Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992)

WARNING: I’m going to give away major details about the movie including how it ends.  You’ve been warned.



The first Waxworks wasn’t particularly impressive.  I could forgive you for not having heard of it.  It was about some friends, most of whom fall victim to an evil wax museum.  Sarah and Mark escape, only to be followed by a reanimated hand in the final scene.  Waxwork II starts with a montage of scenes recounting those events.  We see the wax museum burn down, many characters die horrible deaths and so on.

The movie starts with Mark dropping Sarah off at her place.  Her place happens to be her stepfather’s apartment.  He’s abusive, and very much in the stereotypical way.  He wears the famous undershirt and drinks beer.  (How do we know it’s beer?  It’s in a white can with the word “BEER” on it.)   Sarah’s stepfather begins yelling at her and whatnot when the reanimated hand shows up and kills him.  Mark is able to save her, but Sarah is still left to take the fall for Stepfather’s death.

The trial goes about as well as Sarah has a right to expect. No one believes her story about the zombie hand.  After all, Mark is the only person that could back her up.  I’m not really sure why her attorney doesn’t go for an insanity or self-defense plea.  After all, Sarah’s stepfather was about to hit her.  I know that affirmative defenses can be problematic, but I think this might be an appropriate time to try.

After the trial lets out, Mark and Sarah go looking for something that can help her.  They find a magic compass-looking thing that allows them to travel to an alternate dimension.  They pass through worlds, much like in the first movie.  Each one is an homage to a different movie classic.  Their first stop is Frankenstein.  From there, they end up in other movies, like Alien ad The Haunting.

Sir Wilfred shows up in the form of a raven to provide a little help.  Well, he basically shows up to explain what’s going on.  This alternate dimension is a playground between God and Satan.  They can’t battle it out on our plane directly, but they can fight it out here.  Sir Wilfred calls it God’s Nintendo.  What happens in God’s Nintendo has effects in the real world.  Each side has time warriors that help out.

Mark is able to get Sarah the help she needs before sending her back.  He stays behind to be a time warrior, himself.  The important thing is that Sarah has a reanimated hand to offer as evidence of her story.  She is, of course, promptly acquitted.  As she exit’s the courthouse, a cab pulls up.  A man gets out and hands Sarah her very own compass thing.  She drives off with the implication being that she goes to rejoin Mark.

Ok.  So, there are several issues.  First off, no mention is made of the house burning down with nearly everyone in it.  Most of the main characters from the movie also went missing.  You’d think Mark and/or Sarah would be on the hook for at least some of that.  Nope.  Not even an arson charge.  (I think the deaths might be felony homicide depending on where they live and who’s prosecuting.)

Another issue is how the hand managed to kill Sarah’s stepfather, being that it’s just a hand.  How does something that small manage to pin someone down and strangle them?  The movie seems to have little use for physics.  (I know the man is drunk, but still…)

Zach Galligan and Patrick Macnee are the only two actors to appear in both the first and second movies.  (Deborah Foreman was replaced with Monika Schnarre as Sarah.)  We do get to see Bruce Campbell and David Carradine make appearances.  And wait… is that Marina Sirtis?  Wow!  Deanna Troi appears in this film.  (Well, not as Deanna Troi, but still…)

Like the first movie, this one wasn’t great.  It was entertaining the first time, but I don’t think I would buy it.  It’s the kind of movie that a local station might play because the studio wasn’t asking a lot of money for it.  This movie could easily have not been made and I don’t think anyone would have noticed.

IMDb page

Timequest (2000)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.


I had such high hopes for this movie. I like time-travel movies and I also have a passing interest in alternate history. I can’t say I mind the occasional gratuitous nudity. Timequest looked like a good idea at the time. I have to say that I was sorely disappointed.

The story goes that a man, presumably from a time close to our own, goes back to stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy hours before his fateful trip in Dallas. While there, he also takes the liberty of warning Robert Kennedy about his assassination as well. The rest of the movie is about the history that results.

Time-travel movies fall into two categories. With some, the resulting history is very similar. With others, the resulting history is as close to the opposite as possible. This movie was basically a series of historical in-jokes. For instance, the Beatles never went anywhere after appearing on the Ed Sullivan show. Dan Rather is shown as being noting more than a local correspondent. Those that don’t know much about history will probably be lost throughout the movie.

