I know, let’s make a sequel to The Bad News Bears, without Tatum, without Matthau … heck, let’s take out most of the baseball for good measure too! lol. Okay, cynical alert. And of course the major emptiness on the girl front is my primary reason for disliking this sequel. But overall, they’ve gotta be given kudos for having the balls to try exactly what I just described. The fact is, this movie just doesn’t work – it simply lacks the spark of the original – but it’s not through lack of trying, and more a case of pure rotten luck. The kids still ring unbelievably true; the father-son story is nothing compared to Tatum and Matthau but it is surprisingly touching in its own way; And, I’ve gotta say: for a sports movie, it’s still pretty shockingly stirring for me, certainly still among the most watchable of sports movies anyway. I think we should probably just be thankful they didn’t wait till the Eighties and video to make these.

I wasn’t surprised to find this time around that, like part 3, this really relies on a lot of the backstory of the whole series. I’d actually intended to watch the first three movies again prior to this but I just didn’t have the time this time of year. As the end credits roll here, I kinda realised that it probably wouldn’t have helped anyway. That this movie might strike a newcomer as being a hash of a mess doesn’t bother me – that’s as it should be, why would you watch this without watching the other three first? But that it strikes someone who’s watched them all that way – if only once and in a semi-interested way – that’s a problem …

These movies (well, the sequels, at least) feel so much like the Architect’s speech at the end of Matrix Reloaded. You know it all makes sense so you nod and smile and look like you’re taking it in; but you really don’t have the energy to follow every nuance of it. It’s like that speech combined with the David Blaine episode of South Park, where Jesus is like, “Okay, now turn around?” when doing the simplest of illusions. When the reveal is made here, it’s certainly presented well and you’d be forgiven for gasping … but if you’re jaded like the rest of us, you’ll find it hard to resist giving the movie a snarky golf-clap for its efforts.

For the record – and I wish I’d written something to this effect in my review of the last installment – if you are the kind of fan who has followed all the intricacies of the plot as religiously as the screenwriter obviously wants you to, you’ll probably be much more satisfied than anybody with how the story continues. For the rest of us, the gore scenes are gorey and the movie’s well shot and edited and acted and everything, and in this genre it’s hard to stay mad at a movie too long when it checks all those boxes.

I was honestly not nearly as offended by this in the end as I expected. Clearly, I would prefer it had been made by Romero or at least someone involved in the original series of zombie flicks (Tom Savini, perhaps), or not at all. Clearly, the gore effects simply aren’t comparable to anything in Romero’s originals. But, I don’t know … it somehow flows for me, it doesn’t remotely threaten the integrity of the official releases, and it actually tries to do its own thing. Why they thought it necessary to use the Day of the Dead brand is anyone’s guess, except of course the monitary value of it. The abrupt ending is a little weird, too. But compared to what I expected, this was almost a pleasant surprise.

If it’s at all possible, Danielle Harris is much much better here than she was in Part 4 – unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the movie as a whole, though the ending, again, is fantastically cliffhanger-ish. As before, I kinda said all I need to say in the older review. I watched this so recently it was kinda just background this time around.

26th August, 2006:

This is actually sort of classy for 1989, although, like Part 4, it kinda goes on and on a bit towards the end. It doesn’t matter to me, though. Part 5 of an increasingly dodgy horror franchise (at least, at this stage of its existence) is the last place I personally expected find a great child performance (okay, the little guy in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare is noteworthy), but Danielle Harris is even better here than she was in Part 4. I’d even go so far as to say it’s one of the best young performances I’ve seen, at least one of the most surprising. Donald Pleasance is back too, of course.

I’m kinda amazed most of these sequels seem to have passed me by. I guess it was learning of how much Part 3 was a non-sequel, just kinda put me off the others, aside from the awesome H20. It is also one of the rare horror movies to feature an element I personally find surprisingly effective in horror (the only other instance I can think of right now being Last House on the Left): the comedy cop …

“Somebody could be dead right now!”
“Fortunately we’re lousy cops!”

Bottom line, it’s worth watching. At least, more worth watching than I’ve expected all these years, and it doesn’t put me off keeping my eye out for part 6.

Watching this so soon after Halloween II this time, my only question was a basic “how the hell?” over Loomis, lol. One little scar on one side of his face? He was right next to a gas canister! lol. But to be honest, Pleasence is such a great actor, he does ultimately overcome the ridiculousness of his character’s return.

This movie has a great sound mix – I mightn’t have noticed were it not that I wasn’t too fussed about keeping my eyes on the screen having watched it so recently. It’s definitely a movie to just have on, whether you’re in the room or not, on Halloween night – I don’t think a second goes by where it doesn’t completely sound like a horror movie.

I think I said everything else I wanna say in the older review. I of course still feel the urge to repeat, Danielle Harris is soooo cute

24th August, 2006:

(this review was originally longer but I’ve been kinda abusing my computer recently and I lost it :-P)

Another horror sequel whose title doesn’t exactly demand attention, like Carrie 2 this one instantly lifted my hopes with a great titles sequence, all the fonts, colors, grainy film, etc, reminiscent of the original, Donald Pleasance in the cast, John Carpenter’s theme hinted at but not immediately in your face. I don’t think I’ve seen part 3 yet, but as far as I’m aware, it’s not necessary. Just as Part 2 followed on seamlessly from the original, part 4 picks up the same story 10 years later. It lags in the second half, but Danielle Harris is very cute and excellent as Michael Myers’ neice and the ending leaves you really kinda dying to see Part 5, which, by chance, BBC1 is showing tomorrow, so I’ll review that then

I’d totally forgotten how fantastic this movie was – I thought it was all about Jessie and the “When She Loved Me” sequence for me, but everything that surrounds those (I have to say) highlights is more frenetic, hysterical (“It’s the chicken man!” “Look, Barbie – a big ugly man doll!” lol), and, even on an umpteenth viewing, still shockingly more poignant than I ever expect.

