Thursday, February 12, 2015

Come Back to Me (2014)



Number Rolled: 37
Movie Name/Year: Come Back to Me (2014)
Genre: Thriller
Length: 96 minutes
Rating: R
Production Companies: Base Productions, Idiot Savant Pictures
Executive ProducerSergin Akyaz
Director: Paul Leyden
Writer: Paul Leyden, Wrath James White
Actors: Jon Abrahams, Andrew Beckham, Laura Gordon, Nathan Keyes, Matt Passmore, Jeanette Branch, Caroline Clements, Brian Patacca, Steve Rizzo, Alexandra Straus, Katie Walder, Maura West, Pete Williams

Josh and Sarah are happily married. They’re trying to get back into life following the near-death car accident Sarah was in. When a troubled, and creepy, new neighbor moves in, strange things start to happen.

This movie was based on a book, The Resurrectionist by Wrath James White (400 Days of Oppression, The Book of a Thousand Sins, Population Zero).

I haven’t read the book, but I like to think that most movies based off books would avoid the recipe trap. After all, if they hadn’t done well as books, why would anyone bother to make it into a movie?

I don’t believe every movie based on a book has to be good, just different.

Come Back to Me followed a recipe so generic that I can’t even imagine why anyone bothered to do anything else with it.

Granted, the ending took an interesting turn, but that can’t be the only thing to a story.

The acting wasn’t bad, but there was nothing that really made this movie anything more than background noise.

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 20%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 48%

Netflix’s Prediction for Me – 3.4/5
Trust-the-Dice Score2/5

Movie Trailer: [ Disclaimer: So. The trailer basically shows the entire movie. If you watch it, there's no point watching the whole thing. You've been warned. ]

Monday, February 9, 2015

Battle Royale II (2003)



Number Rolled: 80
Movie Name/Year: Battle Royale II (2003)
Genre: Action
Length: 133 minutes
Rating: NR
Production Companies: Fukasaku-gumi, GAGA, Nippon Shuppan Hanbai (Nippan) K.K., Sega Corporation, TV Asahi, Toei Company, Tokyo FM Broadcasting Co., WoWow
Producers: Kenta Fukasaku, Kimio Kataoka, Hikaru Kawase, Masumi Okada
Director: Kenta Fukasaku, Kinji Fukasaku
Writer: Kenta Fukasaku, Norio Kida, Koushun Takami
Actors: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Ai Maeda, Shugo Oshinari, Ayana Sakai, Haruka Suenaga, Yuma Ishigaki, Miyuki Kanbe, Masaya Kikawada, Yoko Maki, Yuki Ito, Natsuki Kato, Aki Maeda, Riki Takeuchi, Takeshi Kitano, Masahiko Tsugawa

Shuya Nanahara may have escaped the games, but it certainly wasn’t unscathed. As a result, his anger has led him to start a war between the children and the adults. He’s a known terrorist now, responsible for explosive crimes. Meanwhile, Shiori Kitano believes she knows who Shuya really is. Her anger leads her to step in to the second Battle Royale in order to take him down.

Battle Royale II is a little older than the majority of the movies I work with, but I had to add it to the list anyway. The first movie in the series amazed me and that led me to voluntarily break my “rules.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t really worth it.

The plot seemed like it had a lot of potential, in theory. In practice, I was pretty surprised.

Although the movie started out basically the same and had a similar amount of gore, that was really all it had to do with the first movie.

The plot was jumpy, difficult to see as a cohesive story. On top of that, the main character kept changing between Shuya, Shiori and Takuma, not fluidly either. That made it extremely difficult to muster up any emotion for any of the characters at all. In fact, since all the characters reacted the exact same way to every stimulus, they were all kind of interchangeable.

Add to that the ridiculous acting of the main villain and it’s almost difficult to watch. The only reason the score wasn’t lower is because there were a few scenes that spoke to me.

Battle Royale II needed to be about an hour shorter with a lot more substance.

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 30%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 29%

Netflix’s Prediction for Me – 3.8/5
Trust-the-Dice Score1.5/5

The Random Rating: R

Movie Trailer: