Based on the arcade game of the same name (and not to be confused with the dreadful Uwe Boll film), “Rampage” is perhaps the best film based on a videogame to date. It’s not high art but I’m a sucker for giant monster films. This feels a lot like “Kong: Skull Island”, the “Godzilla” films and “Pacific Rim”.

Dwayne Johnson (“Baywatch”, “Moana”) stars as a primatologist that finds that a gorilla he cares for has been exposed to a dangerous substance. Now, the gorilla is growing at a tremendous rate and he’s angry. Elsewhere, a wolf and a crocodile have also come into contact with the same material. All three monsters will descend on Chicago as the military races to stop them.

Dwayne Johnson has never been a particularly good actor but he’s a big guy and it’s satisfying to see him charge around blasting at a giant wolf with a grenade launcher. Some of the characters are not so good and have a few awkward comedy moments. Apparently, in the original videogame, the monsters were people that got turned into animals so some fans may be displeased at the change. However, I didn’t care. The creatures all look really good and it’s nice that we can see them fight in the daylight so everything is nice and clear.

“Rampage” has some delightful action scenes with the monsters causing tons of carnage. A few of the more talky scenes are a little dull but it keeps them to a minimum. A lot of monster films focus way too much on the people but “Rampage” knows that it’s the monsters you want to see. It’s hard to complain about a film like this because it knows that it isn’t deep and meaningful, it just wants to give you a good time. If you like your giant monster films then you need to see this one.

The fourth entry in the “Rambo” franchise is simply titled “Rambo”. It comes two decades after “Rambo III” and I think it is on par with the original “First Blood”. Sylvester Stallone (“Rambo: First Blood Part II”, “Judge Dredd”) not only returns to play Rambo but also takes on the role of director.

In “Rambo”, John Rambo (Stallone) is living quietly in Thailand when he’s approached by Christian aid workers to take them into war-torn Burma. He begrudgingly accepts but when he hears that they’ve been captured during a raid on a village by the Burmese regime, he joins a group of mercenaries in order to free them.

Sylvester Stallone is certainly a lot older in this one but that doesn’t stop him from dispatching of foes with an array of weapons. Stallone has come to perfect his hardened ex-soldier look in this movie. The other mercenaries in the movie are not too thrilling but I suppose that’s acceptable because the focus should be on Rambo. The villains are not anything special and it’s a bit of a shame that they seem to just be there for Rambo to shoot at. The aid workers are not especially interesting but you certainly want to see Rambo rescue them.

The action sequences are way more violent than in the other “Rambo” movies and also, the overall tone is much darker than the previous films. I felt as though the second and third movies were a little too polished and didn’t manage to capture Rambo as a tortured soul but thankfully, like “First Blood”, this fourth outing works. This movie is exciting and you find yourself invested in the action scenes. In an interview, Stallone justified the movie’s violence because it comes after big war movies such as “Black Hawk Down” and “Saving Private Ryan”; I think he’s got it right.

Rambo (Sylvester Stallone “Demolition Man”, “First Blood”) returns to kill a ton more evildoers in “Last Blood”. This is a seriously dark and violent movie (the violence is just as graphic as it was in the fourth entry) but it still manages to be ridiculous and entertaining. It’s not exactly a good movie by conventional standards but I had a fun time watching it.

In “Last Blood”, an ageing Rambo now lives on a farm helping an old woman and her granddaughter (Yvette Monreal). The granddaughter wants to know why her father left her years ago and crosses the border into Mexico to find out. She is then kidnapped by human traffickers and Rambo must use all of his military skills if he is to rescue her.

Sylvester Stallone is looking really old here yet he’s still far more convincing as an action star than Liam Neeson in the “Taken” films. Stallone has decided to get even more creative with the violence and so expect to see Rambo kill people in the most brutal ways imaginable. He also remembers to have a few tender and emotional moments for the character. The villains are not massively memorable but they are certainly evil enough to warrant being on the receiving end of Rambo’s wrath.

This movie is incredibly bloodthirsty and shows the disturbing nature of human trafficking. However, it’s also a film where Rambo goes full “Mortal Kombat” and tears a guy’s heart out. The movie actually feels a lot more like “Taken” and “Man On Fire” than a “Rambo” movie but it’s nice to see him not just recycle the same formula from his earlier films. This is a movie that a lot of people are going to hate and are going to find it mind-numbing but I had a good time with it.

“Rambo III” has more explosions and shootouts than the first two pictures in the series combined but the problem isn’t the action. The problem is that the rest of the film that doesn’t work. “Rambo III” delivers a solid last half an hour but the first full hour is a serious chore to get through.

“Rambo III” begins with a ridiculous fight involving sticks as we continue to follow Vietnam veteran John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone “Rocky”, “Cobra”). He gets recruited by the Americans for a secret mission to rescue his old friend Trautman after he’s kidnapped in Afghanistan by Russian forces. Rambo goes in, meets the locals, causes a couple of mundane shootouts then in the last half an hour, things really get kicked up a notch.

