Dragon Fighter (2003)

REVIEW BY: Bobby Lepire

Company: UFO International

Runtime: 90 mins

Format: DVD

Plot: A secret government facility in Alaska clones a dragon, which then gets loose and wreaks havoc within the secret facility. Newly appointed security chief, David Carver, and the other personnel must fight to try to outsmart this ancient beast and stop it before it can escape out into the world.

Review: Before anything else, let’s break Dragon Fighter down to its core elements - Dean Cain (yes, Superman from ‘Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman’!) fights a cloned dragon. Superman? Cloning? Dragons? Sold! Done! Movie must be awesome! And fortunately, it mostly is.

Before I oversell it, let’s get the flaws and issues out of the way. During the opening title sequence we get a prologue set in medieval England, in which some knights fight a dragon. This is the worst part of the film, and I promise it gets way better afterwards. None of the main scientists, researchers, security personnel, or Superman himself are related to any of the knights/dead villagers and kind of makes this portion a bit pointless. While there are some nice shots of the surprisingly decent-looking dragon, this robs later scenes of the movie of some weight, as a build-up to the full reveal later after it's cloned would have been more impactful. We honestly don’t need to see the dragon in action right off the bat, as we're able to believe that the scientists were able to find some dragon DNA without seeing any of this. Also, the movie’s worst special effects are here during this portion. During a cave in sequence, the falling CGI rocks look so bad it hurts a tad bit. A decade ago when the movie first came out it might not have been so noticeably bad, but for contemporary viewers, it’s an eyesore.

While there’s some great banter throughout, the expository dialogue is very matter-of-fact, feeling like a forced explanation as opposed to real world speech. This makes some of the dialogue exchanges bland and quite frankly, pretty boring,, no matter how good the cast is. Finally, there’s one scene where the editing is too frenzied and spliced up, making things disorienting for no real reason. Trying to escape the not-yet fully grown dragon, our cast is hiding in an elevator and the dragon manages to damage the electric circuit the elevator was connected to, causing the lights in there to flash on and off like a poorly done horror trailer. Nine out of ten times, this way of editing only serves to undercut the very thing the filmmakers wanted to achieve by using it- tension. By being able to cut to any random section of the blacked out area when the lights go down, it creates a ‘boo scare’, which is always the lazy route to go and is rarely effective. Luckily, it’s just the elevator sequence that does this, and it doesn’t last too long.

Now onto the good stuff: Dean Cain plays helicopter pilot/newly hired security chief Captain David Carver, and he brings quite a bit of easy-going charm to the role. He’s easily relatable and likeable from the get-go. When things get crazy, which is fairly early on, he just gets angry at the dragon and the gruffness is also quite believable. The script is a big help here as Capt. Carver is always the smartest person in the room; His intellect is showcased early on in a great bit of Holmesian deductive reasoning, by examining “what’s not on his manifest”. Within one minute of the audience meeting him, he knows about the cloning and that it’s a new specimen being brought to the facility. The scientists are led to believe it’s a dinosaur of some sort, but Carver swiftly figures out it’s a dragon. Having a genuinely intelligent lead makes for a fun hero to root for.

Kristine Byers plays Dr. Meredith Winter, a ‘cloner’, as Carver calls her. Byers is somewhat believable, and plays it straight, even though she has the most ridiculous, goofy dialogue of the entire movie. She is the requisite love interest, but it actually kind of works here. She and Cain have a good rapport and chemistry. As a hobby, she’s an amateur pilot (because, well, of course she is!). Robert Zachar plays the mad scientist that cons everyone else into cloning the dragon, Dr. Ian Drackovitch (yes, ‘Dracko’-vitch - Dragon is in his name! Hilariously awesome!) Zachar is good and clearly having fun, which is nice, but the character never comes off as all that menacing. Considering the amount of screen time and his importance to the plot, Drackovitch’s characterization amounts to nothing more than ‘evil scientist’. A twist involving him and the dragons falls 100% flat, due to no build-up or exploration afterwards. Still, Zachar is fun here, and that definitely livens up the movie at times.

The rest of the cast is solid, with no stand-outs other then Dean Cain, but no one is particularly bad either. Aside from Carver and Winter, all the characters are broad stereotypes, but this works fairly well in this movie, because this is a movie where people fight a cloned dragon, I don’t want or need a lengthy backstory for each person. To help with that though, when we are introduced to each character, a military dossier file pops up and gives us all the pertinent information that we would need to know on them. While cheesy, it adds to the fun of the film and does make each character a bit more distinctive.

Director/co-writer Phillip J. Roth employs a lot of style and starts the action early, keeping it coming at a brisk pace. The most effective tool he uses is a split screen method. Implemented throughout, he shows us the master wide shot, then splits it into smaller compartments to show close-ups of the people’s reactions, as well as the action that is still going on. I have seen so many movies, big budget or otherwise, completely misuse split screen, turning it into a laughable gimmick (*cough* X-Men: First Class *cough*), but that does not happen here. It effectively shows us everything we need to see and know about the action taking place, without cutting away. Therefore the audience is fully immersed into the intense situations and action. Thankfully, it never becomes old hat or boring.

Along those same lines, it’s time to talk about the things on everyone’s mind about this movie - How does the dragon look? Is there a lot of the dragon? Is the action fun? The dragon, in terms of design, looks like a typical classic European dragon. Nothing special or inventive about the design here, but on the other hand the actual CGI itself of the dragon is pretty good. Mind you, this movie is a decade old now, but for the most part the dragon effects surprisingly still hold up pretty well. This is especially an excellent thing, as we get lots of long looks at the dragon during different age cycles, seeing it rapidly grow and mature.

