“Sometimes I Think About Finding a New Alien Species… and Then f#$% it” - jay

Title:  Splice

Actors/Director/Anything Worth Mentioning Right Away:  This movie has Adrien Brody, who I’m coming to like less with each movie I see him stumble through, and Sarah Polley in it.

Introduction:  I got this movie from the library on DVD for free.

Location:  It mostly takes place in a science research lab and an old barn, but there are a few other settings and a presumably large budget.

Plot:  A married research scientist team accidentally creates a sort of human sort of gargoyle type creature and then it turns into a giant mess as you’d expect but these people were kind of too dumb to do anything about beforehand.

Acting:  The acting is what you’d expect it to be, which is neither really that great nor awful.

Production:  It was in theaters and it shows.

Sex/Nudity:  Yes.  The main couple has a sex scene early on, and later in the movie Adrien Brody’s character has pretty graphic sex with this alien hybrid thing.  It’s just all sorts of wrong and whoever came up with it should be charged criminally.

Special Effects:  See above.

Overall Verdict:   While my overall distaste for this movie stands, here is my biggest gripe with it.   The main character played by Sarah Polley is kind of the one to kind of hide and keep this weird creature at first, right?  At first, Adrien Brody’s character is resistant to it and he seems like he wants to kill it.   But when you get to the end of the movie, who is left alive?   Sarah Polley and no one else.   Her boss, her husband, her brother-in-law and even her precious pet she seemed to think was a child are all dead because of her.    So it really does bother me that this all seems to be her doing and not only does she not really suffer any repercussions from this (Given everyone else died, I’d say she got off light) but she also ends up being impregnated by this alien gargoyle thing and is given a large sum of cash to have the baby and keep her mouth shut.   So I guess if someone you know ever ends up in a similar situation, be sure to report them right away and if necessary kill them even because under these circumstances it is obviously either them or you.   Adrien Brody kept his mouth shut, and sure he got some dirty alien sex, but then he also got killed, so you know, make your choices wisely scientists. 

Jean Claude Van Past, Jean Claude Van Future

Title:  Timecop

Actors/Director/Anything Worth Mentioning Right Away:  This has Jean Claude Van Damme in it, as well as Mia Sara (who is probably best known as Ferris Bueller’s girlfriend), but beyond that I’m not really sure.  It’s also based upon a Dark Horse Comic Book Series, one of the first movies to be made that aren’t about Marvel or DC.

Introduction:  I bought this movie on VHS at Good Will, though I had originally seen it back in 1994 when it first came out.

Location:  This is the most complex question of all of these for this movie.   It’s not so much as to where this movie takes place, but when.   JCVD plays a cop named Max who lives in 1994.   Then he goes into the future, which is 2004.    Then he ends up going back to 1994, which at that point becomes the past because he sees a younger version of himself.    Somewhere in between his first trip to the future and his first trip back to the past, the present seems to disappear.   If you think about it too much, your head will literally explode.

Plot:  An evil politician is using time travel to secure his spot as President and basically owning the entire U.S. government.   Max (played by JCVD) is the only one who knows what’s going on because every time he goes back in time to stop this then comes back to the future something has changed in the memories of his friends and co-workers.    Basically, this is a movie about time travel where Max decides it’s wrong for a crooked politician to change the fates and lives of others for his own benefit, but yet Max can go back and change the past all he wants to if it means his overly annoying wife doesn’t have to die.

Acting:  It’s a JCVD movie, so you do the math.

Production:  This was in theaters because I believe I actually saw it in theaters when it first came out.

Sex/Nudity:  There is one pretty graphic sex scene early on involving the two main stars (JCVD and Mia Sara), but after that it remains nudity-free.

Special Effects:  There’s a scene where one guy loses his arm and a good chunk out of the side of his body.   That, coupled with the way it looks when the past and future President converge together show that this movie has pretty good special effects considering it’s from 1994.

Overall Verdict:   When you get around the whole time travel problem with this movie (such as what I like to think of as “Too Many JCVDs”), then it can become a fun sci-fi sort of action movie.  I really do enjoy it, even if at times it makes my head hurt over-thinking it.