TFV: Jamie Lee Curtis Month Review: The Fog

Hey everyone, Happy Halloween and welcome to Jamie Lee Curtis Month; this year we take a look at four horror films starring one of the greatest horror icons of our time Jamie Lee Curtis.

First film to start off is The Fog. We open at a camping ground at Antonio Bay where an old man is telling a group a children a story; a story about a clipper ship that crash at the shores of Spivey Point a hundred years ago. As the old man finished the story it is now midnight April 21st marking the 100th birthday of Antonio Bay. Cut to a John Carpenter cameo who is closing up a church; he tells Father Malone (played Hal Holbrook) he’s all finished up and leaves. As soon as Bennett (cameo by John Carpenter) leaves a piece of brick falls off a wall startling Malone. He looks inside the hole in the wall and finds a journal with the name Father Patrick Malone (1880) written on the first page. We cut to some bizarre happenings going on in Antonio Bay; food items at a store began shaking then suddenly stop. A gas pump nozzle at a gas station pops off and starts running gas. A bunch of cars at a parking area go off setting off their car alarms. At a woman’s house a chair moves by itself and TV turns itself on. I swear if it turns out this whole town is built on a Native American burial I freaking quit. Cut to a Nick Castle (played by Tom Atkins) driving along until he stops to pick up a hitchhiker Elizabeth Solley (played by Jamie Lee Curtis). The two have a cute chit chat until the truck’s windows burst to pieces forcing Nick to stop; they appear to be fine and continue driving. Cut to a lighthouse/radio station at Spivey Point where we’re introduced to Stevie Wayne (played by Adrienne Barbeau) who is radio DJ. OK I’m getting some serious HorrorHound flashbacks right now. She gets a call from a weatherman Dan O’Bannon (played by Charles Cyphers) about a fog bank that’s coming in from the east and a trawler the Sea Grass that’s about fifteen miles out. Stevie gives a radio shout out to the Sea Grass as we cut to the crew of the Sea Grass. One of the crew members spots the spots the fog bank only to notice something weird about it. As the fog approached the trawler most of it moves down to the engine room and disables the engine. Some of the crew members on deck see a big ship within the fog before disappearing; the crew then sees shadowy figures before they’re killed off by these figures. Cut to Nick’s place he and Elizabeth are hitting it off in bed; oh Nick you lucky bastard. Nick and Elizabeth hear knocking on and Nick goes to answer it. He sees nothing but a shadowy figure knocking at the door; the figure raises its hook as Nick comes closer to the door. As Nick is about to answer the door he’s startled by a crack sound from a grandfather clock. Nick opens the door to see no one at the door; false attention done right folks.

The next morning Stevie is woken by her son Andy Wayne (played by Ty Mitchell) and is given a piece of driftwood he found on the beach with a word DANE engraved on it. And here’s a little easter egg for you folks. We cut to the campground where we’re introduced to Kathy Williams (played by Janet Leigh) and Sandy Fadel (played by Nancy Loomis). That’s right Kathy Williams is played none other than Jamie’s mother and this won’t be the last time Jamie and Janet star in the same film together. You may also remember Janet Leigh from one of the most classic horror films ever made Psycho. Cut to a pier where Nick is supposed to meet up with the Sea Grass crew but we all know what became of them. Nick goes off to talk to Ashcroft for a boat to find the Sea Grass; Elizabeth comes along. Later as Stevie drives to the lighthouse/radio station she listens to a radio broadcast from the coast guard about the missing Sea Grass as they already began their search. Cut to Nick and Elizabeth on a boat in search for the Sea Grass; they’ve found the Sea Grass only to find it completely abandoned except for one corpse. Kathy and Sandy head to the church to meet with Father Malone. He shows them the journal he found and reads it to them. The journey reads of Malone’s grandfather meeting a wealthy man named Blake who had a vile disease (Leprosy). Blake wishes to move off of Tanzier Island and relocated the entire colony just north of Antonio Bay. He purchase a clipper ship called the Elizabeth Dane and asked only for permission to settle at Antonio Bay. However, Malone’s grandfather wanted no dealings with Blake to allow a Leper colony living in Antonio Bay. Father Malone continues reading that his grandfather and five other conspirators spend from midnight to 1 o’clock planning the death of Blake and his comrades. While taking Blake’s gold to build their settlement into a township; On April 21st the six conspirators accomplished their plan. Tricking Blake into following a false fire on shore and the ship broke apart on the rocks of Spivey Point. While they were aided by an unearthly fog that rolled into Antonio Bay then they recovered the gold the next day. Father Malone stops reading now learning that this town was built on the blood of innocent colonist and that the birthday celebration is no more than honoring murderers. Kathy and Sandy take their leave as Father Malone believes that the town is cursed for what the six conspirators have done. Later Stevie returns to the lighthouse/radio station getting for tonight’s broadcast; as she sets up water starts to appear from the driftwood she brought with her. The water reaches a tape player distorting the inside causing a demonic voice to appear through the player before the driftwood burst into flames with the words “6 Must Die” written on it. Stevie puts the driftwood out only to see it completely unscorched. Cut to Nick and Elizabeth at a hospital where the body is being examined; the doctor deduces that the body drowned even though the body was nowhere near the water. Nick and the doctor go talk out of the room with Elizabeth still in the room; the body all of a sudden starts to slowly move. The body picks up a scalpel and gets up from the stretcher moving towards Elizabeth only to fall to the floor next to her; startling her. Nick and the doctor rush into the room to find the body on the floor and the number 3 sketched on the floor.

Cut to nighttime at the Shelby Square when the birthday celebration begins. Nick and Elizabeth are at a bar when Stevie announces on the radio about the celebration, the Sea Grass and the fog. Nick gets suspicious about the fog and decides to call Stevie for more information about the fog. Stevie tells Nick she saw the fog last night and was glowing; she says when the fog came in it kept moving west while the wind moving east. As the two are talking our spooky fog comes rolling into Antonio Bay. Nick heads off to meet up with Stevie at the lighthouse/radio station; Elizabeth comes along. Stevie gets a call from Dan about another fog bank coming in; she gets rather spooked and goes on the radio to give a heads up about the incoming fog. Stevie looks out the window to see the glowing fog heading to the weather station that Dan works at. The fog arrives at the weather station as the lights go out and pounding starts at the door. Dan puts the phone down as he checks the door as Stevie warns him to stay away from the door. But it’s too late as Dan opens the door and is killed by a shadowy figure as Stevie helplessly listens in. Stevie quickly gets on the radio and ask for the sheriff to call her at the lighthouse/radio station immediately. The sheriff complies and calls Stevie unfortunately the fog cut the phone lines before Stevie can warn the sheriff. Soon after the fog heads to a power plant; disabling the generators leaving the town literally in the dark. Stevie sees the fog heading in the direction of where she lives; worrying that her son is in danger she heads to an emergency generator trying to start it up. Stevie gets the generator on and gets back on the radio warning Andy to get out of the house. Cut to Stevie’s house Andy is watched over by a nanny as the fog approaches the house. The fog completely surrounds the house with the unknowing nanny and Andy trapped inside. The nanny goes answering the pounding on the door while Andy goes off to his room not seeing the nanny being killed.

Nick and Elizabeth are off driving as they hear Stevie’s broadcast on the radio. Back at the house the fog is breaking into Andy’s room as Nick and Elizabeth rush to the house. Nick arrives outside of Andy’s room breaks the bedroom window for Andy to get out and the two run back to the trunk. After a minor held up the three managed to escape the fog; Stevie continues to warn the town as the fog continues inland. Watching the movements of the fog, Stevie gives out information on where not to go and what street to take to get away from the fog. Cut to Nick and Elizabeth driving away from the fog as they listen in on Stevie’s instructions. Then we cut to Kathy and Sandy driving away from the as they too listen to her instructions. The two parties are led to the old church outside of town and here you go real life mother and daughter sharing the same scene. Damn am I nostalgic. While Nick and the rest of the party hide in the study along with Father Malone; trouble comes a knocking when the fog arrives at the lighthouse/radio station trapping Stevie. Back at the church the party has figured out that Blake and the leper colonists have return from the dead to kill the descendants of the original six conspirators. The three men from the Sea Grass, Dan the weatherman and the nanny (Mrs. Korbritz) with Father Malone believing that he’s the last. They read the rest of the journal revealing if Blake and the leper colonists would return from the dead Patrick Malone would return Blake’s fortune. Patrick Malone stolen the confiscated fortune and within the walls of the church. The ghosts start breaking in the church as Father Malone and Kathy dig through the wall where Malone found the journal. Back at the lighthouse/radio station the ghosts break in forcing Stevie to retreat upstairs on to the roof of the lighthouse. At the church Malone and Kathy found a rather large gold cross; somehow apparently Patrick Malone took all of Blake’s gold and melt it into a cross. The ghosts continue breaking in the church as Father Malone takes the gold cross back to Blake. It seems to work as Blake and the leper colony ghosts all disappear along with the gold cross and the fog. Or have they? The film ends with Blake and the leper colonists returning to claim the sixth conspirator, Father Malone.

My Final Verdict: The word impressive seems to come into mind about this film; the film has a good subtlety with its limited number of jump scares. It ain’t like some of the horror films nowadays where jump scares are used as a lazy crutch. And apparently can see these jump scares from a mile away. The efforts for the fog is rather amazing for its time and how the film keeps the ghosts well hidden within the makes them more terrifying. This film just has that right amount of set up horror-wise and that its pacing of setting up the horror atmosphere is rather good. Where as in some horror films nowadays likes to rush to the freaking point ultimately losing that good atmosphere set up. There was a remake of The Fog made back in 2005 that I only seen it once and virtually forgot about it. So chances are it might suck whenever I get a chance to review it.

