Man-Thing

Rating: R

Movie Release Date: April 21, 2005 (Singapore)

DVD Release Date: January 17, 2006

Plot 411: A new sheriff in Louisiana is welcomed into town by several dead bodies and must find out who or what killed them.

Review: Kyle (Matthew Le Nevez), a city slicker from up north, comes to a sleepy little town in Louisiana to take a position as the town's new sheriff. One of his first calls is to an oil-drilling plant run where locals are protesting the drilling and harm that it causes the environment. The surrounding area is sacred to the local Native American tribes. Several unexplained deaths are happening in the area, and Kyle must find out if it is by renegade Rene LaRoque (Steve Bastoni) as some people imply. The bodies show up with unexplained vegetation growing from within them. Deputy Fraser (Alex O'Loughlin) hints that it may be due to some religious mumbo jumbo that is practiced by many people in the area. This is definitely one of those straight-to-dvd-type movies. Everything is pretty much bad unless you go into it with exceptionally low standards. What makes it worse is that the movie doesn't even know it's bad. It takes itself completely seriously the entire time, trying to weave a sci-fi horror flick out of nothing. The dialogue is especially bad, and the relationships between characters aren't really believable. I mean, after two brief exchanges, a love affair starts. Please. I don't know who the film makers think they're fooling with that. Not every show needs to have a romance evolve during a crisis.

Watch It: Because every once in a while you need to see a grade B monster flick and laugh at it.

Skip It: Because it really is pretty horrible.

Whiteout

Rating: R

Movie Release Date: September 11, 2009

DVD Release Date: January 19, 2010

Plot 411: The first-ever murder on Antarctica forces a U.S. marshall to confront her past in order to resolve her current problems.

Review: In this thriller, U.S. Marshall Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) must investigate a murder, just days before she is supposed to rotate out of Antarctica, when a scientist is found dead miles away from any kind of research base. One death leads to another and now things are getting serious in the coldest place on Earth. A U.N. rep, played by Gabriel Macht, shows up at a crime scene to investigate, but he has his own secrets that he doesn't share with Stetko. Also in this film are Tom Skerritt (looking extremely old these days), Alex O'Loughlin (complete with his yummy Aussie accent) and Columbus Short. This was a middle-of-the-road thriller because while it had some suspenseful scenes, it was also predictable as hell. There was a fair amount of action, especially considering the setting of minus 55 degrees celsius, being totally isolated and being confined to only a few different sets. One negative was the CGI snow and blizzard. Sometimes it looked fine and other times a child could see it was fake. I don't really know how it works so maybe some parts are harder to animate than others?

Watch It: And marvel at how Beckinsale manages to still look beautiful in the harshest weather conditions ever.

Skip It: Because somehow Beckinsale doesn't manage to pull off the cop role despite trying to be all hardcore. There's something about her that is too fragile for me to believe that she's lived in the ice and snow of Antarctica for a couple years.