Sylvester Stallone is not my favourite action star but he worked in the original “Rambo” film (titled “First Blood”) because he focused on personality not the stack of bodies the character created and the sequels just don’t seem to get that. The Trautman character is given more to do than in the previous films and he’s alright here. The enemies are pretty average but then the “Rambo” movies have never been known for their villains so I’m not particularly surprised.

“Rambo III” is another action film like “Commando” and “Red Scorpion” where the sole ambition was to make entertaining action sequences, nothing more and nothing less. I think it’s a little better than the second “Rambo” movie simply because it has more action so it at least does what it sets out to do a little better but it comes nowhere near matching the charm of the original. If you want to see better films involving stunts like the ones seen here, any of the “Indiana Jones” or “Mad Max” films are superior so I’d go and watch them if I were you. If you are desperate to see another Rambo or Stallone film then I guess you could do worse.

Rambo (Sylvester Stallone “Rocky”, “First Blood”) is back and it’s a disappointment. This isn’t what I wanted, I wanted a prequel in the form of a serious war movie showing Rambo and his unit during the Vietnam War. Instead of that, we get a sequel that doesn’t do anything new.

After being imprisoned after the events of the original “First Blood”, Rambo is given the opportunity to be free. However, it requires him to go back to Vietnam to rescue a group of American soldiers, who still being held captive by the authorities there. In order to achieve his objective, Rambo must disobey orders and fight the Vietnamese, Russians and Americans presented in the forms of soldiers, pirates and bureaucrats.

Sylvester Stallone of course returns as the severely disturbed super soldier. He does a good job and his performance is the best part of the movie by far. I wasn’t too keen on the villains in the first film as they lacked a good motive but here, they are so uncharismatic anyway that you’ll find they will quickly fade from your memory. Rambo’s old superior officer, Trautman, returns but he doesn’t do anything even when someone points a gun at him. I mean it’s hard to believe he trained Rambo if this is how he acts.

“Rambo: First Blood Part II” has a bit more action than the first movie but that only means it becomes like lots of other action films with a high body count and no real brains. The only scene that really captures the great tactical element of the original is a segment that is nothing but a duplicate of a sequence in “First Blood”. “Part II” doesn’t do any favours for Rambo and makes him just another action hero and that’s a shame because there are moments where the film works pretty well.

“Raising Arizona” is a very amusing comedy brought to us by the famed Coen brothers (“The Big Lebowski”). It’s far from being perfect but it’s so weird and just so creative that I simply have to recommend it.

In “Raising Arizona”, ex-criminal H.I. McDunnough (Nicolas Cage “Con Air”) and an ex-police officer (Holly Hunter “The Incredibles”) get married but find they can’t have children so they kidnap a baby from a family with four new-borns. With a couple of criminals, who have just escaped prison, and a mean biker by the name of Leonard Smalls (Randall ‘Tex’ Cobb), on their tail, it’s one crazy adventure full of laughs and other outrageous antics.

Nicolas Cage does a great job as H.I. because he goes from ridiculous to serious so effortlessly. The same can be said for Holly Hunter as H.I.’s wife Ed (short for Edwina). The biker character is just superb and whenever he’s onscreen, the laughs just keep coming. One of the best performances comes from John Goodman (“The Artist”, “The Borrowers”) as Goodman is always good fun in my books. All-round, I was pretty happy with the cast and just about everyone made me at the very least smirk from time to time.

“Raising Arizona” is such a strange movie but at the same time, it’s such a fun movie. From beginning to end, it is bizarre, off-beat and just darn right hilarious. Although this type of humour may not impress everybody, I’m more than convinced the masses will be satisfied with this film. This is an interesting comedy because although it doesn’t really delve into any other genres, it is unlike any other comedy film I’ve seen and that’s why it stands out so much. If you like crazy movies that’ll make you chuckle then there is no excuse not to see “Raising Arizona”.

Maybe it doesn’t seem that long ago but a lot of attitudes seem to have rapidly changed since the 2000s. Here are some comedy films from just a couple of decades ago yet would likely be problematic for anybody trying to make today.

5. Idiocracy

A satire all about a future world where America has elected a celebrity to the highest public office, major corporations dominate environmental policy and the general public’s knowledge of history is shockingly bad. All of these things might just seem a little too on the nose for modern audiences. “Idiocracy” no longer seems just like it shows the possibility of a dumber tomorrow, it mirrors a dumber today.

4. White Chicks

The Wayans brothers (“Scary Movie”) play black F.B.I. agents disguised as white women using prosthetics. Considering how race relations have become more politically significant in recent years, a film that so openly mocks people for their racial differences would probably not be given the greenlight today.

3. You Don’t Mess With The Zohan

While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has never been without controversy, I imagine studios would be even less willing to make a comedy about it nowadays. This light-hearted comedy has Adam Sandler (“Happy Gilmore”) starring as an elite Israeli soldier, who just wants to be a New York hairdresser. However, things go horribly wrong when he learns his Muslim terrorist rival runs a nearby fast-food restaurant.

2. Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo

Rob Schneider (“The Animal”) mocks Europeans, Asians, the disabled and many others in the second “Deuce Bigalow” movie. We also have to see a woman with male genitalia for a nose accidentally penetrate a female tracheotomy patient.

1. Team America: World Police

“Team America: World Police” was a spoof of old puppet shows such as “Thunderbirds” with some biting political satire from the guys behind “South Park”. One of the film’s many targets is North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il. Just a decade later, “The Interview” took aim at his son, Kim Jong-Un. That led to a massive cyberattack against Sony so it’s unlikely any studio would want another movie mocking the leadership of North Korea.

Honourable mentions:
Tropic Thunder and Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead

With a title like “Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre”, you know exactly you are in for something terrible. Some films want us to ponder deep, philosophical questions while this movie wants us to reflect on how a bunch of lustful female prisoners would battle a group of killer sharks. Even for a film that aims low, it’s still pretty bad.

A fracking site accidentally unleashes a ton of sharks that are now swimming around rural Arkansas. A group of female prisoners are busy with manual labour when the creatures attack. Now, they must struggle to stay alive (and we the audience must struggle not to turn the movie off). Can the sharks be stopped?

If you were hoping for some decent shark special effects, this is the wrong movie for you. The C.G.I. on the sharks is just absolutely awful and some of the worst I’ve ever seen. This looks far worse than “Sharknado”. The effects here are almost as unprofessional as the effects for the birds in “Birdemic”. The most famous cast member is Dominique Swain (“Face/Off”). I think that she is just truly atrocious here and I found her to be completely unwatchable. I didn’t recognise any of the other cast members. The women here look a little too old to be in a film like this. Hopefully, this means that younger actresses no longer feel the need to subject themselves to starring in films about killer sharks.

“Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre” looks so incredibly cheap that I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody had told me that was actually filmed in somebody’s back garden. If you’re really into shark movies then you might be able to chuckle a few times at this total disaster. If you’ve not sat through a ton of other shark movies, go and check out some of the films from The Asylum first.

Rob Schneider (“The Animal”, “Surf Ninjas”) is back and worse than ever in “Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo”. Schneider showcases why he might just be the least talented person in the moviemaking industry. This film is packed with gags that are racist, mock the disabled, sexually depraved and just gross but the problem is that none of them are funny. The whole thing looks and feels like a rehearsal of a bad sketch that somehow got stretched out to feature-length.

Deuce Bigalow (Schneider) heads to Amsterdam where he soon learns that somebody is murdering gigolos. When his friend, T.J. Hicks (Eddie Griffin “Undercover Brother”), is accused of being the one responsible for the killings, Deuce sets out to prove his innocence.

Schneider looks like he’s just woken up and has no clue what his doing. The material here is so aggressively unfunny and Schneider does absolutely nothing to help matters. The Deuce character is just so unlikeable and unpleasant because he’s just a sweaty loser. I’d more than happily pay him if it means he keeps away from me. The other characters are just horrendous. We even have a woman with a man’s genitalia for a nose and you can imagine what comes out of it when she sneezes. The movie is apparently filled with various Dutch actors and actresses in supporting roles. They were apparently hoping that this would be their Hollywood break but I imagine many of them fired their agents.

“European Gigolo” makes the first “Deuce Bigalow” movie seem like “Citizen Kane” in comparison. While the first movie was really bad, there were brief moments of entertainment. This sequel is like a comedic wasteland. Perhaps rather than making more movies, Schneider should retire, move to another country, change his name and get a haircut. There might be something he can do to atone for his sins.

Martin Scorsese (“The Aviator”, “Silence”) directs “Raging Bull”, a film that is often compared to “Rocky”. However, the two films are very different. “Rocky” concerns itself much more with boxing while “Raging Bull” features very little ring action and instead, it focuses more organised crime and domestic violence.

Based on the life of boxer Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro “The Godfather Part II”, “Heat”). We follow Jake through his boxing career to his later work in stand-up comedy. We also see that his violence in the ring is a reflection of his violence outside it. He’s one angry man and nobody is safe from his outbursts when his temper flares.

De Niro frequently collaborates with Scorsese and the two really seem to get each other. De Niro did lots of training for this role and apparently, he would have been good enough to enter professional fighting. LaMotta is not a nice guy and the movie never tries to make us think that he is. Here we see that he’s sleazy and vicious. Joe Pesci (“Home Alone”) plays Jake’s younger brother, who served as his manager. He gives a really good performance. Some of the other boxers look suitably menacing in the brief fight scenes.

“Raging Bull” visually stands out because this film came out in 1980 yet it was filmed in black and white (although there is a home video montage in colour). Usually, it’s only independent films that have opted to shoot in black and white since the 60s. Somehow, “Raging Bull” appears far more alive than I think it would have done had it been presented in colour. Don’t go into expecting to see another “Rocky” because it’s such a different kind of movie. If you like Scorsese and/or De Niro then you owe it to yourself to see this.