There’s a whole lot more of Jamie Lee Curtis to come so stay tuned next week as we look into Terror Train.

The Film Vindicator Review: Scanner Cop II

Well here we are folks last stop; let’s get this over with. We start off at a police station where a drifter is taken in for questioning; a doctor is called in to check on the drifter. The only two cops look through the drifter’s personal effects and find a rather familiar bottle of pills. Oh gee I wonder if those pills are actually Ephemerol and the drifter is actually a Scanner (sarcastic)? As the doctor question the drifter one of the cops starts to have a nose bleed then suddenly pulls a scalpel from the doctor’s bag and stabs the doctor. The second cop looks through the drifter’s stuff and finds a newspaper clipping of Samuel Staziak when his nose starts to bleed. He sees his partner stabbed in the gut and dies; the cop attempts to shoot the drifter but the drifter psychically disarms him. The drifter shoots the cop leaves the station and escapes. We cut to a Trans-Neural Resource Center where we’re introduced to a Carrie Goodart (played Khrystyne Haje) who runs the center for Scanners to find help. OK in the last film there was only ONE Scanner but here there’s a population of Scanners and that they have a center for Scanners. Consistency what’s that? Anyway the now detective Samuel Staziak (played by Daniel Quinn) arrives at the center asking Carrie on any leads about his biological mother. Sadly no information about her whereabouts; Samuel gets an emergency call and heads out. Cut to a petrol chemical plant where a kidnapping attempt goes wrong and now the perpetrators want a helicopter to escape or they will kill the hostages. Samuel arrives at the plant and proceeds to enter the facility. He spots one perpetrator and immediately controls him psychically. Samuel continues into the building as he psychically gathers information from the perpetrator until he’s spotted by another perpetrator. Samuel takes out both the perpetrators, takes one of their headset communicators, and proceeds to incapacitate the rest of the perpetrators psychically via headset. Just go with it. All except for the leader are temporary incapacitated; Samuel arrives to the control room and psychically projects himself as one of the perpetrators in order to stop the leader from activating the bomb. One of the perpetrators arrives to the control room breaking the psychic mirage exposing Samuel. He shoots down both of them however; the leader activates the bomb before dying. Samuel manages to stop the bomb from going off psychically; just go with it. Later the Scanner drifter arrives at the Trans-Neural Resource Center looking for information on Samuel. Carrie spots him on a computer and quietly sneaks into the next room to call the cops. However, the drifter notices the lights on the office phone and goes after Carrie. Revealing to be a Scanner, Carrie tries to stop him but taking Ephemerol has made her not as strong. The drifter psychically overpowers her and has her to provide him Samuel’s whereabouts. The drifter then begins to psychically drain her but is interrupted by the police sirens and leaves the center. A little bit later the drifter arrives at Samuel’s house and breaks in. Back at the crime scene Samuel calls his answering and hears a message from Carrie about a lead on his mother as the drifter listens in. Samuel returns home about to enter until he sensed something behind the front door and jumps out of the way before the drifter armed with a double barrel shotgun open fires. Samuel sneaks into the back of the house when the drifter scans him. Samuel scans back and breaks into a mental fight until Samuel manages to overpower the drifter who escapes afterwards.

Cut to a different part of town where we see a Scanner using his powers to pickpocket people unnoticed. The pickpocket Scanner is confronted by the drifter whom has him psychically pinned to a wall and starts to psychically drain him. Almost like the climax from the first film with Cameron and Revok just not as graphic and impressive. So now he’s on a mission of draining Scanners of their lifeforce to become strong enough to kill Samuel. Samuel is call in to investigate a dead body in an alley (the dead pickpocket Scanner). Samuel finds a packet of Ephemerol on the dead Scanner and goes to call Carrie at the center. However, he gets the news that Carrie was attacked and was taken to the hospital now in a shock induce state of unconscious. After arriving at the hospital, Samuel goes off to see Carrie trying to scan her to find out what happened. Through some Scanner auto-sketching; seriously they’re just making shit up as they go along in this film. Anyway Carrie starts sketching a face of the drifter until Samuel is interrupted by an orderly causing some kind of mental shock on Carrie. Samuel scans her again this time to revive her from her shock and she awakens. Well if he could just snap her out of her unconsciousness what was the point with the Scanner mind-meld earlier? Anyway Samuel looks at the sketch and recognizes the drifter as Karl Volkin (played by Patrick Kilpatrick); a Scanner who Samuel put away to jail years ago. At the police station Samuel gets info that Volkin escape from a psychiatric hospital the other night. At the psychiatric hospital Samuel learns that Volkin was off his Ephemerol for four days and somehow haven’t gone crazy. Volkin manages to escape by psychically killing four guards and killed one Scanner inmate the same way with the pickpocket Scanner. Back at the hospital Samuel meets up with Carrie who’s fully recovered and discharged. The two continue their at the Trans-Neural Resource Center trying figure out why Volkin is killing other Scanners. Carrie says something about these Scanner deaths is familiar to her; we’ll come back to that later. Cut to Volkin’s place where we get a flashback of him and his brother raping a woman. Samuel arrives at the scene to stop them; Volkin tries to scan him but Samuel counter scans. Volkin calls for his brother who has the woman at knife point threaten to kill her if Samuel doesn’t back off. Samuel scans Volkin who’s armed with a gun psychically controlling him to shoot his own brother dead. Volkin now pissed seeks revenge against Samuel. Now there’s a few flags on the play here one is the obvious Scanner using a gun instead of making a person head explode. Two if Volken had a brother would it be obvious for the brother to be a Scanner as well? I mean we know how a person becomes a Scanner; meaning that the brother should have been a Scanner just like Volkin. Back to present day Volkin senses a Scanner nearby and goes on the prowl. Cut to a woman at a laundry mat when Volken shows up; apparently the woman turns out to be a Scanner. After Volkin psychically drains the woman, he’s confronted by a few cops but quickly dispatches them. A little bit later Samuel shows up at the crime scene and senses Volkin at a warehouse. He questions the workers if they’ve seen Volkin but Volkin takes control of a fork-lift operator and attempts to kill him. Samuel is caught by the fork-lift and is being crush; he tries to break Volkin’s control over the operator but Volkin continues his control. The two continue their counter scans but the operator’s head starts to hemorrhaging. Volkin persuades Samuel to stop his scan or the fork-lift operator dies. Samuel complies and scans the fork-lift to break free but Volkin escapes.

Samuel returns to the police station as he gets a call from Carrie on some information about the case and ask him to meet her at a restaurant. As Carrie leaves the center, Volkin breaks in the center and scans the computer to print out a list of other Scanners. More so he finds a file of leads on Samuel’s mother. Cut to a restaurant where Carrie tells Samuel about two Scanners back in the early 80s have got into a quarrel with one ending up being drained and other off to drain another Scanner. The winning Scanner claiming that he needed to absorb their essence to make his power stronger. OK I’m not sure if this film is intentionally making a connection with the first film. Or specifically the climax of the first film; but if it is the filmmaker fucked up. While them continuing to discuss this deadly revelation; Volkin goes around town absorbing other Scanners of their lifeforce. And nope there’s not a chance in hell I’m making a Lifeforce reference; this film deeply has not earn it. Samuel is called in at these crime scenes while Volkin arrives at a St. Jude Retirement Home looking for Samuel’s mother Rachel. Volkin calls out Samuel from the retirement home threaten to kill his mother before hanging up. After psychically traces the call back to the retirement home, Samuel hurries on over accompany by Carrie. Back at the retirement home Volkin stalks Samuel’s mother; apparently she’s not a Scanner. I would bitch about that but I’m just about spent right now. Anyway Volkin finally corners Samuel’s mother at a balcony window; he scans her but is interrupted by the sound of the police sirens. Somehow knowing what Volkin’s intentions are, Samuel’s mother decides to jumps off the balcony not allowing her to be used against her son. Samuel and Carrie arrived finding his mother in front of the retirement home. It becomes a rather anticlimactic scene when Samuel and his mother finally met only her to say his name and die. Forgive me that I refuse to shed a cry for that scene. Because frankly if David Kellum from Scanners II can keep his foster father alive psychically why could Samuel do the same for his mother? Samuel enters the retirement home and chases after Volkin; they ended up at a basement area as Volkin seals themselves in. The two meet for their finally confrontation; Samuel scans Volkin but given he’d been absorbing Scanners Samuel’s psychic attacks have no effect on Volkin. Volkin seems to have the advantage as he psychically thrashing Samuel. Samuel attempts to turn the tables as he uses two security guards Volkin killed; creating the psychically illusion of the two guards being Samuel. This plan seems to weaken Volkin as he scans these guards to death. Volkin finds the real Samuel and the two squared off once again this time the fight seems to be dead even until Samuel manages to psychic push Volkin. Samuel puts an end to this fight as he scans Volkin to the point of Volkin’s head starts to hemorrhage and then KABOOM! Wow about a few minutes left in this film and we finally get a head explosion…better late than never I guess. And with that the film just ends like that.

My Final Verdict: This film…I don’t know something about this film feels so weak and bland. The body horror effects are way too cheesy for the film’s own good. I can’t even begin to describe the film’s intent really I’m just done…I got nothing. If I did had something to say about this film is that it’s just stale, simply stale like there’s just no weight to it at all. And truth be told I wish David Cronenberg directed these, well except for Scanners II that film was alright but the rest needed Cronenberg so bad.

OK I’m finally finished with this franchise done and fucking done. Now I’m off to take a break and to plan my next Halloween special. Yeah October is still a bit far out but I need all the time to set up my reviews. So coming up this October its Jamie Lee Curtis Month, stay tuned folks.

