Reviews by Leo

This crime drama doesn't seem to get enough love than it deserves when it was released in September 1990, most notably being overshadowed by both "Goodfellas" and "Miller's Crossing", which were released that same month. A standout cast from the likes of Sean Penn, Gary Oldman, Ed Harris, Robin Wright, John Turturro and John C. Reilly elevates this story about a Boston cop who returns home to Hell's Kitchen in New York to reconnect with his childhood friends, only for his loyalty to them being tested when they become part of the Irish mafia. It's a film that deserves to be given a second look thanks to the performances from its actors and something you wouldn't want to miss.

If you thought Adam Sandler was bad in "Jack and Jill", "That's My Boy" or any of the other crap that he's put out recently, wait until you see what he was like in his very first movie! When this film came out it didn't get noticed, but after Sandler became famous during his stint on "Saturday Night Live" and later struck gold with "Billy Madison" and "Happy Gilmore", it was unleashed to the unsuspecting public on VHS. In fact, this is the one movie that Sandler felt really ashamed about his appearance in it, that he doesn't even list it on his official website. After watching it, you can definitely see why. The whole thing looks very ugly considering its low-budget, the comedy was extremely unfunny, some scenes take way too long to pad out the running time and the improvisation felt very forced. I was shocked to see Billy Zane and Billy Bob Thornton pop up in small roles before they were even famous, and even Burt Young (aka Paulie from the "Rocky" franchise) was dragged into this nightmare, though I think he only did that film because he was low on money in between that series. Through it all, this movie deserves to be a regular on the IMDb Bottom 100, and you should never ever watch it, not even if you're a die-hard Adam Sandler fan.

This movie is the stuff of the legend and the cream of the crop when it comes to bad video game films. I mean the original Mortal Kombat isn't the greatest, but at least it contains a couple of guilty pleasures and is one of Paul W.S. Anderson's better flicks. Since this one was a box office success, a sequel had to get greenlit and lo and behold, this is beyond bad in my wildest dreams. The first problem with it is that almost everyone from the original didn't come back (with the exceptions of Robin Shou as Liu Kang and Talisa Soto as Kitana), and the acting all in all is very wooden, over-the-top or inept. The next is the CGI and they are beyond awful while the green-screen shots looked very fake in most places. It's as if anyone in the crew didn't really put that much effort in regards to the sets, visual effects, costumes and others, which renders it from making it very unwatchable. The last thing I want to mention is that although it had a bigger budget than the original ($30 million for this compared to $18 million for the first), the whole thing looks completely cheap and you got to wonder if the budget had been inflated to include more costs. Following its scathing reception from fans of the game and critics in general, a planned third entry called "Mortal Kombat: Devastation" was immediately cancelled due to its lackluster box office performance. In conclusion, this deserves all the bad reviews it gotten in not just one of the worst video game adaptations (which is a pretty low bar), but one of the worst movies of the 1990s and of all time, and it needs to be avoided in every level.

I've only heard bad things about this film over the years so I decided to see if it lives up to the low expectations. Needless to say, it is just as worse beyond my wildest dreams. The comedy wasn't funny, the plot is endlessly complicated and the adventure in Morocco is very ropey. This was too bad because Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman could've generated sparks on-screen given that they're friends in real-life, but didn't liven things up because the script fails them to do so. This film is mainly notable for being how much it cost at the time ($55 million for 1987), and how it flopped very hard, not to mention the troubled behind-the-scenes story on how the cast didn't exactly see eye-to-eye with director Elaine May. Ever since this movie bombed, May hasn't directed another film since then though she does still write occasionally on projects like "The Birdcage" and "Primary Colors". This could've had potential based on the two leads, but with everything not going to plan, it does more or less, deserve its bad reputation and you better steer clear from it.

Oh, Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. Their careers have not been in the best shape these days (Cage taking any role offered to him after going broke, and Ryan having bad plastic surgery on her face), but I do like most of their work and this one is among of them. When this film came out, Cage and Ryan were at the top of their games respectively, and see to them starring in a romantic drama dealing with angels is interesting. Apparently I discovered that it was a remake of "Wings of Desire" by Wim Wenders, which I haven't seen but I would like to check it out one day and hear that this version was unfaithful to the original but when you split those two aside, this film is fine on its own. The soundtrack was also a huge bestseller containing the likes of "Iris" by Goo Goo Dolls and "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan respectively. Cage and Ryan have nice chemistry together and I do like the concept of an angel wanting to become human after falling in love with one of them. While it does stray far from "Wings of Desire" from what I hear, it's still a nice watch and I would give this one a look, if you like Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan.