Even at 92 minutes, these jokes were used as a lot of filler. What’s left is Robert Kennedy trying to figure out who the time traveler is. You see, he deliberately didn’t give his name because he knew that the person that his alternate self would grow up to be might also invent time travel. What you’re left with a corny, hokey movie. Instead of a movie with a powerful ending, I was left just wondering why I just wasted an hour and a half of my life.

The movie doesn’t hold up as a time-travel movie and it especially doesn’t hold up as a movie in general. I’d recommend it only if you’re interested in JFK’s assassination and other historical stuff. The entire movie had a very amateurish look to it. The movie jumped around a lot and the graphics were somewhat low budget. Also, the actors didn’t really look like the people they were supposed to be representing. I didn’t even realize that it was supposed to be Martin Luther King, Jr. that was Robert Kennedy’s Vice President until I read the credits.

Ultimately, I have to give the movie two stars. It was a decent movie, but it wasn’t really something I would find myself recommending. When it was over, I didn’t feel like it was anything momentous. At least it wasn’t a long movie.

IMDb page

Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

When I first saw coming attractions for Oz the Great and Powerful, I knew I wanted to see it.  I had been reading some of the books and had seen the 1930s movie.  I had a sense that this hadn’t used any of them as direct source material, instead creating a new story about how Oz came to a land called Oz.  The original movie is still under copyright protection, but the books have fallen into public domain.  Still, there are some references to the original movie.

It starts in black-and-white Kansas circa 1905.  Oscar Diggs is a second-rate magician at a traveling carnival.  He seems to have a way with ladies.  That is to say, he has one routine he uses to charm a girl in each town.  When this comes back to bite him, he finds the nearest balloon and proceeds to get lost as quickly as he can.  He travels directly into, of all things, a tornado that takes him to the Technicolor land of Oz.

The first thing he does is meet the beautiful Theodora, who tells Oz that she and everyone else in Oz would be saved by a great and powerful wizard bearing the same name as the land.  Along the trip back to The Emerald City, they meet Finley, a talking, flying monkey.   Finley pledges his life to Oz until he realizes what that might entail.  Oz is a bit reluctant, himself.  He knows he’s no great wizard.

Promises of the royal treasure does help persuade him.  Theodora’s sister, Evanora, tells Oz that in order to get the treasure, he has to kill a wicked witch.  Along the way, he meets China Girl, a ceramic person whose village was destroyed.  (Yes, that is the name listed on IMDb.)  Oz fixes her, so they head off to find this witch, only to find out that she’s the good witch Glinda.

It’s up to Glinda, Oz, Finley and China Girl to defeat the two wicked witches.  Mostly, it’s up to Oz, who seems to bear the brunt of this prophecy.  He doesn’t really start to take things seriously until late in the movie, when he devises a plan.  Not everyone knows what’s going on, as he keeps most of it a secret.  (On this note, it is a prequel.  As such, you know what will become of most of the characters.  I don’t think I’ve really revealed much in the way of surprises.)

There are a few references to the 1939 movie you may catch.  One of Oz’s love interests in Kansas says she’s going to marry a man named Gale.  There are a lot of Oz-based characters that resemble Kansas-based characters.  Other than the characters, that’s where the similarity seems to end.  If you’ve seen the original movie, I don’t know if James Franco would be your first choice to play the man who would become The Great and Powerful Oz.  (It does look like there will be a sequel to this movie, so we may get to see how he transitions.)

L. Frank Baum created characters that wanted most what they already had.  (The scarecrow wanted intelligence, but already seem to possess great skill and cunning.)  In this sense, this movie holds true to the books.  Oz wants to be a great magician.  What he doesn’t realize until coming to Oz is that he has the ability to do great things.  He just has to use his considerable skills to his advantage.  With some help, he’s able to pull this off.

Those coming into the movie without having read the books or seen the other movies will probably miss out on a lot of the references.   We get to see the flying monkeys, which are very dark in this movie.  They’re used mostly for brute force here.  (In the books, they were capable of dialogue.  If I recall, they tied to a hat which would grand the user three wishes within the monkeys’ power.)

I had wanted to see the movie in theaters, partly because of the 3D aspect.  I didn’t feel like paying a lot of money for that.  (I don’t think theaters give any sort of special discount on 3D for early birds.)  I ended up getting it through Redbox with a free code.  I wasn’t able to watch it in 3D, though.  (I’m not even sure how they’d do this.)  If I could see it in 3D, I’d probably consider doing it.  There were a few scenes that would have been great for that, but I’m not holding my breath. 

