't believe this spawned a bunch of low budget prequels, not starring The Rock.

It was a big start for Dwayne's career, but is even less engaging than tge most mediocre of his subsequent works. Avoid, except out of your instinct to watch train wrecks.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

I always felt bad for Blofeld taking part in this awful movie

[2/10 · 3 November 2021]

The Blofeld actor was the precursor to what Malcom McDowell became later -- a parody of the "sophisticated British person" playing out in a ridiculous situation. I weep for Charles Gray....

In the Shadow of the Moon (2019)

Contrived and cliched

[2/10 · 28 August 2021]

If you like mystery/suspense movies that are full of typical movie tropes and cliches as well as plot contrivances, this picture is for you! For others, steer clear and save those precious momnets of your life watching something actually creative.

3022 (2019)

Dumb decisions by supposed "cream of the crop"

[3/10 · 28 August 2021]

Dr. Is prone to hallucinations and is suicidal so he dies for nothing.

ICarly has head trauma and needs emergency brain surgery, but takes a drag on a smoke and then has a massive hemmorhage.

Rsources are low and crew down to 2 but they risk their lives to investigate a derelict shuttle

Rescued space crew suddenly abandons their humanity and plots to murder their rescuers to survive.

Captain stays on stays alone for years in the faint hope he can somehow find the other half and reunite with his lover.

This movie is uninteresting without these plot contrivances even with having rhe whole earrh blow up and that is truly a sad statement about the makers of this film.

Genesis II (1973 TV Movie)

Badly rushed ending kinda ruins the experience

[6/10 · 18 June 2021]

I loved the concept and characters in this movie, but it seems like they ran over budget and had toncut the story short. It kinda ended up like this " I was gonna sacrifice my freedom to save the others, but I got away in the end and just also sabotaged the bad guys' nuclear silo but the sexy female lead/antagonist probably didn't die in the exposion 'cause she told me she would go to a safe location. And oh yeah, I'll join your organization and help preserve the good bits of my world." THE END.

In Time (2011)

Great movie overall, but the ending was terriblee

[8/10 · 17 June 2021]

Why did Cillian's character just let his time run out for no reason? Was he suicidal? They never alluded to that in the story previously.

And since a person's built-in life clock can be added to or deleted electronically, you don't think anyone would have come up with a hack to add time manually or stop the countdown without having to go to an official bank machine? That was pretty weak.

Otherwise great action, decent romance subplot and engaging story, outside of tge glaring plot hole.

Army of the Dead (2021)

Nihilism at its best

[2/10 · 22 May 2021]

Waste of time this movie was. Everyone but the dumbest characters died. What was the point? And sorry, a safe can't save you from a nuclear blast.

Johnny Test (2005–2014)

Great show but afraid to move on with character development

[10/10 · 9 March 2021]

This show was over the top and largely satirical and had great characters, especially Johnny, Dukey, Dad and Bling Bling. I would have liked to see the characters grow more over the course of the series - the time reset machine teased at Johnny starting a romance with Sissy, but it was just aborted at the end. And Bling Bling was starting to mellow and seemed to have the best character arc over the course of the series, but again ever really developed properly. The cartoons pace was always super phrenetic which was part of it's charm, but I would have liked to have seen it evolve beyond the interchangeable episode phase a bit more -- they sorta tried, but not quite. But still one of my all time favorites!

Phantom of the Paradise (1974)

Gut busting parody of the music industry

[10/10 · 10 February 2021]

This is definitely a work of comedic genius. The story is just so well scriped and directed and the acting by Finley and Williams are perfectly cast. Jessica Harper does a pretty good job singing, but her role is.more as an object of affection/manipulation by Winslow/Swan. Rod Serling's deadpan intro seals the deal and makes this a true film classic!

Arctic (2018)

The journey was tough, becausr the plot says so.