The Film Vindicator Review: Scanner Cop

Seriously why do I keep going with this? It’s not like the spin-off is any better than the sequels. What’s the point of these directors making these films if they keep deluding from the original film? Sure the Friday the 13th sequels were basically pushed out of the vaginas of filmmakers almost yearly but at least they were kinda consistent. Well except for Friday the 13th Part 5. While the Scanners franchise feel like their consistency from the original are ridiculously minimum. But I gotta review these films so here we go.

We start off at a dirt filled apartment where we see a young boy playing with his toy car while his father is bat-shit screaming in the bathroom. It turns the father is a Scanner who has ran out of Ephemerol and is now being bombarded by voices. We cut to a land-lord showing up at the apartment companied by two cops; it would appear that the father is two months behind on the rent. The cops enter the apartment attempting to arrest the father but he Scanner pushes one of them out of the apartment. The father then scans the second cop to the point that he almost makes the cop’s head explode. Sadly no genuine head explosion when his son uses his Scanner powers to stop him; the father doesn’t take that well and scan push him but then comes back to his senses. The land-lord comes in with a double-barrel shotgun and shoots the father dead; this pisses off the son and just about to mind crush but is stop by the cop. Later officer Peter Harrigan (played by Richard Grove) who was saved by the boy decided to take him home. The next day at the Chatsworth Mental Institute, Harrigan learns that the boy is a Scanner. OK seriously is it selective amnesia or something; how is it no one (aside from scientists) is not aware of Scanners? Anyway this doctor guy wants to experiment on the boy but Harrigan says the hell with that and the two leave. Harrigan give the boy a choice to stay with him and his wife, the boy agrees so. Cut to 15 years later we see the now grown up Samuel Staziak (played by Daniel Quinn) recently promoted as a police officer. While Samuel celebrates with his family and friends, a murder spree is taken place in the city. Regular citizens are mysteriously attacking and killing police officers on sight. Gees am I watching Grand Theft Auto or Sin City? Cut to Samuel gearing up and heading out on his first patrol. At a hospital two cops bring in an injured perp to an operating room; a hospital intern looks at one of the cops goes all crazy and stabs him. Harrigan is called in from the hospital and heads there immediately; the intern who stabbed the cop is in the state of catatonia. Making it difficult for Harrigan to question him; that is until he gets an idea. Cut to Samuel and his partner arriving at an ice packing plant which turns out to be a drug smuggling ring. Samuel and his partner take out two of the drug smugglers but one drug smuggler about to attack Samuel from behind. Samuel stops and disarmed the drug smuggler with his Scanner powers. After the drug bust Samuel is order to report his captain immediately; at the police station Samuel meets up with Harrigan discussing about the cop killings. Harrigan asked Samuel for a favor to scan the catatonic intern in order to find the person responsible for these killings. However, Samuel refuses because that would mean he has to stop taking Ephemerol. Later a janitor from the police station is kidnapped by a fortune teller Zena (played by Hilary Shepard) and me without a “Does this smell like chloroform to you?” joke. The janitor awakes in some kind of laboratory where we meet this film’s villain Karl Glock (played by Richard Lynch that go-to-character actor whenever Rutger Hauer is unavailable). Glock begins to program the janitor with some kind of weird brainwashing techniques. SPOILER ALERT he’s not a Scanner……yeah that’s bullshit.

Back at the police station Samuel and his partner are talking in the locker room until the janitor from before walks in. He sees a cop, goes bat-shit crazy, picks up a nearest shotgun and starts shooting down a few cops including Samuel’s partner. The janitor is eventually taken down leaving with two cops dead including Samuel’s partner. A little bit later Samuel goes to Harrigan and finally agrees to help. Back at the hospital Samuel and Harrigan approached the catatonic intern but once again the intern freaks out at the sight of Samuel. A Dr. Joan Alden (played by Darlanne Fluegel) quickly clears the two out of the room; she makes the conclusion that the intern has been programed to kill cops in uniforms. She suggests removing the trigger by having the police out of their uniforms. In the next scene Samuel attempts to scan the intern seeing exactly what the intern is seeing. From the intern’s eyes the images of the cops were replaced with horrifying hallucinations with drove the intern to kill. After Samuel tells Harrigan and Joan what he saw the intern kills himself by lunging his neck on a broken window he shattered. Cut to a woman walking to her car from a grocery store until she’s being mugged by two armed men. Samuel is walking to his car from the grocery until he hears the woman screaming nearby. He goes to stop them but one of them aims a gun at him; Samuel uses his Scanner powers to mentally paralyze him. The other mugger is about to shoot Samuel but gets Scanner push into a street lamp as Samuel arrests them both. Later at his home, Samuel has been neglecting to take his Ephemerol and starts hearing peoples’ thoughts. However, Samuel tries to filter out the thoughts without Ephemerol and it work. Harrigan issues a tactical alert for civilians to stay away from any police installations and for the police to work in civilian clothing only. Cut to Samuel reporting to a police lieutenant investigate the cop killing; with the power of film editing he uses his powers to read a stack of case files at lightning speed. Yeah I think its bullshit too. At an autopsy room Joan discovers a puncture mark behind the ear on the intern; upon further inspection she discovered traces of a hallucinogenic compound in the brain. This compound puts the subject’s mind open to any suggestion; basically these “killers” are imprinted with a command to kill. We cut to a woman being kidnapped by Zena forgot my “Does this smell like chloroform to you?” joke again. Cut to nighttime when we see a cop being dropped off at his place; he sees his wife cooking dinner but acting rather odd. It’s the same woman who was kidnapped by Zena earlier. The cop tries a bit of foreplay and then shows his badge; the wife sees the badge goes ape-shit at a hallucination grabs a kitchen knife and stabs him dead. The next morning the cop’s partner stops at by to pick him up; the partner gets no response and goes around the back of the house. He makes it to the kitchen only to find his partner dead and the wife in shock. Later Samuel, Joan, and Harrigan arrive to the crime scene attempting to question the wife. Samuel starts scanning the wife and sees what she sees, discovering that the cop’s badge is the new trigger. Samuel goes deeper into her memories and sees her being imprinted. From her mind’s eye Samuel sees only a silhouette of the suspect; he scans even further trying to get an image but the wife’s head starts to hemorrhaging. Again there’s no head explosion when Joan stops Samuel; that’s strike two on no head explosions movie and I don’t like it.

Going the mental images of the wife, Samuel goes off to find the place where the wife was imprinted. After a rather boring driving montage Samuel arrives to the area where the wife was taken. He stops by and enters a fortune teller parlor and meets with Zena. She performs a fortune reading until Samuel starts scanning her, after which he then leaves but got a good glimpse of Glock before walking away. Back at the police station Samuel gets an I.D. on Glock whom Harrigan recognizes. Glock used to be a well-respected neurosurgeon until he was fired for conducting unauthorized brain experiments. We then cut to flashback where Glock is hiding out at a log cabin along with some children he’s been experimenting on. Harrigan and a group of cops arrived at the cabin to take out Glock; Zena spots the cops and warns Glock to escape. A small shootout breaks out resulting one cop shot and killed and Harrigan morally wounding Glock with a rather huge graze to the head. Glock was locked away at Chatsworth but escaped a year later; basically he’s targeting Harrigan out of revenge. Cut to some cops and S.W.A.T. teams arriving at the fortune teller parlor but Glock and Zena are nowhere to be found. Harrigan calls it a night for now and ask Joan to talk Samuel home to rest up and to take his Ephemerol. Back at his place Joan gives Samuel some Ephemerol but he refuses to take them; Joan decides stay for the night to watch over him. A little bit later Harrigan’s lieutenant gets taken by Glock and Zena and then being imprinted to kill Harrigan believing that it’s Glock. The next day Samuel and Joan head to Chatsworth to get more information on Glock. When Glock was admitted a part of his skull was blown off rendering 20% of his brain damage; the Chatsworth doctors replace that part with a titanium plate and soon after he recovered. Afterwards Glock made his escape after killing one of the doctors he was charming. Samuel continues on questioning until he starts hearing voices from the Chatsworth patients and leaves.

Samuel returns to the police station when he spots Harrigan’s lieutenant looking suspiciously odd as the lieutenant heads up in the elevator. Samuel soon follows on other elevator; not sure why he could’ve used the stairs be a little faster. Anyway the lieutenant arrives to Harrigan’s office and shoots him only for Harrigan getting hit in the shoulder. Samuel arrives at the office trying to stop the lieutenant but he continues with his imprinted instructions. A few cops arrived at the office and shoots the lieutenant dead; Harrigan is taken to the hospital and put on intensive care. Zena arrives outside of the hospital and reports to Glock by pay phone that Harrigan is still alive and well guarded. Meanwhile at the hospital Samuel and Joan have an argument until Samuel here’s Zena’s thoughts. He immediately runs outside of the hospital and spots her; Zena makes a run for but gets run over by an ambulance. With Zena dying Samuel quickly scans her to find Glock; inside her mind Samuel ends up at mental representation of Chatsworth looking straight out of Hellraiser II. Samuel finds Zena but is trapped; Zena tries to escape but Samuel scans her again. This time Zena’s head goes KABOOM; FINALLY and I know this is all in her mind and her head hasn’t actually exploded. But you what screw it I’m counting that one. Samuel discovers that Glock is still at the parlor and immediately heads there. He arrives back at the parlor only to find a secret passage way; Samuel continues down this dark hallway until Glock gets the drop on him via trap door. When the hell this became a Bond movie all of a sudden? Samuel is incapacitated and is prep to be programed to kill Harrigan however; he uses his Scanner powers to cause some of Glock’s equipment to combust starting a fire. Glock leaves Samuel to burn off to kill Harrigan himself; Samuel manages to break free from his bonds and escapes the burning lab. Samuel arrives back to the hospital but unfortunately so has Glock disguised as one of the surgeons for Harrigan’s surgery. Samuel spots Glock in the operating room and stops him with his Scanner powers. Glock tries to kill Harrigan again but once again Samuel stops him. Glock seems to be a little resistant to Samuel’s powers but he continues to scan Glock until the left side of Glock’s head starts melting away revealing the titanium plate. Apparently titanium blocks out a Scanner’s telepathy; umm…..OK I don’t see how it’s not exactly vibranium or any other fictional comic book metal that shields your mind from psychics but whatever. Samuel uses his Scanner powers to control the defibrillator paddles electrocuting Glock. Samuel enters the room to check on Harrigan however, Glock quickly recovers and attacks Samuel. Persistent bastard now isn’t he folks? Samuel grabs a hold of Glock and scans him again; this time Glock starts hemorrhaging to the point that his titanium plate pops out of his head. Along with a few brain fragments killing him instantly; it’s a tough call if that was a head explosion so I call it more of a head fountain. Harrigan recovers from surgery and the film ends with Samuel back in uniform and on Ephemerol.