IMDb page

Mindwarp (1992)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Most of the movies I watch, I find through advertisements or coming attractions.  Some, I find while wandering through a store looking at multi-movie packs.  Occasionally, I’ll look through Netflix for movies to watch and review.  I think I found Mindwarp while looking for Bruce Campbell movies.  I had never heard of the movie before and for good reason.

The movie takes place in 2037.  As you might expect from a post-apocalyptic movie, the ozone has been depleted, the Earth’s surface is uninhabitable and humanity is split up into two groups:  Those that live in a biodome hooked up to a virtual reality and those that live outside the biodome, either as a mutant or trying to avoid the mutants.  Judy lives in a biodome, sharing a room with her mother.  She spends most of her time in the VR system, disconnecting to eat and (presumably) perform other necessary biological functions.  She can experience anything she wants, which gets old.  She realizes it’s all fake and longs for something real.

When she accidentally kills her mother, she’s kicked out of paradise and sent to live outside.  She’s nearly attacked by some mutants, but is saved by Stover.  (Stover is played by Bruce Campbell.)  Mutants are unintelligent.  They can’t speak and spend most of their time mining what used to be landfills.  Stover is one of a handful of people left that are still what we would think of as human.  Eventually, both are captured by mutants.  Stover is put to work in the mines while Judy is taken to be sacrificed, but is saved by the Seer.

The Seer’s girlfriend, Cornelia, doesn’t like Judy, mostly because The Seer seems to have a special affection for Judy.  Cornelia tries to infect Judy with these mutant parasite leeches, which the Seer stops.  (If you’re at all squeamish, you don’t want to know what The Seer does as punishment.)  Meanwhile, Stover attempts to escape with Judy, which fails.  The seer puts Stover in a semi-submerged cage, causing him to become infected with several leeches, which is not good for Stover.

It’s also revealed that The Seer is Judy’s father, which isn’t so bad until he reveals that he wants them to have lots of normal little children to lead the mutants.  Another escape attempt is made with similar results.  This time, Judy manages to take find a more permanent solution to her problem.  (Again, those that are squeamish probably won’t want to know the details.)

I’m not going to give away the ending in case your stomach has the fortitude to make it through the entire movie.  However, I think it should be obvious by now that this is not a movie for children.  I think anyone younger than 10 will get nightmares.  Imagine if you took elements from The Matrix and the original Total Recall and tried to make it in the style of Mad Max.  You would end up with something roughly like this.

It’s the kind of movie that you can enjoy if you don’t expect too much.  I had wanted to watch it mostly to see Bruce Campbell in something other than Burn Notice.  Had I not been able to get this streaming, I probably would have held off, though.  There’s a low-budget look to the movie, partly in film quality and partly in the set design.  It was made in 1992, but it looks like something out of the ‘80s.  Also, the biodome sets look kind of generic and basic, which may be the point.  I don’t think that they quite pulled it off, though.  It’s kind of hard to do in this movie without looking like they couldn’t afford anything better.

If you have Netflix and are able to stream movies or you can get this on demand, I’d say give it a try.  It is different and isn’t the worst movie I’ve seen.  However, I wouldn’t recommend getting it on DVD or paying for it on demand.  At least I got a review out of it. 

IMDb page

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

It’s not often that I get to see an animated film in theaters.  I have to wait until school starts to even consider it.  There are some, like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, that I want to see in theaters because they’re released in 3 D.  (Fortunately, it was released just after the start of the school year.)

The movie is about a man named Flint Lockwood.  He’s been an inventor since he could pick up two things and put them together.  (His mother was always more understanding of this than his father.)  Tim Lockwood wants his son to do something more practical, like get a job.  Flint’s not ready to give up inventing.  Yes, he takes a job, but manages to invent a machine that can turn water into food.

This is good for a town that has way too many sardines.  (The local sardine-packaging plant shut down, leaving the residents with plenty to eat.)  If all goes well, Flint will be able to dial up any food that he wants.  As you might expect, Flint’s initial experiment fails.  Not only does he embarrass himself, but there’s no food from water.  At least, not yet.