[5/10 · 23 January 2021]

Interesting enough of a premise But the move lost me about half-way when Mads gave up so easily trying to pull the woman up to the ridge. He almost had it and then for no good reason his strength just gave out and he gave up after 3 tries without trying to figure out a byeer way to get her up to the straight and narrow easy pass. How about using a rock or one the poles for leverage? How about finding a way to anchor the rope after a few pulls and take a break? No give up, take a horrible altternat route, almost get eaten by a bear, come close to abandoning the person you left your camp to save in the first place, break your leg and then almist die of hypothermia. I know movie makers need drama to sell a picture, but this over the top "survival gauntlet" is just tedious. It would have been more interesting to have the polar bear continously trailing them and having Mads struggle to outsmart and out maneuver the predator while jouneying to safety. At least that would have made for a more coherent plot.

Meet the Spartans (2008)

A Masterpiece of comedy!

[10/10 · 28 December 2020]

I really don't get the hate for this movie. The purpose of a comedy/satire is to take elements from a known movie/story and present tgem in a humorous light. This film succeeds exceedkngly well at spoofing the dead seriousness of 300 and deconstructing it to its ridiculous base premisses. I LOL'ed for most of this film and loved the "I Will Survive" number with all the cast at the end. If you don't like laughing at comedy, then go ahead and rate this movie in the toilet. But if you like funny aa well as fun films, this will not disappoint!

The Lovely Bones (2009)

Dumbest movie dad and most ineffective movie ghost EVER

[2/10 · 1 December 2020]

C'mon, the villian wasn't that clever, yet he got away with it and died by icicle. The dad stumbles around to solve the case but can't put 2 and 2 togerher. The ghost daughter is more interested in getting a kiss from a crush than getting justice. Terrible boring story and bad movie adaptation. What was P.J. thinking???

The Starlost (1973–1974)

Great concept, but a lot of bad writing and lack of continuity

[6/10 · 1 June 2020]

I loved this series as a kid and it's still fun to watch today. The cheesy sfx and sometimes famous guest stars are still great to watch.

The only think that always bothers me even when I first watched were the plot holes and contradictory story elements. There was supposedly and accident that killled off the crew 400 years previously, but there's a team of immortal kids who serve as a backup crew but were completwly unaware they were in need. There are ark-wide medical teams, police forces and astrophysics teams that are still in high organization, but these teams don't communicate and none of the ark's bio-domes seem to know about the others and no one but the protagonists are doing anything to try to prevent the ark's collision course. It's like they picked random sci-fi stories to adapt.to the setting of the ark and just acted them out with no overarching story thread. I liked the protagonists, but they were sometimes a little too naive with no special abilities and got caught by the bad guys a little to easily sometimes. Overall a decent classic sci-fi series. Worth a look!

Cosmos (I) (2019)

Very boring

[3/10 · 10 May 2020]

3 unlikeable characters look for life in space and talk antagonistically to each other for 2 hours. Very unintersting, but if there were nothing but plot the movie would be 5 minutes long. Avoid.. Don't even waste a minute of your life on someone's low budget vanity project.

Welcome to Demon-School, Iruma-kun (2019–2023)

Blatant and sub-par ripoff of My Hero Academia

[7/10 · 28 November 2019]

The main character Iruma, is so obviously a take-off on the My Hero protagonist ,Izuku, and even though the cartoon is meant to be a parody, it is not very funny a lot of the time and very hastily drawn. The lore is sloppily assembled with a bunch of characters having mythological demon names, but no real connection to myths and then there's grandfather "Sullivan" which is a poor pun on "Satan". Plus the show blatantly gives away the plot in the first episode by showing Iruma as the eventual Demon King. The opening them is very catchy and I'm sure it can draw a lot of viewers for a while on that. Hopefully the artwork, story and writing improves over time.

Strange Magic (2015)

Why all the hate? Is it just because Lucas was behind it?

[8/10 · 14 May 2019]

Very well crafted, entertaining and touching story, that subverts expectations on a much more sophisticated level than Rian Johnson's sophomoric garbage.

