The Dragon Hunter

Since everyone in Hollywood is so busy posing for their marble statues, drinking white wine out of pearl goblets, and filling their home swimming pools with the blood of the less fortunate, it is really not surprising to me that they don’t have time to think up of fresh, original, creative ideas for movies. I mean, there are only 3 work hours in an average Hollywood day, and you can’t expect those all to be filled thinking up of more work for them to do. You guys must just think new ideas grow on trees, and you all think like crazy people, you know that?

But, every now and then, even I can be surprised by the lack of anything new in movies. Some movies are so tired, so lazy, so brain-moldingly stupid, that they actually call into question the very nature of creativity, call to mind the general meaninglessness of life, and call humanity’s bluff on our own bid as the crown of creation. Dragon Hunter is such a movie.

Our quest for meaning reaches its dead end

Dragon Hunter, you guys.


Okay, there’s this guy Darius whose whole family was murdered by orcs (“orcs!” Just very cool, very original name) except for his little brother, Kendrick. And now Darius is soooo overprotective, he won’t even let poor Kendrick go save their village from a dragon (oh, Darius! Oh, big brothers! Oh, dragons!) I mean, I think it’s a dragon. For a movie called Dragon Hunter, this movie sure doesn’t show many dragons. But whatever. “Tell, don’t show” – that is the first rule of writing. Anyway, Darius and Kendrick run away to the west, even though it’s very dangerous in the west.

They run into a…hunting party? Or something? A group of people. First they all fight and don’t trust each other, but then they realize that they have to trust each other. The group of people decides to go with Darius and Kendrick to some castle I think so that Darius can train or something, because he is the dragon hunter I guess. Look, guys, the movie doesn’t really ever tell you what’s doing on (“show, don’t tell!” is the second rule of writing) so let’s not get hung up on details. They fight off some orcs (Haaaaa.) They stop in a little village made of tents because that is the village where the group of people are from. There, they find out that when dragons attack you, they actually rip you open and put a baby dragon inside of you and “seal the opening with flame” and then the dragon grows inside of you until it bursts outside of your stomach (very cool, very original thing for a monster to do.)

Well, Mr. Smarty-Pants Hulu Blog Reader, why don’t you come up with an original way for creatures to be born since you’re so smart?

There is a good guy village wizard, but he is actually a bad guy who paints pentagrams on his tent floor. But they keep moving on. There’s nothing else to do. It seems dangerous. “One does not simply walk into Mordor,” says one of the guys, probably. But they make it. They get to the castle where Darius is supposed to train to be a Dragon Hunter. But Darius reveals that it’s actually Kendrick, not him, who is the Dragon Hunter! Oh, spoiler, BTW. This whole time we don’t know at all what a Dragon Hunter is or who it is, but we were supposed to think that it was Darius except that it is actually KENDRICK!

THE STAGE FOR THE LEGENDARY FINAL BATTLE FOR SOME ALLEGED DRAGON IS SET! THE WORLD IS AFLAME WITH EQUAL PARTS FEAR AND HOPE! THERE ARE ABOUT SEVEN MINUTES LEFT IN THE MOVIE NOW!

Okay, on Hulu’s own fan review page (cool page!) there is a lot of talk about Kelly Stables’ role in this movie. I didn’t know who Kelly Stables was then anymore than you do now, but everyone just praised her charm, charisma, and talent. So I was pretty excited! And now, having seen Lord of the Dragon Hunter: Fellowship of the Dragon Hunters, I’m not exactly sure what people mean by “charm,” “charisma,” and “talent,” but if they mean “having a face,” then I agree! Kelly Stables is very good at having a face! She is one of the better people at having a face out there.

I know, right?

I guess she’s in “Two and a Half Men,” which I’ve never seen, but someone who has seen it should definitely have told me about Kelly Stables’ face. Leave it to the Two and a Half Men-heads to try to keep a pretty face to themselves. Now, other than Kelly Stables’ face, things in this movie are a little HORRIBLE.

Like, in the hunting party or whatever. There is this one guy named Olick. He is the only black person in the movie (in the world?) and he is a mute half-monster who cannot be trusted because of his fits of murderous rage. I would tell you more, but I can’t risk another run in with the Race Police.