I remember seeing this in the theater when I was around 8 years old and I remembered liking it since you get to see what outer space would be like. It had been a long time since I saw this and I thought I would give it a rewatch. Needless to say, this is not the movie I remember enjoying! Some of the science in this is not really accurate and while the visual effects look pretty good, the story is complete nonsense and while the cast (Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins, Don Cheadle, Connie Nielsen, Jerry O'Connell) did try their hardest with the material they were given, it completely wasn't enough to try redeem it. This film came out around the same time as "Red Planet" with Val Kilmer, an even worse Mars movie and they're both bad in very different ways. For Brian De Palma, it was yet another disappointing directing entry on his resume and it has been awhile since I saw something from him that I really enjoyed. In the end, this film is a waste of time and it's best that you would avoid it and watch "The Martian" instead.

This film is perhaps best known for Faye Dunaway's over-the-top portrayal of Joan Crawford with the fact it would go on to ruin her career and what was intended to be an Oscar-caliber biopic turned instead into a Razzie-winning camp classic. And yet, I liked this film quite a bit. Many scenes that would go on in infamy like "No wire hangers!", "Bring me the axe Tina!" and Crawford strangling Christina after her daughter declares she is not one of her fans is just an extreme part of its cult value and that indeed is thanks to Faye Dunaway. Based on Christina Crawford's autobiography about what was like living with her famous mom by claiming she was abusive towards her, you can definitely see why everything about it is "so bad it's good" and clearly didn't deserve the negative reviews it got when it was released. Give this film a try and embrace it for its silliness.

I remember seeing this film as a double feature with "The Neverending Story" when my mom recorded it on VHS from an airing on TBS from 1993 when I was very little and my memory of it was very hazy. I do know my cousin is a huge He-Man fan and I eventually rewatched it not that long ago as a grown adult. Needless to say, this adaptation was pretty poor. The special effects were cheesy, the acting was over-the-top, there are things that weren't on the show that the film doesn't need, and it's no wonder why it failed to become a movie franchise after this flopped which would later get Cannon Films to go bankrupt a few years later. Frank Langella and Meg Foster did relish in their scenery-chewing roles as the villains, but the others like Dolph Lundgren, Billy Barty and a pre-"Friends" Courteney Cox felt lost on what they were given to do. There are plans for a reboot which have happened for quite awhile, but I can't say it will fix things based on what the previous adaptation gave us, so who knows. In the end, this film doesn't hold up now that you're older and you should pretty much avoid it.

"Fire Birds" is pretty weak stuff. It came out four years after the huge success of "Top Gun", but is nowhere near as entertaining or thrilling as that one. Instead of fighter pilots, you get helicopter pilots seeking out the South American drug trade and I couldn't even care less about it. The action scenes are more video game-like, the acting is uneven and the dialogue comes across as melancholy. Nicolas Cage and Sean Young do not have the chemistry to pull off that Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis had in "Top Gun", and they and Tommy Lee Jones were pretty below the material to what they were given. The music is also pretty sketchy where as "Top Gun" had the likes of Kenny Loggins and Berlin to get you pumped up, this only had Phil Collins and nobody else worth mentioning on the soundtrack. It's not worth a watch in my book and it's best if you just skip it and go to "Top Gun" for the hundredth time.

Stephen King is better known for writing classic horror/thriller novels that have been adapted into the big screen. So went it came down for him to direct a feature based on one of his short stories, fans were pretty stoked. But then "Maximum Overdrive" hit theaters and critics and audiences were not pleased with how the end result turned out. King eventually revealed in an interview that he was going through a nasty cocaine addiction at the time during shooting and declared this film as a "moron movie". Needless to say, this flick is pretty awful but it is entertainingly bad. There are a bunch of unintentionally humorous moments ranging from the death scenes as well as the subpar acting from the likes of Emilio Estevez and Yeardley Smith (Lisa Simpson herself). It is no wonder that King hasn't directed another movie ever since and writing is mainly the best thing that he is good at. Nonetheless, it's best you would just avoid it and instead watch clips from the movie just to see what on Earth things were going on.