My Final Verdict: The word average seems to be the only word I can think of with this film. It’s like the further this franchise goes the less impressive it gets. Apparently this film decided to reduce the Scanner population to ONE…ONE FLIPPING SCANNER. This film seems to know about Scanners but are not seem to be a dime of dozen here. Maybe if Glock and Zena were Scanners this film might have been more interesting who the hell knows. Because oh yeah having one Scanner going against normal human villains seems fair…except that it isn’t. And before I forget this film has brought back the existence of Ephemerol but has fully disregard Eph 1-3 from the previous films. So what was exactly wrong with the original Ephemerol; what made it necessary to create newer versions of it in the two sequels but were completely forgotten in this spin-off? Virtually no explanation on what or why Ephemerol was just obsolete all of a sudden but then just brought back to use.

OK I think I’m done with this film and thankfully its sequel is the last film to go; stay tuned for the conclusion as we look into Scanner Cop II.

The Film Vindicator Review: Scanners III: The Takeover

Hey everyone and welcome to round two of this Scanners sequel/spin-off review special so on to Scanners III: The Takeover (or its alternate title Scanner Force).

We start off with opening text crawl pretty much in case anyone missed the first two films explaining what Scanners are. Already I’m seeing a problem here; first off in the first film it’s implied that Scanners are constantly bombarded with hundreds of stray thoughts from other people. And without Ephemerol to stop these stray thoughts eventually the Scanners would go insane. In this film it’s implied that Scanners suffered from auditory hallucinations…..ugh no they don’t at least I don’t think they don’t. Anyway after the text crawl we cut to a Christmas party where we’re introduced to Alex Monet (played by Steve Parrish) and his sister Helena Monet (played by Liliana Komorowska) both of whom are adoptive and are Scanners. In this film it’s apparent that Scanners are known to public now; this would mean that Scanners III takes place a few years after Scanners II. Alex is persuaded by one of his friends to show off his Scanner powers. He gently pushes his friend across the room telekinetically; Alex is doing well until he gets spook by a buddy tap on the shoulder. This causes his telekinesis to ramp up accidently throwing his friend out of a window falling to his death. We cut to Alex walking to monastery in Thailand in the hope to master his powers. Despite being declare not guilty for what was deemed an accident by the court, Alex couldn’t face his family and friends for what happened. We cut to two years later and meet up with Helena and Alex’s girlfriend Joyce Stone (played by Valerie Valois). Helena starts having severe migraines which is another side effect of being a Scanner….. The first film doesn’t establish such a thing about Scanners having migraine problems; Scanners II had this minor establishment of this Scanner migraine thing. But here the whole Scanner migraines are an actual thing now. Helena and Joyce are heading back to their car until they’re confronted by a street gang; you can already guess that this is not gonna end well…..for the street gang that is. Helena telekinetically throws the street gang right into the back of garbage truck; I’ve never would have guess this film to take the phrase “taking out the garbage” extremely literally. Later Helena is drop off at her place where she meets up with her father Dr. Elton Monet (played by Colin Fox). He shows her a new delivery system called Eph 3 (Ephemerol 3); an electronically charged skin patches that are worn behind the ear and absorbed in the bloodstream. These Eph 3 patches however, are not fully tested yet for any possible side effects. Helena volunteers to test them out but Elton refuses to let her and tells her to just wait for patches to be perfected. We cut to Helena waking up from a nightmare that reminds me of Phastasmagoria II; she runs out some unspecified pills and goes to the kitchen to get more. In the kitchen she come across the briefcase with the Eph 3 patches inside; despite her father’s warning from earlier she puts on the patch. The next day Helena seems to be fine that is until a pigeon craps on her hand, she gets pissed at the pigeon and makes the pigeon explode with her powers. Yeah not a good sign for the Eph 3 patch and unfortunately since it was a bird and not a person I’m not gonna count that on the head explosion counter. There’s a scene where Helena is at restaurant where she’s talking to some rich tycoon but this doesn’t go anywhere plot-wise so I’m skipping it. Helena stops at the Baumann Clinic which is a mental institution for Scanners where she and Alex were as children before Elton adoptive them. She confronts a Dr. Baumann (played by Harry Hill) and immediately tortures him starting with causing his index finger to explode. Well it’s not exactly a head explosion but I have feeling that we’re getting there. Earlier in her nightmare there are images of Dr. Baumann performing inhuman experiments on Helena when she was a child. So now Helena finally gets her revenge by…say it with me now…making his head go KABOOM! Finally, took you long enough movie but let’s see you can beat the two head explosion record from Scanners II.

After taken out the only two orderlies in the clinic, Helena liberates the institutionalized Scanners by given them each an Eph 3 patch. We cut to the monastery where we see Alex off to speak to the monastery’s master. The master tells Alex that he shouldn’t hide from himself or hide from his past; but Alex replies that he tried everything to find how to live with his powers. Master replies to rather not to deny his powers but to do good with them. We cut to Elton hearing loud music outside his bedroom; he investigate on where it’s coming from it leads him to an indoor pool where we see Helena in a hot tub naked. Wow this is the first time in a Scanners film where there’s nudity. Elton notice she’s taking Eph 3 and confronts her to take it off but Helena has a better idea. She psychically commands him to enter the hot tub and drown himself. While Elton is drowning we cut to Alex sensing his father dying; with her father now dead Helena declares to take over his company. However, the next day her father’s attorney Michael (played by Daniel Pilon) states that Alex needs to make some decisions for the company. Helena is confident that Alex can’t be found but Michael is determine find Alex. Later Michael arrives in Thailand but completely unaware that he is being followed by one of Helena’s Eph 3 Scanners. Michael locates Alex and the two discuss about his father and the company. Alex doesn’t want to take over the company and let Helena take over instead but Michael is suspicious about her. Michael is about to explain how Helena had mysterious change but the two are interrupted by two Muay Thai fighters and a crowd of people. All of them controlled by the Eph 3 Scanner. Michael tries to fend them off but is quickly killed. Alex does some force push on the attacking crowd; the Eph 3 Scanner tries to mind crush Alex but he retaliates and mind pushed him. The Eph 3 Scanner tries to get away by taxi but Alex makes the taxi explode psychically. We cut to a board meeting at Monet Pharmaceutical Industries as Helena promotes herself as chairman and C.E.O. of the company but one of the board members suggest that someone else to take over instead. So Helena scans him to have herself promoted; OK do these guys even know that she’s a Scanner? I mean Scanners are well known now so they should know that she just scan a person to her whim. But apparently the board is made of stupid. Anyway later at a MPI lab Helena ask Joyce to have Eph 3 to be mass produce for her to have more. Joyce is resistant at first but eventually she complies with Helena’s wishes. We cut to Helena at her office hiring a guy as her assistant and by her assistant I mean her personal fuck toy. I’m not kidding we cut to the two having sex and things start to get Videodrome weird. As they’re making out Helena starts scanning the TV which is set on this talk show; she psychically controls them through the TV…while having sex. I did say this would get Videodrome weird didn’t I? To summarize Helena can now control people on TV than just in person and yes it does come into play later. I would find that stupid but then again in the first Scanners film Cameron can scan computers. Alex now back in the States stops by at their home not to find Helena so he heads to the MPI to finally meet up with her. The two have their talk then Helena ask Alex to go talk to Joyce at the Baumann Clinic; insert your own “IT’S A TRAP” joke here. Alex arrives at the clinic to look for Joyce but most of the staff is all Eph 3 Scanners; they capture and torture him but he soon escape. He rides off on his motorcycle but the Eph 3 Scanners give chase on a short bus…you heard me. The chase comes to end at a factory where Alex drives off an edge and into a lake. One of the Eph 3 Scanners jumps in to check if Alex is dead so now we get an underwater Scanner fight that ends with SURPRISE another head explosion.