The action scenes as well are well-executed, though a bit typical of made-for-TV movies that were made around the same time and in the same vein (the awesome split screen usage excluded). My personal favorite of the action set pieces in the facility is a cat-and-mouse hunting game, that comes right after the dragon escapes its holding cell. The dragon goes into a long corridor, where Capt. Carver and the animal wrangler follow him. Going from one end to the other, they don’t see it, but on their way back the dragon drops from the ceiling and kills the animal wrangler. It’s a nice introduction to the dragon’s tactics, and the best thing about the action is the movie’s willingness to kill characters off - Seriously, the dragon racks up quite a body count, which does give the whole shebang more of an edge that it might not have otherwise. The best action scene though is clearly the big finale: The now fully-grown dragon is chasing our survivors through the sky n a helicopter and the aerial battle eventually involves fighter jets, and the whole sequence is just an absolute blast to watch.

If you can get through the terrible prologue and can overlook some one-note characters and occasional bland dialogue, then you’ll find a fun, stylish, action/fasntasy/sci-fi film in which Superman fights a dragon! This is a fun B-Movie, with a solid cast, and would be ripe for some solid MST3K-style commentary.

 7/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Jack The Giant Killer (2013)

REVIEW BY: Bobby LePire

Company: The Asylum

Runtime: 90 mins

Format: BluRay

Plot: After climbing a giant beanstalk, Jack discovers a land in the clouds populated by evil beasts. When the beasts make their way down to Earth, he must figure out how to get back down and save everyone from the oncoming threat.

Review: Generally speaking, I am always stoked to see any film made by those maestros of mockbusting, The Asylum; this time around being no different. As they have done multiple times in the past, they have dipped into the fairy tale well, and Jack the Giant Killer (or simply just The Giant Killer in some parts of the world) is the result - their spin on the Jack And The Beanstalk tale - which was just in time to mockbust the big budget 'Jack The Giant Slayer'.

Whereas their theatrically released counterpoint was a medieval fantasy adventure, Asylum's movie is set in the United Kingdom, during an anachronistic pseudo-1950s, which adds a timelessness feel to the whole outing. Along those same lines would be the impressive locales and set design throughout, especially in the Cloud Realm; which is the land that the beanstalk leads to. The rather well rendered CGI'd flying castle, with its Victorian era steampunk outer aesthetic and hodgepodge of factory/sail boat inner aesthetic, contributes to that as well. The best here though is the stunning interior of the main villainess' palace. Combining ancient Greco-Roman statues and columns with 16th century European furnishings, with an early 20th century electric bent, and lots of long roaming tracking shots in there really do show it off. However, even the most amazing sets and production design wouldn't mean Jack (pun indented) if the story and characters weren't compelling or interesting. Luckily, The Asylum gives plenty of room for both an engaging fantasy-action plot and some solid characterizations. As discussed above, updating this from the original's medieval setting to a more modern one does help give it a unique look, but there are other fun twists on the old story that make this one of the Asylum's best movies, in my opinion.

The most interesting twist is that Jack's father, Newald, who has been trapped in the Cloud Realm since just before Jack was born, is the one that killed all of the original humanoid giants. Because of this, Jack has to contend with the beasts that those Giants had been keeping in check - giant dino-rhino-elephant-dog creatures that have six eyes, scales, thick hide, and a triceratops-esque skull (yes, as in no skin on it). I really enjoy the design here, looking simultaneously familiar and original. It helps that the CGI is above average, but I'll be getting to that momentarily. The next story element that got me really excited while watching is how time works in the Cloud Realm - One day there equals a year on Earth. This isn't just an allowance to cast Jack's dad younger (he's 29, which is only a few years older then Jack himself at this point), but becomes a pivotal plot point for the main Evil Queen Serena's arc. The implementation here works very well, as it's not just some throw away line, or forgotten subplot.

Another little interesting tidbit for this one is that there are three stalks featured: Two we see, the first being the one that whisks Jack away, with the second bringing his love interest/robot exoskeleton-building mate (yeah, that's as awesome as it sounds) to the fantasy land as well. The third, only mentioned, is the original stalk that brought Newald to the Cloud Realm. Having so many beanstalks adds depth to the world and its various rules, for instance each nightfall, on Earth, the stalks dissolve into harmless dust which adds some tension later on in addition to just giving things that little extra informative detail. The most intriguing rule though is that the only person who can travel a beanstalk is the one who planted it, and the vines of the beanstalk will attack anyone else that comes near it. This becomes grounds for some solid and intense action scenes throughout, filled with some of that previously-mentioned excellent CGI.

I know I just spent a long time talking about the world building here, and that's not only because there are lots of cool ideas at play, but because in a fantasy setting (and sci-fi for that matter, both of which this movie could fall under) it's important to have a fully believable world that seems to exist outside the confines of the movie you are watching. The Asylum, even in their worst movies, tend to make a pretty good go of this, which in my opinion is one of the reasons they are so popular. While I haven't seen every movie made by them, I have yet to see one that had as much care and thought put into their movie worlds as done here.

Now, as I stated above, the CGI here is, for the most part, very good. Lots of interesting designs, well-rendered, and some nice added small details here and there (such as the blinking of the individual six eyes on the giant beasts or the gears turning on the amazing flying castle - I really love this flying castle, guys!) The beanstalks look appropriately massive, and the practical vine effects don't look too rubbery or fake, with the stalks being integrated into the physical background environments fairly well, and in addition the giant creatures, minus a few scenes, seem to have some real weight to them and move rather realistically. Unfortunately, near the end during the big fight (maybe due to either budget or time constraints) the even-larger dino-dog creature leader starts to look a bit dodgy, even by Asylum standards, which sticks out all the more because of the better-than-average effects up until that point.