Lucas is a creative genius and is a great storyteller but just because his material is mainly for kids, doesn't warrant complete dismissal from adult reviewers. These films require you put in your kid goggles to fully appreciate the experience the movie offers. The ending was a real tear-jerker even though it unfolded in the most unconventional way for a fairy-tale. Well worth a view if you didn't catch it at theaters.

The Brothers Grimm (2005)

Boring and frustrating movie

[2/10 · 14 September 2013]

This movie is very tedious to watch. The story is a "mystery" a 2-year-old could solve and the story could have been told out in 5 minutes. The movie amounts to a couple of hours of endless bumbling and plot conveniences and some really poor CGI effects. The characters are unsympathetic morons that no one could possibly give a crap about and the villain should have been able to be stopped at the first encounter if it wasn't for the pure idiocy of the protagonists. Damon and Ledger are only in it for the paycheck and show no special talent in their performances. The story is forgettable 5 minutes after viewing. A total waste of $80 million! I do not recommend wasting your time on it.

The Wolfman (2010)

Awful, just awful!

[17 August 2013]

The Wolfman was such an utter disappointment. Very slow, plodding story and clinical CGI effects. Benicio del Toro is totally miscast as the protagonist. He's too old, to fat and totally unconvincing in his ethnic role (a Puerto Rican Brit?). The major cast members,del Toro, Hopkins and Blunt are all phoning in their performances for a quick paycheck. The characters have less depth than cardboard cutouts and the second-rate sfx can't carry the movie. And exactly what is Hopkins' characters motivation for doing evil. Is he just a BAAAAAAAAAD man of just CAH-RAAAAZY from being a werewolf? The main failure of the flick, however is its total lack of any real fearful or suspenseful moments as well as any characters I could really empathize with. Del Toro's werewolf scenes did have me howling with unintentional laughter at times, though. Absolutely pathetic.

Total Retribution (2011 Video)

Dr. Who (70's) level SFX

[28 July 2013]

All I can say is ugh. This is an ugly movie visually -- bad lighting, bad script, bad acting, cheap sets and BEYOND bad special effects (both in practical and CGI category). The plot is non-existent so I won't even bother critiquing that. If the film has any value at all it would be to give the viewer the actual feel of watching a 70's sci-fi TV show like Dr. Who that had a minimal budget for sets and had painfully bad hand-made props made of spare plumbing and electrical parts. Te acting gives some camp value, except that the film takes itself dead-seriously. But even for that I doubt most people could tolerate sitting through 85 minutes of this turkey. I do not recommend.

Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn (2012)

Really cheap looking and boring.

[2/10 · 8 June 2013]

This show might as well have "limited budget" plastered cross the screen. Really poor production values and has a very generic feel to it. And I HATE series that expect us to invest in completely different characters from the source material. There's just no reason to care about these trainees. They amounted to canon fodder in the games. If you're going to make a Halo series, make Master Chief the focus and not just some dude that shows up occasionally to give the other characters some cred. This is the same thing that ruined Transformers -- I didn't give a crap about the human characters and the robots were essentially props to further the story involving unlikeable or moronic humans. Live action spinoffs of cartoons and video games can't seem to help ruining themselves.

Surviving Crooked Lake (2008)

Brings back fond memories of the Great White North

[7/10 · 28 March 2013]

I love this flick just for the nostalgia value -- you see I did years of field research many years ago at Algonquin Park and I recognize a lot of the venues in some of the scenes, especially near the beginning of the movie. As for the movie itself -- well -- the plot is a little silly, but I can suspend disbelief 'cause kids do often have very bad judgement and can get into unnecessarily complicated The acting is, for the most part, passable. situations. But the cinematic quality of the movie is top-notch. Just some really amazing scenes of the lakes and the shield, so distinctive of the region! and worth a view just for that -- and if you are a Canadian camper, it's the next best thing to being there (and no black flies!). Thumbs up!