So this film is tied with Scanners II with only two head explosions. We cut to Joyce returning to her home to find Alex waiting for her. She rather shock to hear that Helena try to kill Alex; they both comes to the conclusion that there’s a side effect to the Eph 3. After a hot steaming sex scene, we cut to Alex on a roof for some reason until he’s attacked by more Eph 3 Scanners…armed with guns. When using a gun instead of psychic power it deeply defeats the purpose of being a Scanner. Anyway Alex tries to escape by rappelling down the building but an Eph 3 Scanner shoots the rope and Alex falls on to a car. We cut to Joyce at Helena’s office looking through her computer to the list of the Baumann Clinic Scanners who are released. She gets busted when Helena enters the office. Cut to Alex in an emergency room; an Eph 3 Scanner disguised as a nurse enters the room to…poison him. OK I’m getting a feeling that these other Scanners are completely underused here. She’s misses the opportunity when a visiting doctor enters the room. This gives Alex the chance to fake a flatline by controlling his heart. Alex awakes in an autopsy room and leaves immediately; he arrives back at Joyce’s place and calls her at the MPI lab but no answer. Alex heads to the MPI to look for Joyce; he scans a security guard to find out where she is but he doesn’t know. Alex sees Helena on a TV broadcast somehow knowing where she is and heads there. Meanwhile people are watching a live football game; one player is about to score a touchdown but gets tackle down and then KABOOM the player’s head explodes. Yeah Helena made a guy’s head explode via TV; so that’s three head explosions in this film a new record. Helena begins her mind control broadcast announcing the people to serve her. Alex arrives at a TV broadcasting building and finds both Helena and Joyce. He takes out three of the Eph 3 Scanners leaving only one left. Alex is about to escape with Joyce but she’s under Helena’s mid control; fortunately Alex scans Joyce’s mind to break the control. The last Eph 3 Scanner chases the two down to the lobby; Alex telekinetically throws the Eph 3 Scanner to a revolving door and spins the door. He telekinetically spins the door so fast the Eph 3 Scanner’s head gets compressed to the glass until…another head explosion. So that’s four head explosions; this film really love head explosions doesn’t it? Alex goes back to the broadcasting room to confront Helena; he moves a camera away from Helena cutting off the mind control broadcast. The climax of the film is a Scanner battle between Alex and Helena or as I called it really goofy staring contest. Helena appears to be winning given that Alex’s head is about to explode but he managed to telekinetically remove the Eph 3 patch stopping Helena. She returns to normal feeling regretfully of what she did and decides to kill herself by electrocution. Alex and Joyce leave the broadcasting room ending the film with really stupid sequel bait. The film ends with Helena’s…..spirit…..soul……something goes into the electric cable and into the camera; seeing her smiling and laughing. Luckily there’s no sequel that follows up on this not even the spin-off Scanner Cop follows on something that stupid.

My Final Verdict: As much as I was fair with Scanners II I was rather bored with Scanners III. At least in some parts of the film I felt rather bored. I was bothered that the evil Scanners kept using guns instead of their powers; I guess the filmmaker wanted to save money. The rules on Scanners are way off continuity from the first film; pretty much adding some new symptoms that made no sense I think. The film as a whole feels like it’s avoiding the events from the previous films. Clearly in the film everyone is aware about Scanners but they don’t seem to take it further than that. They just name drop the term Scanners and that’s it. It’s like if the X-Men were made back in 1992 the human characters name drop the term mutants and go no further just completely forget about mutants. The chose and usage of soundtrack in this film is really odd; most if not some of the intense and action scenes have a music score that sounds it belongs to a 90s kids film. Overall this film feels meh the only thing interesting here is the high number of head explosions.

Well that’s it for the sequels now we hit the bottom of the barrel in the form of the Scanners spin-off. Next time its Scanner Cop stay tuned.

The Film Vindicator Review: Scanners II: The New Order

And here we go folks we’re trending through trenches in the form of the Scanners sequels/spin-offs. Now as I said from my Scanners review none of these films weren’t directed by David Cronenberg so chances are these films may be as good as the original.

We open on man who is screaming for some reason; I guess he must’ve read Twilight. We see the crazy screaming man entering an arcade place and begin playing a rail-shooter game. Suddenly the light gun controller is moving on its own as the crazy screaming man backs away a bit looking like he’s spazzing out. Apparently this guy is a Scanner who is controlling the light gun. His Scanner spasm continues until a security guard tries to stop him but gets force push…no wait Scanner push across the arcade place…yeah that’s better. The crazy screaming man freaks out and all of the arcades began to shake and then explode as the people run in a panic. Cut to the crazy screaming man hiding out in an abandon factory continuing to lose his shit at some mannequins…just go with it. Police arrived at the factory along with a couple of men armed with tranquilizer guns; move in and managed to apprehend him. Cut to the Morse Neurological Research Institute where we’re introduced to a Dr. Morse (played by Tom Butler) who is on his way to a secret lower level laboratory. There he tries to help the crazy screaming man Peter Drak (played by Raoul Trujillo) Drak is not listening and attempts to scan Morse’s mind but is injected with Ephemerol 2 or Eph 2. Morse is approached by Commander John Forrester (played by Yvan Ponton) who is very upset of Drak being injected with Eph 2. Apparently this new Ephemerol not only suppresses the Scanner abilities but becomes dangerously addictive; turning Scanners into Eph 2 junkies becoming useless to Forrester. Later we cut to our main character David Kellum (played by David Hewlett) who is a student at a veterinary school. At the school David arrives at pet surgery class already in progress when he starts hearing thoughts from his instructor and other students. Unable to stop the thoughts he leaves the room while Alice Leonardo (played by Isabelle Mejias) follows him. The two began to flirt and Alice asked him out her dinner; later they head to a diner until David starts hearing again and runs off as Alice follows. Cut to two men making drug dealings to a corrupt lawyer; but the corrupt lawyer is very suspicious and calls in an armed bodyguard. However, revealing to be Scanners and working for Forrester the two men take control of the corrupt lawyer and the bodyguard. They’ve taken the money and drugs from the corrupt lawyer and command the bodyguard to shoot the corrupt lawyer dead. The bodyguard tries to get away but is gun down by Forrester and his men. Later David stops by at Alice’s apartment about to have dinner but she needs a few items to finish cooking. David and Alice go to a nearby convenience store to pick up a few things when suddenly two armed robbers entered the store. One of the armed robbers takes Alice while the other guns down both of the store workers. David steps in and takes out the first robber then takes out the second by the most awesome fashion possible. That’s right David makes the guy’s head go KABOOM; well it wouldn’t be a Scanners film without at least one head explosion.

We cut to Forrester and Morse watching the store’s surveillance camera of what David just did and are now taking interests. Cut to a hospital David goes to see Alice who is recovering from a concussion, she asked David what he did back at the store. He explains that he’s been able to do things psychically since he was a child not knowing why or what to do about it. David returns home only to be approached by Forrester; he tells David he knows what David did and understands what he’s going through. Forrester then tells him that there are many others like him and this convinces David to go with him. Cut to David at the Neurological Research Institute being studied and tested by Morse; he reveals to David that he’s a Scanner but has never use his powers often. Morse tells David about Eph 2 and how it would help him but Forrester immediately tells him not to take it do to its deadly side effects. David is being pair off with Drak to be taught how to use his power; oh what could possibly go wrong here? Drak starts scanning David’s mind but he soon counters and scans right back ultimately wins this little sparring session. Of course Drak doesn’t take this so well at all you’ll see why later. We cut to David and Forrester at milk proceeding plant searching for the “Milk Murderer”…yeah just go with it. Who’s been poisoning milk containers with strychnine killing mostly children. David scans most of the workers’ minds until he comes across a Ralph Cheney who turns out to be the Milk Murderer. He tries to get away but David psychically stops him and is captured by Forrester. Back at the hospital Alice reads about it on the newspaper; David tells her that he found the Milk Murderer and made him confess. He then tells to her that he’s a Scanner and that he uses his Scanner powers to find the murderer. David scans Alice’s mind to…make her horny…again just go with it. Anyway this breaks out into a love scene that a nurse interrupts it but David uses his powers to have the nurse to go piss off. Cut to the home of the chief of police where he is taken control by Drak to kill himself with his own gun. OK this guy is not exactly Darryl Revok but the guy still stinks of evil. The next day back at the hospital David is summoned by Forrester to join him at city hall. At city hall Forrester convinces David to scan the Mayor (played by Dorothee Berryman) to have her announce Forrester as the new chief of police. Yeah this is not suspicious or evil at all I’m sure Forrester’s motives are good right….right….SOMEONE AGREE WITH ME! David is about to leave city hall until he’s approached by Drak; he talks about Forrester “new order” which involves using Scanners to control society. David doesn’t believe him so Drak tells him to check out the Scanners in Morse’s secret lab. After a little talk with Alice, David decides to head back to the institute to get some answers. Once there David confronts Forrester and scans him for answer, apparently what Drak said is true. A security guard enters the office but David psychically pins him down; Morse shoots David with a tranquilizer but he managed to get away.