The acting from lead Jamie Atkins (no relation to writer/director/Asylum alum Mark Atkins), as Jack, is passable, and he does get better as the movie goes along; In the beginning he's too eager, like a puppy, and it comes across as a bit too hammy, but by the time we each the ending climatic battle though, he really delivers, especially in a somewhat heart-wrenching scene where he has to play both scared and brave at the same time. All in all, definitely not bad, especially when considering that this is the first movie I have seen him in. Playing alongside him is Vicki Glover as Lisa and she brings a lot of spunk and girl-next-door appeal to the role, which helps make you easily understand why Jack likes her. Jane March as Serena, the evil queen of the Cloud Realm, brings both an icy menace and a surprising amount of heart, especially in the second half where some excellent writing for the character turns her into a multifaceted one and ends her arc on a sweet note. Also I have to point out here that this isn't her first time playing an Evil Queen role for Asylum, having done it in Grimm's Snow White as well. On the flip-side from her, Tanya Windsor as Jack's mom may be serviceable, but she's also pretty forgettable. It doesn't help though that her character has very little to do other then just standing around.

For my money, though, it is Harry Dyer as Newald and Ben Cross as government liaison Hinton that steal the show. Dyer brings a Dr. Who-ish quality to Jack's dad, that makes him not only instantly likeable, but very sympathetic, and in just a few looks and some excellent delivery you feel bad for and forgive him for his various misdeeds, all at once. Cross' Hinton is the most serious of the bunch, and Cross imbues him with a nice sense of dutifulness and relatablity, so you can always understand his motivations.

This brings me to the few issues I have with the movie: Julian Boote just isn't that good as Nigel Mason, Jack's adoptive father. His line readings are stiff, and he looks uncomfortable the entire time, almost as if he didn't really want to be filming this movie. And as much as I enjoyed Vicki Glover as Jack's girlfriend, the character herself is written fairly one-dimensional. In addition, while a lot of the levity works and even adds to the unique feel of this movie, there is a subplot about a landlord trying to sell his property that just falls flat and I could have done without. Lastly is the score - overall it's pretty good and super effective, but in some sequences, especially during several dialog-heavy scenes, it is just too overbearing and drowns out the speech, making it hard to pick out what the characters are saying. While the story is simple enough to follow, that uneven sound mix can still be rather distracting and frustrating.

Moving back away from the few negatives though, longtime Asylum-collaborator Mark Atkins has made quite a few films for this company, but nothing would suggest the level of confidence he demonstrates with Jack the Giant Killer. With lots of long beautiful tracking shots and a nice focus on atmosphere, this is a very assured film with a clear vision from it's director. The fights are staged well and he keeps them moving at a nice pace, all the while keeping a good distance so we can see everything that is going on. Atkins keeps the twists and turns coming, but never spells too much out for the audience. Instead trusting them to be familiar enough with the old fairy tale, and classic movie tropes, to fill in the gaps.

Finally, I need to discuss the aforementioned robot exoskeleton. Looking a good deal like the load lifter from 'Aliens', but clunkier, and seemingly made from a tractor and sheer ingenuity, this thing kicks ass! Lisa and Jack are seen fiddling with it at the very beginning. and of course it comes back into play for the ending. And oh boy, when it does, it was definitely worth the wait - In order to save the day from the largest of the creatures, Jack puts it on and charges right to battle! It is a very heroic scene, and Jamie Atkins sells it perfectly. Seeing a red robot fight a fantastical creature is the exact reason I love these kinds of movies!

While not quite perfect, nor even the Asylum's best film (Age Of Dinosaurs is amazing, even when compared to big Hollywood blockbusters), the few flaws that it has doesn't strongly detract from all the things that Jack The Giant Killer does right. With an abundance of confidence and an intricately realized fictional world, this is worth the trip. Add to that two of my favorite Asylum performances so far, and you have a truly special film.

9/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Age of the Hobbits/Clash of the Empires (2012/2013)

REVIEW BY: Michael Banno

COMPANY: The Asylum

RUNTIME: 86 mins

FORMAT: DVD

PLOT: When a village of Hobbits is attacked by dragon riding cannibals, the Hobbit Goben, his father, and sister must get a group of “Giants” to help them rescue their friends and family.

REVIEW: The Asylum is known for their mockbusters. So it’s no surprise that their latest has a slight play on Tolkien’s Middle Earth inhabitants, even though that’s not actually the case. Age of the Hobbits (Now known as Clash of the Empires) actually refers to a species of human that was actually discovered and dubbed Hobbits, admittedly initially inspired by the Halflings of Tolkien’s fiction novels. The situation we find ourselves is that Warner Bros. went on to sue The Asylum because of it and has thus forced not only a change of name to Clash of the Empires, but apparently a ban from release, postponing the release from 2012 to 2013, though luckily not before a few original copies under the Age of the Hobbits snuck out into the wild. I myself was actually able to find a copy of the movie on DVD at my local Wal-Mart and went on to purchase it for Jeffrey Long, the main boss of Watching Full Movie Online Free . But since I’m a collaborator of sorts for the site, he’s allowed me to watch Age of the Hobbits first and review it.

There’s really not much to say about the overall story of Age of the Hobbits...or Clash of the Empires, or whatever it's going by now. The story is pretty much straightforward and doesn't consist of anything more in-depth then what I described in the plot synopsis above. The main action starts a short way into the movie with the main village being ransacked, and the actual quest to save their family starts not soon after the village attack.

The acting is not the greatest, but that’s typical of The Asylum and really, of any B-Movie so that should be expected. The dialogue, as you can also expect, is not the best, but probably not the worst that I've seen from this company either - it had a few groan-inducing lines here and there, and certainly was a leading factor as to why the acting wasn't that great, but the rest of it was serviceable.

