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Lady Bloodfight

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  • Title: Lady Bloodfight
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Lady Bloodfight movie reviewThrowback Tuesday takes us back to to 2016 and an all-female martial arts tournament called the Kumite. The script by Bey Logan and Judd Bloch is more confusing than it needs to be with unnecessary subplots getting the way of what should be a straightforward fight film. The movie opens with two competitors fighting to a draw in the tournament, and each given the opportunity to train a fighter for the next Kumite. Each take their sweet time, finding a suitable student at the last minute.

The tranquil Shu (Muriel Hofmann) chooses the unlikely American Jane (Amy Johnston) whose sudden trip to Japan is more about learning about father’s participation years ago (when it wasn’t an all-female tournament?) than running away from the brutal beating she gives would-be gang rapists offering a particularly vulgar Southern hospitality half a world away. The vengeful Wai (Kathy Wu) chooses street thief Ling (Jenny Wu) with a mean streak that matches her own (in yet another twisty subplot). Despite the talented field, and the tampering of an unscrupulous gambler, there’s never a doubt who will settle the feud in the tournament’s final match.

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Vacation Friends

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  • Title: Vacation Friends
  • IMDb: link

Vacation Friends movie reviewVacation Friends offers your usual odd couple pairing when Marcus (Lil Rel Howery) and Emily (Yvonne Orji) meet the outrageous Ron (John Cena) and Kyla (Meredith Hagner) through a series of misadventures while on vacation in Mexico. Wackiness ensues. After having a far crazier vacation than they had planned, Emily and Marcus leave Mexico with no plans to ever see the other couple again until they show up months later uninvited at their wedding looking for their “best friends.”

Filled with equal amounts of laughs and groans, and just enough charm to keep you watching, the wacky Vacation Friends offers a nice (if obvious) message about how sometimes the people you least expect can become your closest friends (and not just a fun vacation story). Most of the movie features Marcus and/or Emily freaking out by what the other couple has done next only to realize their embarrassment over Ron and Kyla is blinding them to what the pair bring to their lives (aside from the chaos) and that the couples are better when they are in each other’s lives. It’s not something I’d recommend, but the right audience may have fun with Vacation Friends.

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Val

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  • Title: Val
  • IMDb: link

Val movie reviewNarrated by his son Jack Kilmer, Val takes a look at the life and career of Val Kilmer offering glimpses throughout his career with the self-shot footage Kilmer has collected for decades. The documentary also explores the personal side of Kilmer’s life, his fight with throat cancer, and his current struggles doing what he can to keep his career alive through appearances at conventions. It’s something to behold, and not always easy to watch.

Given the amount of footage and the film being framed by Kilmer’s own words, read by his son, and the glimpse inside of his day-to-day life, we get quite an intimate take on the ups and downs of the actor’s career. We see instances of the reputation earned for being hard to work with (such as his time on The Island of Dr. Moreau and why John Frankenheimer called the actor “impossible” to work with), and the Juilliard trained actor’s struggles to find meaningful roles in Hollywood. Some of his films get larger mentions then others, but for any fan curious about Val Kilmer’s life and often troubled career, Val provides an intriguing look into his world and the actor whose artistic nature caused him to often be his own worst enemy.

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Guilty Pleasure – Tekken

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  • Title: Tekken
  • IMDb: link

Tekken movie reviewThrowback Tuesday takes us back to 2009’s adaptation of the Tekken video game franchise. Set in a dystopian 2039, the film follows Jin Kazama (Jonathan Patrick Foo) enter the Iron Fist tournament after the death of his mother (Tamlyn Tomita) where he’ll face off against the likes of Marshall Law (Cung Le), Miguel Caballero Rojo (Roger Huerta), Yoshimitsu (Gary Ray Stearns), and Bryan Fury (Gary Daniels) while hoping to kill the man he blames for his mother’s death Heihachi Mishima (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa).

Tekken is a throwaway action flick that offers some fun while it focuses on the tournament and Jin’s journey. Sure, it gets a bit lost when Kazuya Mishima (Ian Anthony Dale) begins screwing with the tournament in order to kill Jin before he has a chance to win, revealing the truth about Jin’s parentage in the process, but there’s plenty of dumb fun to go around and we get Kelly Overton looking as good as humanly possible as the flirtatious Christie Monteiro, along with Candîce Hillebrand and Marian Zapico as the Williams sisters and Mircea Monroe as Jin’s girlfriend.

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Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time

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  • Title: Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time
  • IMDb: link

Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time movie reviewThe long-delayed final film in the Rebuild of Evangelion film series wraps up the story of Shinji Ikari (Megumi Ogata / Spike Spencer), looming angels, and the end of the world. The film finally sees the light of day more than eight years after the release of the last movie.

As with the other feature film adaptations of the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime, Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time is beautiful, bizarre, at times haunting, and often confusing. It’s certainly a step-up from the third, and weakest, entry into the franchise, although it does have to work extra hard while relying on quite a bit of monologuing to wrap up the tale.

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