davemfawcett Reviews

Amy Schumer: The Leather Special (2017 TV Special)

Gross Humor

[3/10 · 18 August 2017]

Maybe I am officially getting old, but when The Cable Guy tells less bodily function jokes than you do, maybe you are telling too many toilet humor jokes? I am not trashing Amy, because I do think she is an attractive women...but the outfit she was wearing was painful to look at for a long period of time. It was like she was wearing spandex in public and maybe only 1% of the population should wear spandex and Amy isn't one of them. Simply telling us too much information about yourself isn't necessarily funny

The Defenders (2017)

Superhero Drama, just a little predictable

[8/10 · 18 August 2017]

I will cover this from bad to good. No 1 problem I had was sound...from the change in volume to the music score was time and again just weak. Did they even hire someone or just wing it? The biggest example is just before a couple of major fights, you are expecting some heart pounding music (like when Wonder Women went into the no man zone); but nooo...they played some stupid rap song or something that was ho hum and did not fit. I am okay with rap and all, but in this case, it was just flat and took you out of the sense of Hell Yeah! to ho hum. The second thing that lessened this series was you get tired of Danny acting like a spoiled brat...he really needs to grow up and be able to look at the big picture. Jessica, Luke and Matthew are so more well rounded and likable, despite their flaws that you start to dread each time Danny has a major scene...they really need to fix that. On the positive side, the fight scenes were much better than Iron Fist, interesting and fun to watch. While they tried to spend time with the secondary characters, they still did not give them enough air time or ability to help out. While they did do a couple of unexplained things just to move the plot along, they did not do it so much as to detract from the overall story. This is a good stand alone story and I am looking forward to the next season. However, finding a formidable and interesting villain isn't going to be easy because I think all of us fans are officially tire of the HAND....

Dragonheart: Battle for the Heartfire (2017)

A missed opportunity which was totally predictable

[5/10 · 19 June 2017]

Big fan of the first movie and went into this movie with no expectations having never heard of it. The Good; the CGI was respectable, the acting was god, Patrick Stewart is always a win; and root story was decent and had one decent plot twist. The Bad; it felt like the movie was in slow motion in the story telling much of the time. On one hand they needed to spend more time with the development of the early story, but the mid story dragged. The Ugly, too many plot holes and things the director and writers did to just move the story on without explanation. The Other, had they pursued more of the angle with (Slight Spoiler) the female lead character emboldening the women and wanting to be a good queen, I believe they could have made a much more rewarding ending. The ending, as is, was just ho-hum so what; predictable, leaving many questions from the final battle unanswered.

Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010 Video)

One of the best Batman movies ever made...period

[10/10 · 19 June 2017]

The Good. OMG the movie grabs you buy the throat and never lets go. I am so tired of Superhero movies with a nuclear bombs or the universe at risk of ending; this movie is based on a pure detective story of character building like no other....it didn't save the world, just told a great story with great acting. Voice Acting A+, best Joker laugh ever! The Bad, I am hard pressed to think of anything it could have done better...not often I do not find a glaring plot hole to exploit. The Ugly, the knowledge that a movie like this will never see the big screen because not enough explosions and world ending events to justify it in the minds of the Hollywood Elites. The Other, I accidentally ran across this movie and had the added pleasure of not knowing how good it was, lucky are those who accidentally watch it.

Wonder Woman (2017)

Coming of Age, Super Hero Chick Flick

[10/10 · 6 June 2017]

If the goal of a movie is to provide something to watch and be satisfied after paying money to see; then Wonder Women is about as good of a movie ever made. A compelling coming of age journey that is every bit as fun as Crocodile Dundee. A quick but potent love story and adventure of two people who get caught up by circumstances. A climatic ending that seems to end too soon, only to not end but ramp things up to the next level. Boys and Men will watch this movie 2 or 3 times. Women, especially teenage girls, will watch this movie 10 times more than than and become their guilty pleasure Dirty Dancing was for my Wife. ABOUT time I left the movie theater without anything negative to say, for the flaws in this movie are too tiny to mention....Acting A+, Story A, Action A-, CGI B+, Overall A or rounded up to a 10/10.