Somehow he was able to drive from the institute all the away to his parents’ home before he passes out from the tranq dart. Cameron Vale wasn’t this resilient when he got tranq and yet David can easily shrug that off; continuity what’s that? David asked his mother if she was giving Ephemerol before he was born and why they didn’t tell him he’s a Scanner. However, it’s revealed they’re not his real parents but his adoptive parents. His real parents are what for it…..Cameron Vale and Kim Obrist who place David in care of the Kellums when he was a baby for safety sake. The Kellums are not what happen to Cameron and Kim but are aware they die. A little bit later one of Forrester men and Drak arrived at Kellums looking for David; they approached Pa Kellum about David’a whereabouts but he immediately lies. The two follow him to his house and proceed to kill him and Ma Kellum. David heard gunshots from afar run quickly back to the house only to find Pa Kellum barely alive and Ma Kellum dead. Cut to an ambulance already en route but Pa Kellum starts to die. David somehow wills his powers to keep Pa Kellums; through telepathy David learns that he has a sister who lives up north. David travels up north to Lake Washimeska where he stops at a cabin; there he finally meets his sister Julie Vale (played by Deborah Raffin). She tells him that their parents were bringing Scanners together discussing what to do with their powers. Some interested parties (Forrester and Morse) wanted to use Scanners for reasons that Cameron and Kim both opposed. So these interested parties had Cameron and Kim killed; yeah somehow this film managed to kill off one Scanner that’s so powerful that he completely inhabits another body. Julie had a fiancé named Walter who is also a Scanner, he signed up for a program to test a new drug eight years ago Eph 1. Just like the Eph 2 junkies he became addictive and disappeared. David wants to stop Forrester and Morse with her help but Julie refuses and prefers to let the humans destroy themselves. David doesn’t want that and goes back to the institute alone. David goes to the mayor’s home to warn her about Forrester and his new order; she doesn’t believe him until he displays his powers. The mayor’s fully convinced and calls the assistant director but is shot and killed by one of Forrester’s men. House is surrounded by police but David managed to escape and evades the police; he’s almost scot-free until he’s cornered by Drak. David tries to convince Drak not to fight together but to join for a better use of their powers. But given that Drak is bat-shit crazy he’s happier of being a murderous psychopath. Drak attempts to suck David’s brain dry…..ugh dude there was this guy who try that with someone else it didn’t turn out so well might wanna rethink that option. Anyway Drak is distracted by the interference of Julie allowing David to escape with her. David and Julie arrived at the institute; figuring out a way to see inside Julie teaches David a trick to psychically see what the other person sees. They use this trick on Forrester’s lackey who has arrived at the institute. Through his eyes they see the secret lab where the junkie Scanners are kept; one of whom Julie recognizes is her fiancé Walter. Forrester’s lackey approaches Morse for Julie through the lackey to psychically push Morse on to a table of Eph 2 filled syringes….OUCH! After which apparently a normal human injected with Eph 2 has deadly effects therefore Morse dies. Drak shows up and senses David in the lackey’s mind and attempts to kill him. David and Julie fight back but the lackey’s body can’t anymore of the psychic pressure to the point that you guessed it his head go KABOOM! Wow two head explosions in one Scanners film that’s gotta be a record. David and Julie rush into the institute and took out a few guards; one guard shoots Julie with a tranquilizer leaving David to rescue Walter and the other junkie Scanners. David is confronted by Drak and is getting mind crush when Walter and the rest of the junkie Scanners combine their powers with David and killed Drak. Forrester gets cornered by the press after arriving at the institute claiming he’s been using Scanners and been deliberately killing criminals to gain popularity. Forrester denies these claims but David shows up scans him to confess everything Forrester did. Forrester grabs a shotgun about to shoot David but he and Julie scan Forrester to the point that his face gets horribly disfigured. David announces to the press that Scanners mean no harm just here to help. David is united with Alice and Julie with Walter; David and Julie reached each other psychically one last time before the film ends.

My Final Verdict: This film overall may not be on par with Scanners but in fairness I give a B+ for the effort. The body horror effects are alright I wouldn’t say cheap or lazy but more like toned down just a tad. The film was made ten years after the first film and it rather shows; it does try to stay continuity with the first film as much as possible I think.

Well that’s one film done and it wasn’t too bad so let’s what the next one offers. Next time it’s Scanners III: The Takeover stay tuned.

The Film Vindicator Review: Push

Well I’ve seem to be making some kind of record reviewing films about psychics so here comes another one. Now I promise this film won’t be so boring as Speed of Thought, though I can’t promise it’ll be as good as Scanners or Dreamscape. We start off at hotel where we see a father and son in hiding from an organization called “Division”. The father Jonah (played by Joel Gretsch) tells his son Nick that someday he meets a young girl who gives him a flower he has to help her. And trust me this will come to play later. Suddenly a group of armed men arrived outside of the hotel room ready to capture the two. Jonah uses his telekinesis to help his son to escape before the armed men enter the room. Nick hides in the hallways as he watches an agent Henry Carver (played by Djimon Hounsou) leading the men to breach in the room. As they enter the room there’s sudden noise erupts from the room and then a few people are thrown out of the room. Nick continues watching Carver and his men leaving, apparently Jonah dead and is being taken to a lab. We cut to the opening credits as a young girl narrates about people with psychic abilities. These people were experimented on 1945 by the Nazi, turning those with psychic abilities into soldiers. Even after the war was over the experiments continue with many psychics dying during the experiments. Other governments around the world formed what they called “Divisions”, trying to achieve with the Nazi couldn’t. These psychics are identified in one of nine categories, Watchers (people who see the future but the outcome can be vary). Movers (other term for telekinetic), Pushers (people who can put thoughts in your head making whatever lie they come up with the truth). Bleeders (people who can emit high-pitched sonic vibrations that cause internal ruptures on the target). OK how exactly emitting high-pitched sonic vibrations is psychic related? I may have some theories but I waiting for this film to give out some and I doubt it’ll give out any. Moving on Sniffs (they’re like psychic bloodhounds they can track anyone anywhere by having a tactile access to a person’s belongings). Shifters (people who can temporarily alter the appearance of an object), Wipers (people who can erase memories). Shadows (people who can shield others from the visions of Sniff and if they’re powerful enough Watchers). Stitch (people who can psychically heal others by touch). After the narration is over we cut to ten years later at a Division lab where a woman Pusher Kira Hudson (played by Camilla Belle) is getting an injection of R-16. This drug is meant to boost a psychic’s power but end up dying after the drug is injected. However, Kira has survived the boost and is now the Division’s patient zero. Soon after the drug boost, Kira immediately recovers and escapes the lab as she snatches a syringe of R-16. Carver who witnessed the whole event orders to all Division Sniffs to track her down and recover the syringe. We cut Hong Kong where the now grown up Nick (played by Chris Evans) lives in hiding from Division. That is until he’s approached by two Division Sniffs, they asked if he knows of a woman who stole something them. Obviously Nick doesn’t know what they’re talking about and two Sniffs leave. Nick starts packing up but gets a call on the phone then a knock on the door. Nick opens the door to find out it’s a young girl, a Watcher name Cassie Holmes (played by Dakota Fanning). They head to a restaurant and Cassie tells Nick that the two of them have to find six million dollars and a woman. The same woman who the Division is looking for (Kira), Nick is skeptical about it and leaves the restaurant. Cassie tries convincing him to help her until she gets a vision of four psychics who are after them, Cassie panics and has Nick running away with her.

They’re soon confronted by the four psychics the “Pop Triad” a family of three Bleeders and one Watcher. Pop Father (played by Haruhiko Yamanouchi) who’s a Bleeder, Pop Girl (played by Xiao Lu Li) who’s a Watcher, and the Pop Boys (played by Kwan Fung Chi and Jacky Heung) who are both Bleeders. I wish I was joking on the names but according to the end credits it’s no joke. Apparently they too are looking for Kira and based on Pop Girl’s vision Nick seems to know her. But again Nick doesn’t know who they’re talking about. Cassie takes Nick’s gun and throws it at Pop Girl and Nick telekinetically pushes Pop Father and one of the Pop Boys to a wall. Nick and Cassie run away but are pursued by the Pop Boys who unleash their deadly sonic screams to stop them. One of the Pop Boys unleashes his sonic scream on Nick almost killing him. Nick telekinetically pushes Cassie away from the triad allowing her to get away. Pop Girl gets a vision where Kira is nowhere to be seen, meaning that if Nick dies they won’t find Kira. So Pop Girl tells the Pop Boy to spare Nick. Later we see Cassie using her visions to find Nick at a kind of memorial shrine where she meets a Stitch name Teresa Stowe (played by Maggie Siff) apparently sent by Cassie’s mother. She allows Teresa to heal Nick and he’s fully healed instantly, Nick awakes a few minutes later and Cassie gives him a flower. Nick then realizes that she’s the one he’s supposed to help. Cassie explains that her mother was taken away by the Division due to becoming a bit too powerful for them to control. She then tells him that the future has changed around to the point that they may die in the outcome. Cut to Kira walking around the streets on Hong Kong until she’s caught by the two Sniffs from earlier. On the way back to Carver, Kira tries to “push” one of the Sniffs wanting to use the restroom. They stop at a coffee shop and one of the Sniffs takes her to the restroom. Kira attempts to push the Sniff by looking at his eyes in the mirror, the attempt works and has him believing that he had a brother and his Sniff partner killed him. With this belief he proceeds to the front of the coffee shop and shoots his partner dead from behind. He snaps out of it, realizes what he’s done and runs back to the restroom. Kira gets the jump on him, managed to take him and leaves the coffee shop. Cut to nighttime with Nick and Cassie in a cab, Nick looks through Cassie’s sketchpad and recognizes a logo of a nightclub with a bead next to be. Nick sees the bead as a possible clue and the two proceed to the nightclub. We cut to the Sniff reporting back Carver and his Mover partner Victor Budarin (played by Neil Jackson), Carver not too happy of Kira’s escape he pushes the Sniff to put the gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. Pushing him to believe that the gun is not loaded, the Sniff complies but only to shoot himself dead. Nick and Cassie arrived at the nightclub only to meet up with Nick’s Shifter friend Hook Waters (played by Cliff Curtis). Hook used to work for Division until they let him go with a threat to never shift again, but when he did to buy his wife a gift. Only to find out his wife die in a car accident however, his wife doesn’t drive. Nick asked Hook to shift up a bead that will lead them to Kira, after which Hook points them to a Sniff Emily Hu (played by Ming-Na). We cut to her place where Nick and Cassie already arrived asking for her help. She’s hesitated at first but decides to help, pulls out a bead that apparently the Division has been spreading around to other Sniffs. She then tracks Kira down at public pier; a little bit later Nick and Cassie arrived at the pier and found Kira. However, Kira is not all that thrilled to see them as she opens fire on them with the gun she took from one of the Sniff. Nick recognizes her immediately and tries to talk her down; apparently he and Kira had a relationship until she was caught by the Division. Kira explains that the Division is after her and a case she hid away. She doesn’t know what’s in the case due to having a Wiper erasing two days of her memory. Apparently having most of your memories erase can prevent from being tracked by Watchers.