Likewise, some of the actual dialogue, if you look closely during some scenes, almost looked as if it could have been a bit dubbed over and that was a bit distracting at times as well. But that is really just a nitpick more then anything, especially once you get used to the overall acting in this movie.

The effects work is pretty decent however. Some spotty parts when you have the dragon creatures attacking and injuring the people, but there’s some definite decent work going on here and overall it was better then I was expecting from this movie. Something that’s a bit misleading though is the Dragons on the cover art don't look like the dragons in the actual movie. In the movie they look more like simple lizards or salamanders or something of that kind, but with wings, which is kind of misleading when you take into consideration how awesomely-designed the dragons on the DVD cover look like.

Another misleading aspect is that if you look at the DVD cover art and even the onscreen menus, there seems to be an implied epic battle scene of some sort. Well I can tell you that this is not really the case. Oh there’s a battle, which I won’t spoil much about here, but its not what you’d think and certainly not how it's advertised.

Still, I can’t say I regret this purchase nor this watch of the movie. It certainly has a nice adventure feel to it which is why I was interested in watching it to begin with, and it moved at a very nice pace, never once making me feel bored. For a one time watch, this was certainly serviceable, although probably nothing I'd ever watch again.

6/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Aladdin and the Death Lamp (2012)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: Chesler/Perlmutter Productions

RUNTIME: 84 mins

FORMAT: T.V.

PLOT: To save the world, Aladdin must wager everything to get an evil Djinn back into its lamp before it can open a Gateway that will unleash thousands of its kind.

REVIEW: With my recent new-found love for classic fairy tales (thanks solely to being addicted to the new ABC show Once Upon A Time), I've been eating up these fairy tale B-Movies this year (Gretl: Witchslayer, Black Forest, Grimm's Snow White, ect), and out of all those classic fairy tales, Aladdin is easily my favorite. So when I heard SyFy was doing their own Aladdin-themed movie titled Aladdin and the Death Lamp, of course I got excited to watch and review it, even though I was also a bit worried, knowing how some of their movies tend to turn out.

Right off the bat, Aladdin and the Death Lamp does an excellent job with combining 'fantasy fairy tale' (giant killer beasties, mystical amulets, and the magic of the Djinn) with 'treasure hunt adventure' (ancient book they discover that acts as a code to finding long-lost treasure, plenty of swash-buckling sword fights, and races against time). Actually, many parts of the movie felt very much like I was watching a low budget version of 1999's The Mummy, or at the least a low budget made-for-TV sequel to it; the movie included a protector that tries to stop the Djinn from being re-awakened, our main group of heroes that try to stop it once they accidentally unleash it upon the world, a meaner second group of people that wish to use the creature for their own means but don't quite understand its true power, and all of that is wrapped up within adventures through a desert and a race between the two groups to get to a mythical location first. If all of that sounds like it appeals to you, then this is probably one you'll want to check out. There's even a very Mummy-esque musical score which was put to good use throughout the movie, adding a very fitting tone to many of the scenes.

Even though most of the cast seemed to be unknowns (at least unknown to me and since, as of the time of writing this review, IMDB refuses to put up a listing for this movie, there's really no way to tell one way or the other), they were all pretty above-average for this kind of movie, never once taking me out. The evil bad guys were great at being evil without being distractingly over the top, while Aladdin and his group of heroes were charming and even funny at times. The only person I recognized here was Kandyse McClure from Battlestar Galactica (Dualla on that show), and she actually was the one weak part when it came to the actors. Not that she was bad per sey, just she didn't really have much to do other then stand around in the background most of the time (until the final 15-20 minutes where she finally came more to the forefront), and when she did speak, it just wasn't as good of a job as I've come to expect after watching her for four seasons on BSG. Still, it was nice to see her in something again other then one random episode of the Canadian-made show Republic of Doyle (side bar: check that show out if you can - hilarious, action-packed, and filmed in the city I live in!).

As for the Djinn itself...well this ain't no fun-loving match-making singing Robin Williams Genie, ohhh no, this is more like the evil Jafar Genie from the second movie, if he lost the ability to speak and communicated via growls and roars. This shapeshifting lizard-headed bad boy just loves tricking whoever its 'master' happens to be, causing evil mischief and killing people in inventive ways before sucking up their souls for dinner, all the while biding its time until it can open a gateway to Hell to flood the earth with his thousands of evil brethren. And while there's not too much CGI effects work to be had in this one, what we do get (which is mostly just the Djinn itself and his various magic trickery) looks pretty good and better then average for a SyFy movie, so kudos there; there's even a scene where it changes into a really cool-looking large tiger-like creature to rip someone's throat out. As a slight side note, I'm also really happy that they decided to go with the original name of Djinn and not the much-later, more socially known name of Genie, as Djinn is indeed what they originally were referred to before this last century or so. Sometimes it's the little details that can add so much weight to a movie. Of course they added in their own little B-Movie twists to the legend of how a Djinn and its powers work, but that's to be expected and it actually added to my enjoyment via the Cheese-side of things to see how all the wishes would backfire or be twisted. In that regard actually, parts of the movie seemed almost a bit like Wes Craven's Wishmaster.

Now, when it comes to the end of the movie (well, by 'end' I mean the final 15-20 minutes) they kind of start shooting out twists in the plot at rapid-fire, some of which are really predictable considering how some aspects of the movie played out earlier, but there were a couple really good ones in there that I was taken aback by – there's a death I knew was coming but came a lot earlier then I thought it would, an unexpected death, as well as double-crosses, triple-crosses, and hop-scotch-and-back crosses (Seriously, WTF did I even just type?), and while I knew that obviously Aladdin would come out on top by the time the end credits rolled, I was completely unsure of how he would pull it off and who exactly would be standing with him when that time came, so once again, kudos to whoever the writer was or writers were for actually keeping me on my toes for the last little bit of the movie, something that is quite rare for a SyFy Channel Original.