“Go to jail, Dragon Hunter.” –Race Police

And then, there’s just this “plot.” It is so awful, you don’t even know. They just wander around the forest, aimlessly – not doing anything. I mean, you think there’d be fighting or something, but there just isn’t. There is one fight, I think, but the camera shakes so much that it could literally have been the end credits and I wouldn’t have been able to tell.

Things get a little interesting when the wizard turns out to be a bad guy! It’s all like, “whhaaaa?” because he uses a baby dragon fetus to make this spell where he drinks a potion that “MAKES ME INTO A GOD!” Alright! Now we’re talking! This sounds so great! But a dragon (I think. “Tell, don’t show.”) eats both him and the only possibility for intrigue in this entire movie about seven seconds after this subplot develops. So BACK TO THE DRAGON BOARD, PLOTLINE, Dragon Hunters of the Rings: The Dragon Towers.

And then when it’s time to “train” Kendrick, it is SO WEIRD! It’s a montage of just very basic, very normal dragon-killing skills. They teach him how to sword fight, in case the dragon has a sword I guess! They teach him to throw daggers, in case the dragon is wearing a dart board probably! They make him run these stairs because cardio is just important no matter what you’re hunting. And, then he is so ready to fight this dragon because of course he is.

And then there’s the lack of dragons. You are called Dragon Hunter, you idiot. If your budget doesn’t allow for a fancy-schmancy CGI dragon, then maybe you should make a movie called, I don’t know, Bounty Hunter or something. Ask this guy:

Pictured: More dragons than are in Dragon Hunter.

Ugh. And do you see what I mean about the lack of new ideas? Orcs? Training montages? Monsters bursting from stomachs? (And don’t even get me STARTED on the elf princess who is forbidden to marry men even though she’s in love with one and knows which plants to put on what wounds to make them all better.) They couldn’t even think up an original name! I mean, it’s like this part in some other movie that nobody's ever heard of where some guy dies.

Pictured: ???

Lord of the Dragon Hunter Rings: Return of King Dragon Hunter is like this, except instead of random strangers (whatever, weird derivative movie that nobody's ever heard of) it is thoughtfulness that is falling into shadows. Fly, you fools. 

Dragon Hunter is so easily the least original movie I’ve ever seen in my life…at least until that SEQUEL COMES OUT.

P.S. Of course, the BIG NEWS for HuluRevu this week, is that Captain America, a film which I revued three weeks ago, is being re-booted! With Chris Evans filling the HUGE BOOTS of Matt Sallinger's LEGENDARY role, while Hugo Weaving is the Red Skull or whatever. Ah me, this life. Too much sometimes. Full speed ahead, Hollywood. Clear minds. Full hearts.

The Spree

We soldier on. There is nothing else to do. The canon of Hulu movies stretches on before us like the cold, ash-covered highway. Our shaking hands grip the push bar of our shopping cart, shoving it through mile after mile of the barren hellscape. Does the coast even exist, or was it all a dream? We walk on. “Do we still carry the fire?” the boy asks. “Shut up,” we answer. “Just shut up.”

I watched The Spree last week. It is a movie starring Jennifer Beals and Powers Boothe. If you want to know why there is a man named “Powers” in the world, then it is because the world is a sad and confusing bastion of mysteries, in which cruelty is a virtue, stupidity is rewarded, and groups of adults pool their collective intellectual and creative resources in order to manufacture the basest, stupidest, most illogical creation of our time.

 Pictured: The Internet's sole media file of anything related to The Spree

The Spree is about this woman named Xinia (I know) who is a famous cat burglar (of course) but falls in lust with a detective (such is life) and they try to sort out their erotic (I guess?) yet treacherous (supposedly) relationship. It is rated R for Worst.

Okay. Real talk. This movie is an erotic thriller. You just have to let some things slide in erotic thrillers. Like a horrible, porno-esque soundtrack. Why shouldn’t an erotic thriller have a horrible, porno-esque soundtrack? Would you ask the sun to stop shining a horrible, porno-esque soundtrack?

