I didn’t think much to the first “Blade” picture and while I wouldn’t say I enjoyed “Blade II”, it’s noticeably better. This time, Guillermo Del Toro (“Pan’s Labyrinth”) is in the director’s chair and he brings his weird obsession with gruesome monsters, which seems to make him a fitting choice for a film series so overly focused on disgusting imagery.

Legendary half-vampire Blade (Wesley Snipes “Blade”, “Demolition Man”) forms an unlikely alliance with the vampires in order to take down a new breed of vampires (‘Reapers’) that not only drink the blood of humans but vampires as well. However, Blade soon realises that there is something even more sinister going on.

Wesley Snipes returns as Blade and he does a decent job. I felt as though this movie gave him a little more opportunity to show off his martial arts skills when compared to the first film. Kris Kristofferson (“Payback”) also returns as Blade’s mentor, Whistler, and he’s okay. I didn’t really care for any of the vampire characters and I found Ron Pearlman (“Alien: Resurrection”) a little irritating. I thought it was kind-of interesting having a type of creature that the vampires fear because I felt that was an interesting twist.

This superhero sequel features better action sequences and a more interesting story than the first film but it’s still plagued by many of the issues that affected this first one. Just like the first movie, “Blade II” is obsessed with showing us extremely gory imagery and it gets dull very quickly. The “Blade” movies think they’re stylish action movies but they’re more like freak shows. If you enjoyed the first “Blade” movie then I don’t see why you wouldn’t enjoy this one but if like me, you didn’t care for the first movie, this one isn’t a big enough of an improvement to make it worthwhile.

“BlacKkKlansman” is a biography picture from the talent and frequently controversial Spike Lee (“Malcolm X”, “Do The Right Thing”). It has moments of humour as well as many truly unsettling moments as it grips with a difficult topic. However, I was a little frustrated at some of the changes to the story that were made and some of the political shots taken.

African-American cop Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) is busy infiltrating radical black groups when he decides to also try to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan. Although he fools them over the phone, he needs his Jewish colleague (Adam Driver “Silence”) to meet the group members in person.

John David Washington does a reasonable job as Ron Stallworth. Adam Driver is good as Flip Zimmerman but the decision to make him Jewish irritated me because it becomes a significant part of the plot when there is no indication that the real-life Stallworth’s partner was Jewish. Significant changes like this undermine the movie’s credibility as this is supposed to be a true story. Topher Grace (“Spider-Man 3”, “American Ultra”) is really good as David Duke, the Grand Wizard of the KKK. I also really enjoyed the performance from Alec Baldwin (“The Shadow”) right at the beginning of the movie.

It’s not just the fact that Stallworth’s partner is a Jew, Spike Lee also decided to throw in a plot point involving the KKK trying to bomb a gathering of radical black people. Why make such substantial changes from the reality? Also, I thought the attempt at the end of the movie to link the events depicted with more recent violence in the United States was unneeded because if the similarities are there (they may not be), the audience can see them without a director trying to force his viewpoint across. There are plenty of problems with it but I did still enjoy “BlacKkKlansman”.

“Blackfish” is a documentary that looks at some of the awful tactics used by SeaWorld and the consequences of the choices made. It is a disturbing film and an interesting one but it certainly isn’t the most captivating documentary I’ve seen. I’d like to see one about Disney World next.

The film primarily looks at the death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau after she was attacked by killer whale Tilikum. Through interviews with various people including several former-SeaWorld trainers we get to find out that Tilikum has a history of killing humans, which means it’s seriously worrying at times. I dislike the format of this documentary as it is very bland.

The people they interview all have valid points, it’s nice to see they don’t just ask anybody questions. It’s a real shame SeaWorld declined to be interviewed for this documentary as it feels as though the film is really missing a part because of that. Who wouldn’t want to hear their excuses, their defence or whatever it was they were going to say on the matter? Without their input the movie feels quite one-sided but then again, it was SeaWorld’s choice not to speak their mind for this film.

Like I mentioned, the film is very bland in terms of the style of documentary so that is what is holding it back as opposed to the content. If you ever wanted to hear some serious dirt on SeaWorld then this a great movie for that and it is also an intriguing film if you want to hear about how companies will literally sell their morals for cash. I also would have liked it if it mentioned some of the other problems with SeaWorld besides Tilikum the killer whale because I think it would add some variety to the documentary as opposed to it being the narrow film it is.

Ridley Scott (“Alien”, “White Squall”) directs the cop thriller “Black Rain” starring Michael Douglas (“Basic Instinct”, “Falling Down”). The movie is not to be confused with the Japanese movie “Black Rain”, which was also released in 1989 and takes place in Japan. Many people feel that out of all of Ridley Scott’s films, this one feels closest to the movies of his brother Tony Scott (“Man On Fire”, “Enemy of the State”) and I have to agree.

New York City police officers Nick Conklin (Douglas) and Charlie Vincent (Andy Garcia “The Godfather Part III”) arrest a Yakuza criminal (Yûsaku Matsuda “Detective Story”). They are then tasked with escorting him when he is extradited to Japan. Things do not go to plan as he escapes upon arrival in Osaka.