And while it didn't bother me at all, some people may find this movie has a bit of a slow start, as it's about half an hour in before the Djinn even shows up for the first time in his own movie (quick-cut intro aside), but that didn't bother me at all since that first half an hour was filled with some of those fun adventurous treasure-hunting scenes I talked about up above, and dealt with uncovering the mystery of this ancient tome that Aladdin and his buddy had discovered in a tomb (which of course ultimately leads them to discovering the lamp and letting loose the Djinn). But I feel I should probably mention it anyway, just for those who may not be prepared for that and are expecting evil Djinn hijinks every 5 minutes right from the onset. Also, if you're expecting any kind of faithful adaptation of the original Aladdin tale, then look elsewhere as the only similarities here is that there's a character named Aladdin and there's a Genie, of sorts, featured. But again, that's not something that bothers me personally because it was never advertised as being an adaptation.

From the moment it was announced, I was really hoping to enjoy this movie, and ultimately I ended up enjoying it even more then I had expected. Between my love for Aladdin stories and my love of the Mummy franchise, this movie hit all the right notes for me, and then threw a few extra ones in there for good measure.

10/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Grimm's Snow White (2012)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: The Asylum

RUNTIME: 90 mins

FORMAT: BluRay

PLOT: Snow White's evil step-mother tries to have her killed so she can fully take over the Kingdom, but when her attempts fail, Snow White teams up with a band of Elves to strike back at the evil Queen and reclaim her kingdom.

REVIEW: With the recent ABC show Once Upon a Time reigniting my passion for fairy tales, and with my unfaltering love for all things Asylum-related hardly being a secret, it's safe to say that after 2-Headed Shark Attack, this was pretty much my next most anticipated B-Movie of 2012, and one I've been eagerly awaiting since The Asylum first announced it. However, something about this movie, through the trailers and the production photos released, just kept reminding me slightly of the horribly-dreadful Almighty Thor, so while I was anticipating watching and writing a review for Grimm's Snow White, there was still a part of me being weary of how the final product would turn out.

The movie starts off with the King being killed by a giant Lizard-Beast, and his wife (whom is the ruthless Evil Queen) fake-mourning. She secretly plans to invade the Elven Kingdom by merging her kingdom with another through re-marriage, in order to gain access to a mystical power source that would give her unlimited magical powers and make her the Supreme Ruler of the entire planet. However, when the Prince from that kingdom shows up to meet the Queen and ask for her hand in marriage, he instead falls in love with her kind and gentle step-daughter, Snow White. The rest of the movie plays out more or less like the classic fairy tale that we all know and love – the Queen finds out with the help of her magic talking mirror, and sends out her ruthless Hunstman to track Snow White down, kill her, and bring the Queen back her heart. Ultimately he can't do it (the reason differs here from the classic tale) and Snow White gathers a following (in this version it's Elves instead of Dwarfs) and with the help of the Prince (after he discovers she's still alive and wakes her from the eternal slumber that the Evil Queen put her in), Snow White strikes back at the Queen to regain the kingdom that is rightfully hers. Of course this version comes with the added addition of various Lizard-Beasts and Dog-Monsters throughout, as well as Elven Warriors and some kind of magic source that came on a crashing comet from space. But meh – only minor details, am I right?

What did strike me as a bit odd though, was the setting. Despite being a medieval-set story like all classic fairy tales, the 'castles' were merely large mansions, and some characters wear leather jackets and baseball caps. It was pretty difficult to pinpoint exactly what the heck they were going for with all that crisscrossing of eras, and it just came across as if the people behind the movie had trouble deciding if it was supposed to be medieval-set or Victorian England-set or what kind of setting they were going for. But then again, since it is an unnamed alternate magical realm, I suppose it could very well be a combination of multiple eras and be explained away by just saying that is how this world developed. It's an easy escape but sometimes you have to go that extra mile with Asylum movies to come to your own conclusions for stuff.

Also a bit odd are the pretty horrible special effects. Asylum has shown of-late that their effects are improving greatly over how they used to be, so it's odd to me that this movie is one big huge step backwards for them in the effects department, coming across more like one of their movies from three years ago as opposed to now. They were quite fuzzy and moved with very stilted and robotic-like movements, hardly even interacting with the scenery around them (in one scene a pack of wild monster-dogs don't even move the brush and foliage as they pass through it). It doesn't help that the wild monster dogs seem to be the exact same CG models straight from Almighty Thor, but on a smaller scale and with an added patch of fur on their backs. I understand the idea of cost-saving when it comes to CGI models, and it probably does help to just re-use stuff you already have on-file, but it's never a good idea to take audiences out of the current movie and remind them of such a horrible other movie.

The acting however, was pretty decent for the most part. Some of the smaller parts, and pretty much all of the Elf roles weren’t that great, but all three of the main cast (consisting of the Evil Queen, Snow White, and the Prince) did rather well for this kind of movie, though the actress for Snow White didn't show enough emotion for my liking. She was good more-often then she wasn't, but she did tend to switch into monotone-mode quite often, which made her come across, acting-wise anyway, almost like the B-Movie version of Kristen Stewart (who is actually in an upcoming Snow White movie herself). And while her acting for the most part was ok, her look most certainly was not. With her glowing blond hair and those blue and white clothes she was wearing during the entire movie as if she was planning to go on a picnic, she resembled Alice from Alice in Wonderland far more then she did Snow White. Would it really have been so hard to get the actress to dye her hair jet black, and remove all that blue from her clothes and replace it with a different color? Just those minor changes would have went a long way to better sell this character as Snow White. The Evil Queen was pretty imposing though, and that actress is most excellent at portraying an evil, manipulative, step-mother bitch, making every scene she was a part of simply a joy to watch....Which is why it was terribly disappointing that she went out like a chump. When Snow White started running towards her with a sword and she lifted up her own sword, I was expecting some fated epic throw-down between the two characters, but instead we just get a look of surprise on her face as Snow White decapitates her in the blink of an eye, and that's all the final showdown between those two characters consists of.