Cassie is a bit spooked by Kira after getting a vision of her, Nick and her mother dead and wants to leave her behind before things get worse. But Nick has a better idea of getting a Shadow to shield Kira from Sniffs. The three meet up with a Shadow Pinky Stein (played by Nate Mooney) and hold up at a hotel room; still not comfortable with this plan Cassie leaves the room to be by herself. Sensing a possible love scene coming up, Pinky decides to stay out in the hallway to give the Nick and Kira privacy. While the two are sucking faces Cassie is confronted by Pop Girl claiming that she and the others will die. Desperate to turn the tide, Cassie gets an adult to buy a bottle of liquor to power her ability. Yeah she explains it earlier at the nightclub that her mother would drink just to get clearer visions and was quite popular for it. I guess that makes sense but I’m just too distracted on how terrifying a drunken psychic could be. So yeah we’re treated with a drunken Dakota Fanning; at least acting to be drunk I’m hoping so. But oddly enough it does work as she gets a vision of the Pop siblings showing up with Nick and the others already long gone. Nick and the others split up to two groups; Kira goes off with Pinky while Nick goes off with Cassie. Nick decides to take the fight to Carver in order to protect Kira and the others. He asked Emily to locate Carver with the bead she has and finds him at a restaurant. Nick heads to the restaurant and confronts Carver; holding him and Victor at gunpoint telekinetically. Carver tells Nick that Kira needs another injection of R-16 otherwise she’ll die. Nick doesn’t believe him but Carver continues on describing signs of her dying such as her blood turning black. Nick gets distracted that he loses his concentration long enough for Victor to grab one of the guns and the scene breaks into an awesome telekinetic gunfight. Nick and Victor continue the gunfight telekinetically until they ran out of bullets. Victor has Nick in a hold and proceeds to telekinetically tosses Nick around like a rag doll. Victor has Nick telekinetically pinned to the ceiling and starts crushing him but Carver tells him to let Nick go and the two leave. Nick and Cassie meet up with Pinky and a now very ill Kira; she remembers the constants in the case is the syringe of R-16 she stolen. Cassie gets a vision of her holding Kira’s shoe; she inspects the shoe and finds a key as Kira suddenly slips into unconsciousness. Nick, Cassie, Pinky and now Hook show up at Emily’s place with Kira in tow. Nick gives Emily the key to find what it unlocks but Emily can’t seem to put up anything. Apparently whatever the key unlocks it’s being shade a powerful Shadow; so powerful in fact that even Cassie can’t find this place. But it does help her narrow down to a under construction building that doesn’t appear in her vision. The group tries to figure out how to find the case without Pop Girl or any Division Watchers knowing their every move. Nick comes up with a plan to give last minute instructions to the group and the last instructions he gives to himself then have his memories of the plan to be erased. Even though they’ll be “flying blind” as Hook puts it no Watcher won’t trace their movements. Kira continues to get worst leaving Nick no choice to surrender her to Carver but has promised to come after her. We cut to Kira being handed over to Carver by Pinky; we then meet up him taking Nick to a Wiper Wo Chiang (played by Paul Car). Nick ask Wo to erase two hours of memory; as Cassie and the others opened their instructions, Wo complies and erase two hours of Nick’s memory. Pop Girl loses the visions of Nick’s plan completely unable to predict what he and the others are doing. Later Hook goes to the under construction building, retrieves the case and switch the R-16 with a syringe of soy sauce. Hook then returns to Emily’s and shifts an exact appearance of the case and syringe. Cassie takes the fake case to Nick’s place and leaves; later Nick awakes and reads his instruction to return to his place. Once there he sees the case but Teresa gets the jump on him by physically disabling him. The Pop Boys show up and take off with the case; Teresa tries to question Nick on where Cassie is but he has her at telekinetic gunpoint to fix him up. The Pop Boys return to the triad with the case but SURPRISE SURPRISE the case’s a fake. At a hotel room Kira gets treated and it’s reveal to her by Carver that she’s an agent of the Division and is Carver’s partner. He explains that she volunteered for the drug boost; insisted that she’ll survive the procedure. She doesn’t fully believe him so Carver helps her to remember by pushing her. Playing the Total Recall card are we movie? OK, I’ll play your game.

Cut to Nick and Cassie going their separate ways as Pop Girl starts tracking down Cassie. Cassie wonders through the streets constantly drawing herself dead next to a tiger. She comes across a small restaurant and heads to the back area; she spots some boxes with a picture of a tiger. And that’s when Pop Girl comes from behind with a gun. She’s about to shoot Cassie until Wo comes at Pop Girl from behind erasing all of her memories. Nick calls up Carver and wants to trade Kira for the syringe; Carver agrees. Nick arrives at the hotel only to be confronted by Carver, Victor and the fully suborned Kira. She tells him that everything they together before the Division caught her never happened. It was all a push by her since they first met by the pier. Nick gets a call from Hook and gives Carver the phone; Hook tells him where the syringe is hidden. Carver and the others arrived at the under construction building; Nick is knocked unconscious after Carver admitted to him that what he said to Kira was all a push. Now say it with me FOOL YOU! Carver, Victor and Kira retrieved the case when they are confronted by the Pop Triad demanding for the syringe. Now a fight has broking out between the psychics and the triad. Victor starts force pushing most of the armed triad members; one triad member gets thrown out of the building and falls on to a trunk of a car where Nick was stashed. Nick awakes up, frees himself from the handcuffs and goes into the building. Nick arrives to the top floor as the fight continues; Kira takes control of five triad members as Victor takes on Nick. The two go into a fight of telekinetic punches from the both of them. And honestly the effects of the telekinetic punches are rather impressive. You see Legend of Chun-Li THIS IS HOW YOU DO PSYCHO POWER! Anyway the telekinetic fight continues until of one the Pop Boys show up and death scream the two. Victor takes a bamboo stick and telekinetically throws it at Pop Boy to the neck. Pop Father sees his dead son and goes ape shit death scream on Victor; killing him instantly. Nick takes out Pop Father by telekinetically dropping bamboo construction on top of him. The fight concludes with Kira’s mind controlled triad members taking out any stragglers. As Kira commands her droids to fall to their death, Nick tries to snap her out of it telling her that Carver pushed her with lies. Carver shows up beats, Nick down and pushes him to jump to his death. But somehow Nick shrugs it off, beat down Carver and grabs the syringe. OK how did Nick managed to overcome Carver’s push, when could he overcome Carver’s push? Does this mean that anyone can do this, could that Sniff who ate a bullet earlier do it? I think I know what just happened this has been another Bullshit Ex Machina. Anyway Carver pleads to Nick not to inject himself because it may kill him. Nick attempts to help Kira to remember but she shows no response; so Nick takes the injection and “dies”. Carver and Kira leaves with a few seconds later Cassie shows up and Nick is OK apparently he injected himself with soy sauce. Nick and Cassie take off with the real syringe pretty much leaving the film open for a sequel. But I have a feeling that’s not gonna happen and I feel rather disappointed about that. We cut to Carver and Kira on a private jet home; Kira looks through her purse and finds a red envelope and opens to find a picture of her and Nick at Coney Island with a message “Kill Him, See U Soon”. This breaks Carver’s push and the film ends with Kira pushing Carver to kill himself.

My Final Verdict: This film is average but wasn’t bad enough, it’s a one up to Speed of Thought. I wasn’t bored out of my mind trying to review this film so that’s something to go with. The effects were decent and again Legend of Chun-Li THIS IS HOW YOU DO PSYCHO POWER! The fight scenes were pretty good with most of the psychic powers involved. The acting for the most part is OK, none of the characters and their performances didn’t make me feel like I wanna go to sleep.

You know since I’ve already reviewed a psychic film, I’m in the mood to do more. So next time we’re diving into the Scanners sequels and spin-offs starting Scanners II: The New Order stay tuned.

The Film Vindicator Review: Kaena The Prophecy

And welcome back with part two of this Final Fantasy-esque review so let's get started.

We open in space where an alien vessel explodes at the orbit of a sap planet Astria, after the explosion most of the ship crash landed on the planet surface. The survivors of the vessel (the Vecarians) are killed off by furious sap-beings (the Selenites). As the opening credits continue we see a tree starting to grow, as the opening credit ends we cut to 600 years later where humans are living in a great tree (Axis). Axis is so massive it extends up as far as the clouds. Here we're introduced to Kaena (voiced by Kristen Dunst) whom as long as she remembers has been having dreams about a "blue sun" at the base of Axis. She and her people spend their lives collecting sap as tribute to their gods to protect however, the sap has now be a bit scarce to collect. Kaena is sitting by herself taking in to the beautiful sight of Sharkens (flying creatures) flying amongst the clouds. Until she's attack by one of the Sharkens and runs away. She continues to get away from the Sharken until she's trapped in small crevice; she bumps into a sharp metal object that seems to resemble a knife. As she tries to dig the knife out, the Sharken uses its tongue to pull her out of the crevice. She manages to get the knife out and cuts free from the tongue and the Sharken flies away. Later we cut to Kaena visiting Ilpo (voiced by Dwight Schultz) who is rather a little crazy due to visiting the "Great Oblivion". Ilpo notices the knife Kaena now owns and starts talking about being attack by a giant creature (the Marauder) and was falling but saved by a worm creature. He then tells her about seeing a man but wasn't a man and then saying something about "above is below, below is above". Kaena hears the summoning horn and heads to the village temple for the sap offering. At the temple the sap is being lifted upward to the "well of the gods" but then a quake happens. The people believe that their gods are angry but the grand-priest (voiced by Gary Martin) tells them that the gods are testing their faith and convinced them to place their lives in the hands of the gods by not moving. This idea will come back to bite them in the ass later. So the people do what he said and not move however, the Grand-Priest plays the chicken-shit hypocrite card by MOVING when a falling rubble is about to crush him. After the quake is over everyone believes that the gods save him, except for Kaena who saw him moved. Kaena confronts him arguing how her parents moved but he deems them as impure. And that their so called gods didn't save her parents when they died. The Grand-Priest tries to talk Kaena down from her blasphemy against the gods but she refuses to listen as she shows the knife she found. Grand-Priest fearing that she's provoking the gods tries to take the knife away but accidentally cuts himself as it slips from his hands. Assuming that Kaena was trying to kill him the Grand-Priest believes that she has become a danger to her people. Kaena runs out of the temple as the Grand-Priest summons the villagers to catch her but she's already made it out of the village. We cut to nightfall and Kaena is found by her friend Zehos (voiced by Tom Kenny) he believes she didn't try to kill the Grand-Priest and tries to convince her to return to village. But she refuses because she believes there's another world at the base of Axis and sets out to find it. Back at the temple the Grand-Priest is approached by one of their gods Voxem (voiced by Keith David) which turns to be one of the Selenites from the start of the film. Voxem is not all pleased with the harvest and tells the Grand-Priest to focus on the next harvest and to forget about Kaena.