But like I said, this movie kind of needs go no further for me than the character of Jessie – there are little quirks here like the kinda-half-dance she does on the turntable after she gets the hang of the motion, the pulling-her-hat-down-over-her head thing, that just touch me somewhere that an animated doll in all reason shouldn’t be able to touch, lol – and the whole “When She Loved Me” sequence, Emily growing, the horses turning to nail polish, that is one of the most beautiful, crushing, painfully truthful 3 minutes Pixar have ever produced … I think maybe it got me even more today because it’s been a long time not only since I watched the movie but even longer since I watched it alone, and it’s one of those sequences, you just wanna be alone, curled up in the dark, crying to that song. I do, anyway. But there’s always the thrilling climax and all the other wonderful stuff I’m too lazy to mention if that isn’t your thing This is just a beautiful movie that takes my breath away every time.

I still haven’t seen the remake, and probably won’t now until it’s been long available on DVD, but I really don’t think it’s in with a chance of rivalling this original for me. The effects may be better and the zombies more “realistic” (why do some people really think they know what “real” monsters look like, lol?), but the thing is, the whole soul of this movie is in the look. That’s why it originally scared the hell out of me. The zombies are so obviously just people covered in blue paint, and the ketchup so obviously red paint, and the colour film stock does the whole combo no favours, but it’s enough to be completely terrifying somehow.

I’m sure this is a cut I haven’t seen before of the movie. I never so so much violence in the movie. Plenty enough, yes, but not as much as in this cut. And I’m sure I’d never seen kids being shot in it. These moments add so much to the horrific atmosphere and the obvious ‘Nam/ American Nightmare allegory.

This movie for me is a classic for one simple concept it came up with – zombies in a mall. It just says everything about not just American society but all of Western civilisation.

And the muzak rocks.

This is El Mariachi remade for Hollywood. Rodriguez wanted to continue his originally planned trilogy rather than simply remake his first movie (he’d planned to make three Mariachi movies before even thinking of being noticed by any bigshots… funny how things change) but I think with Desperado he got a little of both. While Desperado is pretty much the same again only bigger, slicker, and with better music, it does purport to being a continuation of the story that began with El Mariachi: this is the Mariachi’s revenge for the girl he lost in Part One. But it’s still a case of, “There’s a bad guy after me, and he has lots of henchmen, and I’m going to shoot them, and then him, and, hey, I can replace the girl on the way too!” (with apologies to Robert Rodriguez: you know I love your work really!) The difference is, this time, the Mariachi is after them too – in Part One, he’s just trying to survive.

There’s something about Desperado on this viewing that made me think Tarantino may have had more of a hand in it than just his acting turn (more of which in a second). The dialogue is too good for Rodriguez (again, apologies to Rodriguez: you know I love your work). Having now seen the Spy Kids Trilogy and Once Upon a Time in Mexico, I have to say that dialogue is not Rodriguez’s strong point… not that it’s actually a point at all, to him it’s all about story and fun. The dialogue in Desperado is not only the best in any of his movies, it’s some of the best in all movies (“You know – it’s easier to pull the trigger than play guitar. Easier to destroy than create. They kill the woman I love. They ruined my life…”). And it really rings of Tarantino. But maybe it’s just ‘cos they were hanging out more back then (they became buddies when both their debuts, El Mariachi and Reservoir Dogs, were luvvies of the year in movie land). There’s also a lot more swearing than in any of his other movies – not that it bothers me, but again it sets off Tarantino bells. Like the “real” budget of Mariachi, this is another question I’d love to know the answer to, who else contributed to the script?

Tarantino has a great bit part in the movie. He is really good at physical comedy and I wouldn’t mind seeing him act more (I’ll have to get Little Nicky some time soon). The business he does when entering the “backroom” of Tarasco Bar, walking through the dirty toilet, is hilarious, and his telling of the pissing joke at the same bar is just too descriptive for words (coupled with Rodriguez’s editing, even funnier).

Overall, this is everything that’s missing from El Mariachi – slickly shot like a Michael Bay movie, sun bouncing off everything, every sweaty face looking too beautiful for sweaty, music that plays from song to song so lazily it’s perfect (note how “Strange Face of Love” by Tito & Tarantula plays from the middle of a gunfight across a scene change, builds with the ending of a whole sequence, and ends on a scene transition… one of the best soundtrack moments ever), great actors really slumming it in a movie like this (the work between Banderas and Hayek is probably the best acting in all Rodriguez’s work to date) and genuine big explosions (plus real machine guns: in Part One Rodriguez had guns that only fired one shot!) But all this money means that the one thing that made El Mariachi great is lost… an undefinable thing, really… you’ll know, I’m sure, when you see them. Mercifully, Rodriguez broke past this studio phase and is now free to continue seeking imperfection with whatever budget he desires. This is still probably the most “complete” film in the Mariachi series though.