And speaking of useless, despite being acted very well and getting to show far more emotion then Snow White did, the Prince was really not written well at all. First off, he was very gullible as he was always being tricked and manipulated by the Queen with very minimal effort on her part, even in situations where he had been witness to proof that would make a normal person not believe a word coming out of this woman's mouth. But on top of that, he was also constantly getting betrayed by his best men, captured, and injured – the guy is just an all-around easily-manipulated idiot. How Snow White ever came to love him is beyond me, especially after just the one brief meeting that didn't even consist of anything particularly sweet or romantic; They went for a brief walk through the courtyard of her castle mansion under the stars, she talks about how she grew up in a convent, and then they part ways. Follow that up with the Prince being engaged to marry her step-mother and him always getting caught, hurt, or tricked and I'm left at a loss as to what she saw in him. Likewise, Snow White is so emotionless for most scenes that it's just as big of a wonder how he fell for her so easily as well. By all rights, neither of these characters should be into one another at all – hell, I felt Snow White had better chemistry with most of the Elves then she did with Prince Not-So-Charming here.

The Elves, of course, take on the role normally reserved for the Dwarfs in every other telling of this story. There's two main factions here, one are the Dark Elves who want nothing to do with mankind and guard the mystical power source of their species, and then we have our main group of Elves who have broken away from the rest of their kind and come to the aid of Snow White once the Queen sets out to have her banished and killed. Over all, I like the change here from the norm, but none of the Elven characters were really acted all that well, and the prosthetics used for their elongated ears were pretty brutal as well, easily showing where the actors' real ears ended and the fake parts began.

And of course, you can't make a Snow White movie these days without including a big epic war-battle for the fate of the world. In this case I was particularly surprised by the slow build-up to the main climatic battle. It actually gave you time to feel the weight of what was about to go down and it helped portray the tension and uneasiness that the heroes felt. Normally Asylum just skips over all that padding and jumps right into it, so it was a welcomed change. And when the battle did go down, it did not disappoint in the slightest. Out of all of Asylum's medieval-set movies, I'd say this one has the best choreographed battle. Also accompanying that build-up to the battle, and the battle itself, was some amazing majestic and thundering music that could almost have come from one of the Lord of the Rings movies, courtesy of Asylum's go-to composer Chris Ridenhour. The guy rarely disappoints with his B-Movie musical scores, and the one he put together for this fairy tale movie could not have fit more perfectly.

Initially I was worried about this one. Asylum is more well-known for their all-out cheesefest movies like Mega Python vs Gatoroid and 2-Headed Shark Attack, and when they do try to play things pretty straight-faced and serious some of them come out the other side as among their worst movies yet (Dragonquest, Almighty Thor, 100 Million B.C.), and I knew going in that this would be one that plays it pretty straight. Thankfully it turned out to be pretty entertaining, though far from perfect, and despite some of the additions and changes from the classic story I was actually quite surprised with how much of the original tale they used here. I was expecting it to be no more then faithful in title-only but for the most part it hits all the main beats at all the right points, and those extra changes and additions were just to give it that little Asylum-flavor that we've come to expect from the studio.

7/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Almighty Thor (2011)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: The Asylum

RUNTIME: 90 mins

FORMAT: TV

PLOT: When Loki invades Asgard and kills Oden, Oden sends the Hammer of Invincibility - the mystical item Loki is after - to Earth. Now Oden's immature son Thor must get to it before Loki does or the entire Universe will be destroyed.

REVIEW: I always anticipate each new Asylum movie, and Almighty Thor was no different in that regard. Some such as Battle of Los Angeles turn out excellent while some such as Dragonquest turn out really crappy. With Asylum movies, you're never really quite sure what to expect in terms of quality as they fluctuate from movie to movie. Where their last movie I saw, Battle of Los Angeles, was amazing IMO, this one...not so much. Arriving just in time to cash in on the big budget Hollywood movie Thor from Marvel, which Asylum does quite often and always to timing perfection, Almighty Thor is their very first foray into superhero films, but unfortunately it's a prime example of one of their lesser-quality ventures.

For example, the acting – whooo boy. Asylum may not have the best acting, but even by their own low standards it hasn't been this bad in years. Granted, Cody Deal (the fellow who plays Thor) does improve a bit once they get him out of Asgard and down to Earth, and the guy that plays Loki is excellent as the villain, but everyone else is pretty horrible. Kevin Nash of wrestling fame (playing Thor's father Oden) seemed to be reading from cue cards the entire time and Patricia Velasquez from the first two The Mummy movies (playing a warrior Valkyrie guardian of Asgard here) had such a thick accent, you could hardly understand most of her lines. And none of them – including Cody Deal – should have ever attempted to do the old medieval-style of speech. That's a hard way of talking to pull off realistically (even big budget movies rarely pull it off well), and I'm a firm believer that it's way to distracting when not done well, so if you can't then don't even try. Seriously, it made me groan whenever somebody other then Loki spoke. Luckily though, they seem to mostly drop that style of speech once they get to Earth (though it doesn't make any sense as to why their speech would change). Even the horrible botching of the speaking-style aside, the guy who plays Loki is the only actor in the movie that does anything even resembling a decent job, totally stealing the show every time. The movie is almost worth watching just for him alone.

And while I'm on the topic of Loki, there are a few things I didn't really understand about him - for one, there is no backstory whatsoever given on him. Why is he so evil? Why was he locked away underground? If he could escape from Hell so damn easily (with reinforcements no less) then why wait until now and not escape sooner? We had no backstory or motivation really given on him, and I hate when villains are written so lazily with no care given as to giving us any proper information on them other then 'They're bad, so you have to hate them.' Adding to the confusion of Loki, is that staff/wand thing he carries around – there's no rules with it. It can literally do ANYTHING he wants it to. His magic seems to work without rhyme or reason and just does whatever the situation calls for and whatever he needs it to do with no restrictions. If that's the case, then why does he have such trouble taking over Asgard and then Earth? I hate when movies introduce a magical item like that, with no rules for it whatsoever and it can literally do whatever is needed of it for that scene; It's piss poor lazy writing.

The fight choreography is also pretty crappy, moving at such a deliberately slow pace that it's plainly obvious that they're just acting the fight out instead of actually fighting. Most of what we get is just Thor and Loki swinging a couple swords or a giant hammer at each other, dodging, swinging again, blocking, swinging a third time, dodging, then escaping. The fight choreography in Battle of Los Angeles was better then that, and all that had was a chick swinging a sword at a CGI alien ship! I was really disappointed in the lack of care given to the action in this so-called action movie. It wouldn't have even bothered me so much if this was of a different genre, but billing itself as a fantasy action, and then dropping the ball on the action part, is just disappointing.

I can't do an Asylum review without mentioning the special effects. In some cases such as Battle of Los Angeles and Transmorphers: Fall of Man, they're pretty good. In other cases such as Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus and this movie, they're simply not. The giant Hellhounds and Demon Worms - they actually looked pretty good and had a decent design, but everything else from shots of burning fires and crumbling buildings, to even just exterior shots of Oden's castle - that stuff all looked low caliber, even for an Asylum flick (and why they felt the need to CGI a castle and not shoot on-location at one is beyond me. Even Full Moon shoots on-location at castles, and their movies are of even lower budgets then Asylum ones). With their recent movies showing that they really are capable of much better work, I'm really disappointed to see that it's not as good here as it is in their other recent flicks, and that they did things in CGI, badly, that could have easily been done to much better effect with practical work.

All of that aside though, I can enjoy a badly-acting bad-effects-fueled movie as long as there's a good story. So what about the story? Well that's what I was asking for the majority of the movie as well. There is next to no story here. Hell, the entire first half is nothing but Loki chasing Thor and his lady-friend through a forest. THAT'S IT. For 40 minutes. It's not until they get to Earth in the second half that anything even resembling a story comes into play as the two sides race to get the Hammer of Invincibility first. And even then I was left scratching my head as to why not one person seemed to notice these people running around the city in medieval garb.

One aspect of the script that I did like however - though I know most people didn't – was one very awesome action scene where Thor is running down the street, firing off a machine gun. Most people hate it when a classic Greek character or an oldtime-warrior is seen in the present using modern weapons. I personally love it. It makes sense; they're in modern times, so of course they're going to use modern weapons. Granted, it was only the one really short scene, but it was very cool none the less, and maybe if the other action scenes had more of that instead of a couple swords or obviously-fake hammers being banged around slowly then they would have been more thrilling and entertaining.

One thing I have to really hand it to them for though, and it's something I've been noticing on most of Asylum's more recent movies in the last couple years – the amazing cinematography. I don't know if they hired someone new in the last year or so for this or what, but whatever the story on that is – it's working, so I hope they keep it up in their future endeavors as well. There is a distinct change in the cinematography between the Asgard scenes and the Earth scenes, with Asgard (being the home of our main characters) coming across as normal, but then a smooth blue filter over the Earth scenes to make it seem almost foreign and alien, helping us look at Earth almost with the eyes of someone who had never been there before, and that's a stylistic choice I can really appreciate.

One last thing I really liked was most of the final 15 minutes, once Loki declares all-out war on Earth and his Hellhounds and Demon Worms show up to start causing massive destruction while he destroys the Tree of Life and causes natural disasters that lead to global destruction. I wish there was much more of this kind of stuff, because I felt that's when the movie really started getting genuinely entertaining, but unfortunately it was too little, too late.

All in all, I have to be honest and say I didn't really enjoy this one. There were a few things I loved (the actor playing Loki, the excellent cinematography, and the final 15 minutes), but even more I hated such as horrible acting, horrible effects, and a dreadful script with no plot and that doesn't explain ANYTHING (How did Thor know Loki was on Earth in the first place? How did Thor know where to find Loki on Earth? Why was Thor such an immature brat and seemed to never learn from his mistakes and always refuse to listen to anyone that isn't himself? How exactly did Thor escape from Hell once Loki sent him there? Plus all of the previously-mentioned stuff in regards to Loki and his magical staff/wand thing). The bad far outweighs the good with this one and I can only hope that I enjoy Asylum's next venture more then I did Almighty Thor.

3/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Dragonquest (2009)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: The Asylum

RUNTIME: 89 mins

FORMAT: BluRay

PLOT: After a cult led by an evil wizard awakens a dark dragon and unleashes it upon the world, it's up to a normal farm boy to go on a quest to try to save the kingdom.

REVIEW: I originally saw a trailer for Dragonquest at the beginning of another of Asylum's BluRay releases, and it actually looked really good and I've been anxiously waiting ever since to finally get to check it out. I finally came across the BluRay recently so I instantly picked it up and as soon as I got home, I popped it into my BluRay player.