Colossal (2016)

Original, Interesting, Weird and worth watching once

[8/10 · 6 May 2017]

Non Spoiler Review At the heart of this movie, it is SyFy; so you must be willing to leave reality behind and accept the movie's premise of how the monster(s) are created. But the rest of the movie is solid real life.

Acting (A-) No week links, no over the top, just solid storytelling.. Special Effects (B) The score isn't very high because there is not very much special effects, but the effects it does have are believable and better than expected.. Story (B-) The main story is just a weird concept, but it somehow works well enough to allow the greater story of relationships, friendships, betrayal, abuse and morality to unfold.. Overall (B) I don''t expect I will ever watch this movie again, but I am glad I did the one time and the ending did not disappoint...

Seventh Son (I) (2014)

Worth Watching for Syfy fans

[8/10 · 13 February 2017]

The Good. Special effects and CGI were surprisingly good for what I was expecting. The special effects were very impressive in the way they flowed during major fight scenes, the manner they used CGI with actors in all but one scene, was near flawless. The Bad. Jeff Bridges played an odd fellow very creepy and oddly. Most of the other acting was good to very good. The story was okay, but had major issues on why the heck did they do that or this at times as it did not add to the story or made you feel, why didn't they do that sooner if they could that in the first place. In that respect, the story took several leaps to move the over all movie plot along. (Very Minor Maybe Spoiler) It also had a major pivotal plot hole without explanation on why the two major characters relationship ended if they loved each other? This was major and pivotal because it was their relationship ending that set up the the movie and why the "Queen" witch went all evil. The Overall. Never heard of this movie, which made the enjoyment of it greater, had I been expecting a blockbuster I would have been disappointed. However, while this is no Lord of Rings, it is very good movie to watch once and kill an hour and a half!

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Star Trek planet bound

[6/10 · 19 December 2016]

The Good: Visuals were nice and the CGI were top notch. The Bad: The story, the plot holes, the forced acting of dumb lines and the amount of times I rolled my eyes, epic. The Ugly: The entire story was just ugly, void of making a bit of sense or enough back story on the villain to understand his motivation. His entire short back story felt contrived. There were way too many "lucky" unexplained coincidences and plot holes. It was like the writes wanted to show off CGI and cool special effects and threw a bunch of stuff together to force a story instead of writing a good story first. I was a kid when the first Star Trek came out and was/am a huge fan, but I would rather re-watch the Star Trek movie about saving the whales than re-watch this abomination again. So glad I did not spend a penny to see it...

Van Helsing (2016–2021)

More like a cartoon than a serious Syfy drama

[3/10 · 3 October 2016]

I really, really wanted this show to be awesome. It does boast a descent group of actors, but after three episodes I have no idea where this show is going or how they are going to explain all the serious plot holes and lack of common sense. I have no idea why the show is called Van Helsing! I feel like I am watching Walking Dead with Vampires, instead of Zombies; I just don't get it.

You would have to be watching a cartoon not to be offended at the serious plot holes and dumb behavior by the heroes in the story. NO I am not talking about the zombies, vampires and or any of the Syfy fantasy stuff. Just make the stuff a tiny bit logical and plausible please. Example and "partial" SPOILER: ------- SPOILER:

Have the main character keep a person they just met as a pet Vampire for three years....why? Sure, the writers make it work out, but really, who would keep a Vampire and feed it their own blood for three years when you believe there is no possible cure???..#sick&stupid

But seven worse than that, you put our heroin asleep, half/dead, comma, whatever you want to call it; on a table for THREE YEARS. No food, no water, no I.V.s, no nothing, just laying there in her underwear for THREE YEARS and "poof", she jumps up and starts fighting like a champ (Maybe nanobots were keeping her alive?)

The show honestly feels like some Corporate Level Suit and Tie idiots decided that dumb Syfy fans love Vampires and Apocalypses so much that they just had to figure out how to combine the two.

Because WHY with the rich biblical history of Van Helsing; WHY would you go world wide Vampire Apocalypse? Why not just go with "Hot female relative of Van Helsing picking up the torch an combating evil" More like a tougher gritter version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer?? Feel stupid now don't you (person responsible for this one season and done show)

Instead we got some type of unbelievable Walking Dead Vampire Diaries. the heroes are stupid, nothings plausible and it don't make any sense whatsoever hybrid.

Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight (2008 Video)

A fun watch, but only for the fan, unfortunately

[8/10 · 25 August 2016]

I gave this a high score if for no other reason than it was a decent job of giving the essence of the first book. However, you would need to do a three hour movie to actually tell the story well, (still leaving out about half, and that isn't going to happen. These dragon lance books are some of the most well written in the DnD world. However, these books would seam dated to the new fan of DnD, where you expect super strong characters with tons of magic. Many a dungeon master used ideas and themes from this series to create there own world, it is a shame there cannot be a Lord of the Rings big budget backing of the Dragon Lance Series. Having said that, I'll take what I can get from those nice people who are trying.

Hercules (I) (2014)

Surprising and very fun watch

[9/10 · 10 July 2016]

Because there has been 100 Hercules movies, I do not understand how some can hate on this fresh interpretation. The Rock was good as the role suited him well, and I am no huge Rock fan either. It used the known legends of Hercules in a fresh and more realistic manner than the average Hercules fan would expect. One of the biggest reasons I found myself enjoying this movie as much as I did.

As Syfy goes, there isn't any exceptional CGI or totally unbelievable feats of strength etc. The fact was the STORY played a bigger part than the action and gave the entire movie balance between the two.

I loved the fact I went into this movie expecting one thing, and got something of a twist, yet plausible considering the genre. I am hard to surprise, especially in a good way...and this little gem did just that.

The Originals (2013–2018)

If you love Vampires, Werewolf and lazy writing.

[4/10 · 30 March 2016]

First let me say I am big into Syfy, but indifferent on the whole werewolf/Vamp thing. I initially liked the premise of the Original Vampires, but once I saw they made one stronger and truly immortal, I had the suspicion this would lead to lazy writing like what I witnessed with Silas in Heroes. Need a plot twist, use Silas, good today, evil tomorrow, plot against him, repeat. In my opinion ANY writer who creates a character like this does so as a crutch and uses it to avoid having to write just how does he escape or win? Even Superman wasn't considered immortal and had a weakness and could be killed, but you want me to believe I cut the head off this stupid Vampire and it will grow back? (theoretically) I will say for a TV show the acting and filming is good to excellent, if only the character development was there. I watched 8 episodes but after the lazy writers turned the two characters I liked into sniveling cowards...I hit exit and do not plan on going back.

The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior (2008 Video)

Warning--beyond bad

[1/10 · 20 March 2016]

I can handle corny, silly and even bad acting if the story is good and the plot makes some sense and the action is plausible. Heck, while I liked most of the mummy movies and even felt the first scorpion king was worth watching...once; this movie was a colossal waist of time.

Not often is a movie so bad I felt obligated to warn other's to stay away. The director Russell Mulcahy has done some decent movies in the past; but definitely cheated the people who financed this debacle. It is perhaps the worst job of directing I have sense since.....well ever. It was obvious they were just trying to cash in on the first Scorpion King movie, the director appeared not even to try and ensure a half way decent product; confusing plot line, jumping from one part of the earth to the other in a matter of seconds with no explanation on how they got there, (hours to get into forest, seconds to get out???) implausible fight scenes at the end (both the arena and the scorpion) that were so bad it made me angry I even watched it till the ending. I was like, Really Director...ugh

Real Time with Bill Maher (2003– )

Getting old and tired

[3/10 · 30 June 2015]

Don't get me wrong Bill Maher "was" funny, witty and had a grasp of the issues. Just wish that guy from 2003-2005 was still around. Maybe it is just me getting older, OR Bill getting much older and angrier. In either case, I think it is time for HBO to find a host who appeals to more than 35% of the population. While he still has flashes of wit, they are fewer and farther apart. I do give Bill credit for being consistent in his views and even challenging the grain once in a while. However, 80% of the time now, he comes off as a uber left talking point, getting cheep laughs taking cheep shots as if he is the man on top of the mountain. I liked him better when he had the credibility to go on other shows and voice a counter opinion. But he has become so partisan, I cannot remember the last time I saw him on a serious news or talk show.