Michael Douglas does a very good job as Nick. Andy Garcia is okay as Charlie. Ken Takakura (“Railroad Man”) gives an impressive performance as Masahiro Matsumoto, an English-speaking Japanese officer assigned to Nick and Charlie. The chemistry between Michael Douglas and Ken Takakura is rather entertaining as they play two cops from very different backgrounds. While this is not really a buddy cop movie, I was reminded of the Russian and American officers forced to work together in “Red Heat”. Yûsaku Matsuda is great as the bad guy Koji Sato.

Like many of Scott’s movies, “Black Rain” is a brilliant movie to look at. Scott has done a fantastic job in making Osaka look truly alive. The plot is somewhat interesting and takes some intriguing turns here and there. The movie contains some exciting action sequences but I would not really classify it as an action movie; this is more of a thriller. The movie is more about the cultural divide between Americans and Japanese than it is about blowing bad guys away. While it is not his best work, this is an underrated film from Ridley Scott’s terrific library.

Ridley Scott (“Blade Runner”, “Hannibal”) directed “Black Hawk Down”, which easily one of the greatest wars films ever made. It’s based on a true story and it really feels like the film took the time to get the details right, this is as believable as films come and that’s particularly impressive for a film with such a focus on action.

In 1993, over 120 American soldiers are sent into the Somali capital to capture two top lieutenants of the top warlord in the nation but when they arrive they are greeted by thousands of Somali militia fighters and armed civilians. It’s intense, it’s non-stop and it’s a great looking film; Scott has a way of drawing you in with the visuals and “Black Hawk Down” does that immensely well.

Josh Hartnett (“Pearl Harbour”), Ewan McGregor (“Trainspotting”), Eric Bana (“Hulk”), William Fichtner (“The Dark Knight”), Tom Hardy (“Bronson”) and Sam Shepard (“The Right Stuff”) are just some of the guys playing the various military men here and you get the feeling that these are all real soldiers… real people. The various Somalis here are also good despite not really having any dialog or screen-time beyond that of them firing weapons, they work so well because they appear to act like real fighters, you won’t see endless amounts of them running into fire or pointing at everything but the soldiers; as I say, it’s believably done.

“Black Hawk Down” might be Scott’s best film (I didn’t think he’d top “Blade Runner” but he may have done with this). Every minute of this film is well done. The visuals are gorgeous, the acting is believable, the combat is exciting yet not overly-dramatised and the detail that seems to have gone into it is something to applaud. “Black Hawk Down” is a slick, professional, thrilling and engaging picture; a true masterpiece.

“Black Eagle” is a seriously corny action flick starring Shô Kosugi (“Revenge of the Ninja”) and Jean-Claude Van Damme (“Bloodsport”, “Sudden Death”). This is a really low-budget movie so despite being made in the late 80s, it looks more like it came out in the middle of the 70s.

In “Black Eagle”, Ken Tani (Kosugi) is a C.I.A. agent that is sent to Malta to retrieve a special weapons guidance system from a military aircraft that crashed in the Mediterranean. However, the Soviets are also searching for the device. Tani just wants a few precious days with his sons but his country needs him and it’s now a race to find the guidance system.

Shô Kosugi might be a talented martial artist but his acting skills leave a lot to be desired. The same is most certainly true when it comes to Van Damme. Thankfully, Van Damme does not speak all that much in this movie. The highlights are the scenes where Kosugi and Van Damme fight. Unfortunately, the movie does a rather lousy job of showing off both men’s skills. Kosugi’s real-life sons play his character’s sons. The other characters in this movie are very forgettable and I really not care for any of them.

“Black Eagle” is a pretty boring film for the most part. There are a few brief action scenes here and there but a lot of the movie just has the characters standing around. Most of the action sequences are also pretty underwhelming. “Black Eagle” actually came out the same year as “Bloodsport”, which is easily one of Van Damme’s best movies. If you have not yet seen it, I definitely recommend “Bloodsport” over this any day of the week. For those wanting to see Kosugi in action, you should check out “Revenge of the Ninja”.

“Birdman” is one of those films where many film critics and award shows acted as if they had seen the best thing since sliced bread but I really don’t think the high praise that this film received was deserved. The film stars Michael Keaton (“Beetlejuice”, “Batman”) and serves as a sort-of parody of his own career after his past success playing Batman yet it seems so concerned with being as artsy as possible, it fails an almost every other front.

In this movie, Riggan Thomson (Keaton) is washed-up actor that has struggled to stay in the spotlight in the decades since he played the movie superhero Birdman. He now hopes to direct, write and star in a Broadway play but he struggles with his inner demons and with those around him.

I was hoping for a great performance from Keaton but the material is so poor that he has nothing to work with. The same is also true for Edward Norton (“American History X”), who plays one of the actors in the play. Norton’s character is also a sort-of loose parody of himself as his character is very difficult to work with, much like Norton’s real-life reputation. Emma Stone (“Easy A”), Zach Galifianakis (“The Hangover”) and Naomi Watts (“The Ring”) are all in here as well and none of them are entertaining.