Right off the bat, the movie grabbed my interest. The sweeping scenic shots of the beautiful medieval landscapes looked to be almost as good as the ones in the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies, and really helped to set the terrain of this kingdom early on. After that, we move right into the evil cult, led by a powerful wizard, summoning the Dark Dragon from a lava pit in a volcano, and this dragon looked awesome. Just picture it: it more or less looks like a giant shadow in the shape of a dragon, until it's entire body ignites into flames like a total bad ass, and that's how it looks while flying or attacking; when on the ground and not doing much, it's in Shadow-form, but when it takes to the air or it starts attacking people and villages, it ignites like Johnny Storm and it just looked so friggin' sweet.

Much to my dismay though, that's pretty much where the positive stuff ends for this movie. After that opening dragon-summoning scene that captivated me so easily, we cut to a farm house in a small little village where our so-called hero of the movie is caught by his grandfather as he spies on a beautiful neighbor while she changes. All good so far. That is, until someone opens their mouth.

Now, I'm a huge fan of Asylum movies and I'll be the first one to say that, and so because of that I'm used to all the trademarks of their movies, some of which include bad acting, bad effects, and horribly-written dialogue. And this movie is no different, as it has all those things and more. The thing that's different this time is that this has all those things – but the worst I've seen to date from an Asylum movie. From the moment someone first speaks, I knew I was going to be in for a bumpy ride. Acting is normally bad, but here it's dreadfully painful to watch. Even veteran-actor Marc Singer (Original V series, The Beastmaster, Watchers II) is in bad shape. Actually, I didn't even realize that crazy old man was him until towards the end, because he was so bad, I just didn't want to believe it. One of the worst examples of this is during his death scene when he gives a dying speech, yet he doesn't sound like he's in pain or dying at all and he keeps going on and on and on and on. In the amount of time it actually took him to get that speech out and finally die, the others could have easily gone and got him help and maybe even save him. It seemed more like a Bugs Bunny sketch where Bugs is just trying to trick that bald-headed hunter. Main difference is though, the voice actor that does Bugs Bunny is actually good and believable as him. Marc Singer in this movie...not so much. Really, the only some-what competent actors in this movie was the guy who played the main Evil Wizard (not like he really had much to do though), and the woman who played the main female warrior, who, by the way, is also very easy on the eyes in her sexy Elvish-style Wonder Woman-like outfit.

But can you really fully blame just the actors for their atrociousness? It's not like they were given anything believable to say. The dialog was written as if someone had just played a half dozen medieval-style video games and wrote down only the most overused and eye-rollingly bad phrases, stuck them in this script at random points with no mind to if it makes sense within the context of the scene or not, and then made the actors say them out loud. I have no problems saying with the utmost honesty that I have seriously seen most high school plays that have better acting and with better-written dialog, then this movie.

Even my initial impression of the effects duped me pretty good. As much as I love the Dark Dragon with it's flame-fueled body, that is really the only somewhat good effect in the entire thing. We've got an underwater sea monster (really, just a single shot that's re-used over and over), a dragon made of white light, and some mystic energy attacks, and it all looks beyond bad, even by this company's very low standards. And none of these things would even bother me even nearly as much, as long as the movie's story kept my attention, but this one really didn't. The entire movie is based around the fact that this evil cult, led by a powerful wizard, has brought to life this harbinger of doom to take control of the world, and this one farm boy is a boy of prophecy called The Keeper and he must go on a so-called dangerous quest to unite all pieces of this crystal to defeat the darkness. Sounds good when summed up like that, doesn't it? Unfortunately it's not nearly as good on-screen. First off, the quest itself is lame and such a let down. The only part of the crystal he had to do any real work for is when he had to get swallowed by the giant sea creature because the part he was after had been swallowed by the monster. After that, every single piece of the crystal is literally just given to him by random people he comes across during his journey who just so happened to have them. And that's it to this so-called dangerous quest. He now has all the pieces and must go do battle against the evil wizard and his dragon. Man, if only Frodo's quest in Lord of the Rings had been that easy, then maybe the trilogy could have been summed down into a 60-minute short film instead.

But at least the final showdown between the farm boy Keeper and the Evil Wizard, with the future of the entire world as the prize, should be pretty intense, right? Yeah, should be. But isn't. It's as much of a let down as the actual “quest” was. The entire fight consists of the Evil Wizard standing there, palm outstretched, and a beam of energy coming out of it towards the Keeper. The Keeper puts the crystal together, then stands there, palm outstretched, and a beam of energy comes out towards the Evil Wizard, with the two beams meeting in the middle. Spend 5+ minutes of nothing but a shot of the two beams meeting in the middle, cut to the Keeper and a facial expression of exhaustion and getting tired, cut to the Evil Wizard with the same expression, cut back to the beams, then repeat. For 5+ minutes. After a bit, we are spared a little break from that since when the crystal came together a white Dragon made of Light shot out of the Keeper to do battle against the Dark Dragon (never once though do we get anything even resembling an explanation for that Light Dragon), however we hardly get to see that fight. Most of it happens off-screen during the 5 or so minutes we're forced to watch of the starring contest, but when we do get to see it, it's kind of cool. The effects on the Light Dragon aren’t even close to as good as the ones on the Dark Dragon, but the fight itself is pretty cool, though way too short since we quickly cut back to the starring contest for another minute or so and when that's over, so is the dragon fight that we hardly got to see.

After that, the movie ends with The Keeper rushing over to the Warrior Maiden chick (who had her own somewhat-enjoyable fight against a group of enemy soldiers), and he starts making out with her. Why? Who knows. Not once during the movie did it ever even hint at there being a love story or either one of them having any sort of feelings for each other. But sure, why not throw in a potential-rape at the very end. Makes about as much sense as the rest of the movie did.

This is the Eregon of low budget fantasy movies, and well worth your time to just skip it all together, even if you are a die hard Asylum fan such as myself. There are plenty of other way better fantasy movies you can watch, and there are also plenty of other way better Asylum-made movies you can watch.

3/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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