A little bit later the Grand-Priest summons the villagers to harvest more sap for the gods. As that goes on the films pads out by cutting to Kaena and Zehos traveling downward of Axis. Later the harvested sap is lifted up to well of the gods as we transition from the village to some kind of Selenite lair where see a Selenite Queen (voiced by Anjelica Huston). She desperately demands more sap but Voxem replies that there may be no more with the sap drying out and the villagers can't any more. Voxem tries to persuade the Selenite Queen to consider the "fusion" but she refuses as long as this "monster" continues to steal their sap. The monster she referring to is this great spherical device that came from the Vecarian vessel 600 years ago. Apparently for the past six centuries this device has been drying Astria of its sap starving the Selenites in the process as they try to kill it. When the Axis-Dwellers appeared they've using them as slaves to harvest sap for them to survive hence the Axis-Dwellers worships the Selenites as gods. Kaena and Zehos reached an area of Axis where beyond the clouds lies the Great Oblivion, Zehos decides to return to the village while Kaena continues on. As Kaena continues downward to the Great Oblivion, she's being stalked by a Marauder which is being controlled by Voxem. He commands the Marauder to kill Kaena and the Marauder obeys. Kaena hears the Marauder and runs away as it gives chase. She then ends up running off a ledge and falls on to a branch and goes unconscious. Suddenly a worm creature in a suit of armor swoops in and carries her to safety from the Marauder. Seeing from the point of view of the Marauder, Voxem deduce that there may be a Vecarian survivor. We cut to what we can tell is an infirmary room where Kaena is being patch up by the Vecarian survivor Opaz (voiced by Richard Harris) and his worm creatures. One of the worms Gommi (voiced by Greg Proops) protest in saving Kaena but Opaz believes that she maybe special in some way. Another worm Assad (voiced by Michael McShane) tells Opaz that Kaena is different from the other village and may have spoken about a device called Vecanoi. Gommi continues to be skeptical about the whole thing until Kaena awakens and panics at the sight of her saviors. Not familiar with her new surroundings, Kaena stumble around some of the areas of a makeshift vessel built together from parts of the destroyed Vecarian ship. She reaches outside of the vessel and ends up at the top of Axis which it's in orbit of Astria and a neighboring planet Talless. That's a pretty big tree. Later Opaz explains to Kaena how he came to Axis after the Vecarian ship exploded. He was a baby place in suspended animation when the ship was destroyed and landed safely at the top of Axis. Kaena realizes that she's been climbing up the roots of Axis instead of down and that the blue sun must be at the bottom of Axis. Opaz asks her about this blue sun and she shows her a draw of it which coincidently looks similar to Selenite Queen's "monster". Opaz immediately recognize it as Vecanoi, some kind of device that contains all of the knowledge of the Vecarians. Back at the Selenite Lair the Selenite Queen makes another attempt to destroy Vecanoi, she attacks with Sindel scream but once again has no effect on Vecanoi. However, it does cause Vecanoi to suffer as it cause a quake back at Kaena's village. Kaena senses Vecanoi being attack by an evil force as if she's somehow connected to Vecanoi. Back at the village the quake starts and everyone start panicking. Oh sorry by panicking I mean staying still waiting to be crush because the Grand-Priest told to put their lives in the hands of their false gods. Kaena tells Opaz what she sensed and has a feeling that Vecanoi and Axis are linked. She then decides to return to the village to help her people, Opaz joins her and for the two to find Vecanoi.

Cut to nightfall with the Axis village destroyed and most of the people are either injured or killed. Zehos spots the Grand-Priest entering the ruined temple and proceeds to follow him. He listens in on the Grand-Priest as he prays for the gods for help but gets no response. A villager enters the temple and asked him what the gods said to him. The Grand-Priest decides to lie and tells him that the gods have offered the people sanctuary among them and for everyone to leave the village by morning. Zehos still listening is shocked that the Grand-Priest lied. We cut to Kaena, Opaz, Gommi, and Assad gearing up and head straight to the village while the remaining worms make preparations for the ship to liftoff. Back at the village the people set out to join the gods but not Zehos as he stops his little brother Essy (voiced by Tara Strong) from joining them and instead find Kaena. The two are stopped by the Grand-Priest but Zehos tells Essy to run away as he is apprehended. Kaena and the others are halfway to the village when suddenly they're attacked by the Marauder. Remembering what Ilpo said when he encountered the Marauder, Kaena tells Opaz and the others not to move. Apparently the Marauder has the visual acuteness of the T-Rex from Jurassic Park meaning it won't see them if they don't move. But Gommi being a dumbass tries to leave with Opaz but is knocked down by the Marauder. Voxem commands it to capture Opaz but is stopped by Kaena as she cuts the Marauder's antenna which actually hurts it. Marauder chases after her until eventually it's about to kill her. Kaena makes a maneuver and cuts the antenna off completely causing the Marauder's vision to become disoriented. Thrashing wildly at Kaena, the Marauder eventually falls off a cliff plummeting to its death. A little bit later Kaena and the others make it to the village completely abandon except for Ilpo and Essy. Ilpo informs Kaena that everyone has gone up to the well of the gods. Kaena, Opaz, and Gommi continue on to save the villagers while Assad is ordered to stay behind and watch over Ilpo and Essy. At the Selenite Lair Voxem convinces the female Selenites to join him against the Selenite Queen in order to preserve their race. As it’s been made apparent that the Selenite Queen has been sacrificing her own people making her stronger in order to destroy Vecanoi. Kaena and the others make it to the bottom of Axis and continue on. Opaz comes clean to Kaena with his plan to remove Vecanoi, confessing that Vecanoi and Axis are not just connected but they’re the same. Revealing that Vecanoi created Axis and if Vecanoi is remove then Axis will die. Kaena refuses let her people and her world to die so she leaves Opaz and Gommi to rescue her people. Kaena arrives at the entrance to the Selenite Lair but is soon captured and imprisoned with her people. Soon after Kaena and her people are rescued gommi and everyone escapes back to the village while Kaena heads straight to Vecanoi to protect Opaz. We cut to Opaz attempting to make contact with Vecanoi but it doesn’t respond, he’s then attacked by the Selenite Queen. She demands him to kill Vecanoi but Opaz replies that Vecanoi won’t respond to him so with that she kills him. This gives Voxem and the female Selenites to fuse with the Queen, impregnating her with new Selenite offsprings. Kaena soon arrives to Vecanoi and finds Opaz dead when suddenly Vecanoi response to her presents. The Selenite Queen reappears about to give birth as Kaena attacks her. Her attacks are no good and is knocked out; Vecanoi makes contact to Kaena and connects to her. The Selenite Queen continues attacking Vecanoi but is eventually consumed by the offspring womb and dies. And I’m assuming the offsprings died as well…again assuming. Zehos and Gommi show up to attend to Kaena and Opaz. We cut to from what I can describe is Kaena mentally inside Vecanoi, she hears Opaz’s voice telling that his people are no more. He was the last of his kind while the others died 600 years ago. With only Vecanoi that survived it created a new reservoir of life, Axis so that humans can exist. Vecanoi created the people of Axis but more importantly it created Kaena. Vecanoi chose her to carry on the memory of the Vecarians, chosen to lead her people. Vecanoi disconnects from Kaena and starts a reaction that triggers Axis to grow, the very top of Axis reaches to Tallees. Kaena, Zehos, and Gommi got out of the Selenite Lair and make it back to the village. The film ends with Kaena guiding her people to a new world to begin again, to begin a better life. Free to learn, free to think for themselves.

My Final Verdict: This film has that Hero’s Journey theme going on at least that’s what I think anyway. You have Kaena who is not too thrilled with this life of harvesting and has this feeling that there’s something out there beyond Axis. This curiosity somewhat guides her to an adventure of discovering something bigger than what she realized. And when that adventure is over she now has developed a completely new perspective, a higher sense of strength and heart, and new friends that helped her along the way. Now I’m not going way too deep into this but for those out there who watches this film may understand of what I’m saying. The animation is rather decent despite a few flaws but not exactly a big of a deal. The story feels somewhat natural as it progresses throughout the film. The character interaction is pretty good they feel like they belong in the story. Overall it’s an enjoyable film. This was Richard Harris’s last film before he passed away back in 2002. You may remember him as the original actor who portrayed Professor Dumbledore from the first two Harry Potter films.

Well I’ve seem to be done here so stay tuned next time as we dive into Push.