Eventually, a weather system moves in and starts pouring food on the island.  Everyone is happy.  Flint has gone from being the town joke to a hero, surpassing ‘Baby’ Brent in popularity.  (Baby Brent was the baby used in advertising for the packaging plant, his only claim to local fame.)

People are making all sorts of requests, from spaghetti and meatballs to filet mignon.  It isn’t long before problems start appearing and Flint realizes he has to shut everything down.  Not so easy for a town that has become dependent on his invention and an invention that doesn’t want to be shut down.

The movie is pretty basic.  You have an unlikely hero who eventually has to make a difficult choice between finally being successful and doing the right thing.  It’s meant more for a younger audience.  (The movie is based on a children’s picture book.)  There are a few references that adults will get, but I can see a lot of adults feeling like they were dragged to see the movie.

I enjoyed watching it; don‘t get me wrong.  I have to admit that if I had to pick a movie to show adults to get them hooked on animation, this probably wouldn’t be it.  It’s a little too generic and safe to show that animation has the same range as live-action films.  The appearance of the characters was very exaggerated and cartoonish.  I could see this turning a lot of people away from animation.

It’s easy to identify with a main character that’s isolated.  He has a lot of good ideas, like spray-on shoes, that don’t work out.  Flint just wants to be accepted.  Even the love interest, Sam Sparks, is an intern looking for her big break as a reporter.  The mayor of the town is looking to recapture past glory with an amusement park, but co-opts Flint’s invention.  (Not exactly the acceptance that Flint wanted, but he’ll take it.)

The story is simple, yet entertaining.  At 90 minutes, it’s not too big of a commitment.  If you have kids or you like animated movies, I’d recommend renting it. 

IMDB page

Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Some stories are so strange that you just have to hear them. This movie is one of them. Imagine a nursing home where both Elvis Presley and a black JFK reside. Add to that a mummy who’s sucking the souls out of the other residents. It’s up to Elvis and Jack to save everyone. This isn’t some alternate history, though.

Elvis, played by Bruce Campbell, claims that he switched places with an impersonator named Sebastian Haff and that it was the impersonator who died of a drug overdose. No one believes him because his copy of the contract went up in a freak barbecue accident. As for JFK, who’s played by Ossie Davis here, he didn’t really die as a result of the attempt on his life. Instead, he was in a coma and had part of his brain replaced with sand. His skin was dyed black so that nobody could finish the job.

As for the mummy, Elvis finds out that two guys tried to steal the coffin of some no-name member of the Ho-Tep dynasty, but ended up going off of a bridge during their escape. (Elvis names the mummy Bubba.) The mummy was never recovered. It just so happens that the bridge was very close to the nursing home that JFK and Elvis live in.

The residents of the home are just what Bubba needs to restore himself: easy prey. The people of the home don’t provide much nourishment, but they don’t put up much of a fight, either. To make things easier for Bubba, no one thinks twice if someone there dies; it looks like old age. Jack and Elvis realize that no one will ever believe them, so they take on the challenge themselves.

It’s a strange idea for a movie, but it’s a good one. I find it somewhat amusing that all three of the main characters are either dead or supposed to be dead to varying degrees. Bubba is actually dead and looking to come back to life. Jack’s story sounds fishy, even though he believes it. Elvis’s story is at least plausible, although you have to wonder why he left no proof of who he was. (Couldn’t he be fingerprinted or something?)

I think it says something about the writing that, while there were jokes about the characters, the characters seemed to take themselves seriously. Elvis doesn’t mind having switched places, but regrets not being there for his wife and daughter. He takes the blame for all of his bad decisions. (Jack, on the other hand, is a little paranoid that LBJ may be out to get him, but what do you expect?)

The one thing I thought wasn’t necessary was that Elvis had an growth in a private area that had to be taken care of every day. You don’t really see anything, but parents might not be comfortable watching it with their children.

We don’t see much of Bubba and when Bubba does appear, it’s usually dark and the appearance is brief. This is probably why what few special effects there were came out so well. There’s not much of a history for Bubba other than what Elvis finds out on his fact-finding mission, which I suppose is just as well. An enemy like that doesn’t need much of a history.

The movie doesn’t quite fit into any category, although it does come close to science fiction and comedy. It’s a lot of things, but not really any category at the same time. It’s just a good movie. It runs about 90 minutes, which is the perfect length. I think that anyone who likes offbeat movies will love this one. 

Official Site

IMDb page