“Birdman” is made to look as if it is one continuous take (somewhat like the movie “Rope”), there is a bizarre dream sequence, there are numerous rants about depression, the entertainment industry etc… so it’s clear that this film is trying to be as artistic as possible. This is a truly boring movie where pretty much nothing happens as you are merely left with uncomfortable ramblings that supposedly constitute the film’s dialog. I didn’t like this movie at all and I imagine there are many others out there that didn’t but the snobbery of the critics and the award shows has probably silenced a lot of them.

“Birdemic: Shock And Terror” is a movie with a budget so low, it makes “Robot Monster” look like a big Hollywood production. “Birdemic” was directed by James Nguyen, who is arguably the successor to Ed Wood (“Plan 9 From Outer Space”) as both directors took their hysterically bad films seriously.

“Birdemic” is pretty much a rip-off of “The Birds” as it follows people trying to survive from countless attacks by birds. The first half of the movie follows a guy by the name of Rod (Alan Bagh) and a girl by the name of Nathalie (Whitney Moore) before we get to the truly ridiculous scenes where the birds attack.

The acting in “Birdemic” is truly awful. There is not a single actor that delivers a line in a way that is remotely reminiscent of a human being. However, the birds are so bad that you can easily forget how terrible the acting is. The special effects for the birds are so cheap and nasty that they look as if they were created by school students during their first computer animation lesson. I’ve seen terrible special effects in many movies but “Birdemic” reaches new lows so deep underground that is doubtful that Hell itself is beneath it.

You may laugh at “Birdemic” but I think that it is perhaps so bad that it goes further than the amusingly bad stage. The audio editing, the script, the characters, the special effects, the continuity and the story are all done so awfully that is hard to imagine how somebody could make a film much worse than this. Sure, “Birdemic” isn’t quite as painful as “Troll 2” or “Trigger Happy” but it certainly isn’t far behind those abominations. As clear as the warnings against it are, some people are likely to watch “Birdemic” out of curiosity; it is an experience… the movie equivalent of a car crash.

It’s ironic that a movie about saving the environment plays out so much like a natural disaster. “Bio-Dome” is considered to be one of the worst comedies ever made and it certainly aspires to be among the worst. It’s very much like the “Bill & Ted” films, the “Wayne’s World” movies, “Dumber And Dumber” and “Beavis And Butt-Head” but worse than any of them.

In “Bio-Dome”, the insanely moronic Bud (Pauly Shore “Jury Duty”, “In The Army Now”) and the equally stupid Doyle (Stephen Baldwin “The Usual Suspects”) are trying to win back their environmentalist girlfriends when they accidentally walk right into a bio-dome and are sealed in for a year with several scientists.

Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin are aggressively unfunny as they move from one painfully stupid antic after another. Their attempts at comedy are so woeful that I believe almost anybody off the street could be funnier than these two. William Atherton (“Ghostbusters”) plays the lead scientist, who would be okay if his character weren’t so badly written. Kylie Minogue also plays a scientist and her decision to be in this movie, is arguably worse than her decision to be in the “Street Fighter” film. Dara Tomanovich plays a scientist called Mimi and she is perhaps the only major character that didn’t irritate me. Jack Black and Kyle Gass of Tenacious D appear in a very brief cameo.

There are worse things than the movie “Bio-Dome” and they include actually being stuck in close proximity to Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin for a year. This isn’t really a movie, it just meanders from one sequence of another of Shore and Baldwin being annoying with an assortment of popular songs making it more like a series of terrible music videos. “Bio-Dome” is a devastatingly bad comedy that you should avoid at pretty much every cost.

Adam Sandler (“Happy Gilmore”, “The Wedding Singer”) stars in “Billy Madison”, an underwhelming comedy that is like “Forrest Gump” if it had the same writers as “Dumb And Dumber”. Some claim that this is one of Sandler’s best films but that does not mean all that much.

Billy Madison (Sandler) is lazy and arguably mentally-challenged but he is prepared to prove himself if it means he can inherit his family’s vast hotel empire. Billy proposes that he repeats all his school years, doing each year in a fortnight. However, a snivelling rival (Bradley Whitford “Saving Mr. Banks”) intends to stop Billy from succeeding so that he can he take control of the company.

Adam Sandler is unpleasant and annoying as Billy. We do not want to see this protagonist win because he is rude, immature and moronic. During his time back at school, Billy falls in love with one of his teachers, the charming Veronica (Bridgette Wilson “Mortal Kombat”). Wilson’s character is kind, attractive and intelligent yet for some reason, ends up actually falling for Billy. Some of the other characters are rather boring but the cameo by Steve Buscemi (“Reservoir Dogs”) is actually quite funny. A lot of people seem to like the cameo by Chris Farley (“Tommy Boy”) but I did not think that it was anything special.

“Billy Madison” is a stupid film with lots of mediocre gags. There are a few funny moments in here so it is not all bad but again, the big issue I have is with Sandler and his personality. This is not a terrible comedy but it pales in comparison to earlier films such as “Caddyshack”, “The Jerk”, “The Blues Brothers” and “Stripes”. Maybe a lot of it has to do with the writing but I also think the personalities of the stars were a significant factor in making those movies enjoyable.