But, you’ve got draw the erotic line somewhere. If you, The Spree, are going to be an erotic thriller, then you’d better get the erotic part right. But you can’t even do that, you idiot, which is why you lose every game I can think of playing. Jennifer Beals (Alex from Flashdance!) hooks up with POWERS BOOTHE! Who is Powers Boothe? Let’s find out together, like a family.

He is the voice of this guy!

He had a role in Sin City!

And he voiced this thing!

Oh. You might have seen him in this year’s hit TV show, 24 Jack Bauer Lane – which is a show that people watch. 

 A gentleman’s career, you guys. He is probably also going to star as himself in the highly anticipated upcoming documentary Powers Boothe: ZERO REGRETS. The point is, Powers Boothe was born in 1948. No big deal. Lots of guys were born in 1948! Like, my grandpa! So, when Xinia looks like this

And Powers Boothe looks like this

then it sort of stretches this movie's "plot." I mean, he literally just walks into a bar and they STARE at each other with great STARING POWER and the sexual tension is so thick you can cut it with a fastforward button and we’re supposed to believe that this is just one of those things that happens and this is how sex works and I’m trying to set Hulu on fire with a GUN because everything is so terrible and I just don’t believe that life is like this because, actually, it’s complicated so you’ll have to take my word for it when I say that this makes Captain America look like Mr. Schindler’s List.

So anyway. She’s a cat burglar. At a bar. And she asks him to dance. And he says, “I don’t dance.” And she says, “I don’t trust a man who doesn’t dance.” And he says, “Who said you were supposed to trust me.” And I say, “I HATE YOU BOTH SO MUCH.”

So she asks what he does for a living (the lonely, single, normal conversation piece in this entire movie) and he says, “I’m a snake wrangler.” And she says something like, “oh, that’s cool.” Which is not what women say when they meet men in bars who say that they’re snake wranglers. No, my friends. They is not what they say at all.

So, they have this unbearable sexual tension. Just off the charts. So much so that she breaks into his house (certainly) and when he finds her there he’s just like, “so, you broke into my house, like a regular person would” or something like that. And she says, “do you like people or snakes better?” And he says, “depends on the day.” And I say, “WE ARE YOUR SITTING DUCKS, 2012!!!” So they have sex. Of course. Very normal. And I’d allow that (erotic thriller) except they have sex like nobody ever the history of the world has ever had sex.

Like, I don’t want to get into details about whose Powers goes into whose Beals (yuck) but I will tell you that the things they do are just not things that anyone does at all.

Gifs at Giftube.com  

Seriously. The Spree should be used as curriculum for sexual abstinence education. Because kids who see it will forever associate sex with HORRIBLE.

I know that I made a promise about watching every Hulu movie, and I am a man of my word. But, there is a hierarchy of needs here, you guys. I do not want my honeymoon night (“Gross.” “Sorry!”) to begin and end with me running, screaming from the Hotel 8 that my One True Love and I will rent. I stopped the movie during the libido-warping sex scene because I have to collect and store whatever dribbling bits of sanity are left in my mind for NEXT WEEK!

NEXT WEEK: DRAGON HUNTER

P.S. Also, because no man is an island, do me a solid and suggest some Hulu movies you find in your web browsing for me to watch, so that you don't have to. That is how this works.

 

The Last Warrior

You know, The Last Warrior really had me with that trailer. I mean, did you hear that guy? “Yoo are not een charge,” says the bad guy. “In about seven minutes,” says the Last Warrior, “I will be.” “Oooooh!” I was thinking, “What a CHILLING seven minutes that must be!” Seemed promising. I was pretty excited! Plus, as the trailer reminds you so many times, it stars no less than Hollywood Heavyweight Dolph Lundgren! (Huh?) You know, DOLPH LUNDGREN! Just kidding. You don’t know. He is literally the least famous person in the world. Why they chose him to star in this movie (and why he agreed) are just one of the many questions The Last Warrior raises. Because, despite that EXCELLENT trailer, The Last Warrior is easily the worst movie so far in the Hulu Revu canon.

                                                                                    Pictured: The Last Brain Cell

                                 
The Last Warrior derives its title from I have no idea. I think that Dolph Lundgren is the last warrior, but he doesn’t do any fighting or anything, so it’s just not a great name for a movie (rare miss, Hollywood!) At any rate, Dolph Lundgren is definitely a U.S. Marine who is in California when an earthquake hits so hard that California breaks off from the rest of the country and is just floating around the ocean, stranded – a barren, post-apocalyptic hellscape (“that is what earthquakes do.” – The Last Warrior’s meteorological consultants.)
And Dolph Lundgren sort of gets this ragtag band of survivors around him. Normal people just like you and me. That’s probably the best thing about this movie: how easy it is to relate to the characters. They behave like anyone would in traumatic circumstances. If anything, this plot is a little TOO realistic.

It all starts off with this long, long, long opening monologue from Dolph Lundgren about just how bad life is in the twenty-first century. He just talks and talks about how miserable everything is getting (Agreed, Dolph Lundgren, but you are not helping) and it’s supposed to be very witty and clever but it just keeps going and all you hear is blah, blah, blah. And when the earthquake hits it’s just like, “we got what we all deserved.”

So, he and this band of survivors are just camping out in this military junkyard where all the old military weapons are stored (Oh, military! Always leaving old weapons out lying around!) Survivors are like, “where are we going?” And Dolph Lundgren says “east” like the word “east” holds the key to all meaning in the universe. But the sexy(?) and empowered(??) Lieutenant Sarah, wants to find her helicopter pilot(???) who she thinks is not east, but west (????) and we find out later the pilot is actually her brother. Oops, sorry, that was a SPOILER. She doesn’t tell anyone that the pilot was her brother until late in the movie, for some reason. Like she moans and moans about how they need to go find her pilot and everyone’s like, “shut up, Lieutenant Sarah, we’re going EAST.” And she gets really quiet but then, towards the end, she breaks down and confesses to Dolph Lundgren that (SPOILER) THE PILOT IS HER BROTHER!

There is a bad guy in this movie named Jesus. He’s leading this group of prisoners but he’s also manufacturing mutant milk that makes your skin boil if you drink it. Look, that is the plot of the movie and if you have a problem with it, talk to Dolph Lundgren.They really didn't explain things anymore then that. Maybe they'll tie up the VERY FEW loose ends in the much anticipated sequel, The VERY Last Warrior.

Guys, absolutely nothing happens at all in this entire movie. Like, what, was this the first movie ever made? Had anyone here ever actually SEEN a MOVIE before? It seems like an experiment. I can imagine everyone just standing around, trying to figure out what to do next. “Well, I think you guys should just talk a little more. Like normal people would.” “What should we say?” “Up to you. ACTION!”

Like, there comes a part where Dolph Lundgren is fighting with Lieutenant Sarah and she says, “you are just like this because you lost your memory!” And Dolph Lundgren stops “fighting” and stares with GREAT STARING POWER because he knows she is right. But we don’t know she is right, because he seems to remember everything just fine, and the movie never again revisits the memory loss subplot. It is just one of those things that happens, like everything else in this movie. Oh wait – nothing happens at all in this entire movie.

And then there is the part with Candy, the other hot girl, and she is taking a shower (even though they can’t find water. Whatever.) and then she hears dogs barking and she absolutely FLIPS OUT and runs out of the shower screaming like she is on FIRE and the second-in-command guy chases her and catches her. Then he just holds her and tells her it will all be alright and she is all, “you saved my life.” Classic Candy! Classic girl thing to do!

Do she and the second-in-command guy get together? You’ll just have to watch and find out for yourself!

The worst thing about this movie is everything. The OTHER worst thing about this movie is that it has forty (40!) percent positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. FORTY PERCENT!

A nice try.
- Luis Martinez of Cineganos Magazine.

A nice try! So nice! The nicest?

Enough fun to make the 90 minutes just fly by.
-Christopher Noll of Filmcritic.com

Enough fun, you say? If anything, it was TOO much fun!

Good job, Rotten Tomatoes. Good job, Dolph Lundgren. Good job, The Last Warrior. You made me wish that you were The Last Movie that I ever see.