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DRIVE ANGRY - REVIEW

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Drive Angry probably boasts THE best storyline of the year so far: Nicolas Cage breaks out of Hell in a car. I'll repeat that: breaks out of HELL, in a CAR. This is gonna be sweeeeet! The trailers promised extreme Grindhouse-style silliness the likes of which Robert Rodriguez ( Planet Ter ror, Machete ) would be proud of with Nic Cage at his wackiest, exciting (read: ridiculous) action scenes and plenty of facepalm-inducing dialogs. Alas, you'll need to lower your expectations just a little if you are to truly enjoy Drive Angry. There was a great film in there somewhere (great as in so bad it's good, of course) but, unfortunately, something went wrong along the way. For one thing, Cage is at his most soporific here and goes for monotone swagger rather than Bad Lieutenant -type goofiness. Which is not to say he doesn't entertain: seeing the guy fully dressed having sex whilst blasting the bad guys with a giant gun, standing randomly staring at fire or saying the wo

HELL RIDE - REVIEW

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Although there never was a fake trailer for this one, Hell Ride is indeed a worthy addition to Tarantino and Rodriguez's Grindhouse . After zombie movies, Mexploitation films ( Machete ) and car chase movies we get this biker flick which comes with QT regulars Michael Madsen and David Carradine but with added Dennis Hopper and Vinnie Jones. *squee* The result? Nothing sensational but it fits very nicely in between Planet Terror and Death Proof in that it contains the overblown silliness of Robert Rodriguez films and the style, dialogs and cool of QT's films. Of course, this being made by Larry Bishop it never achieves the highs of both directors but it makes a fair attempt nonetheless. Somewhat underrated, yes Hell Ride is big, lumbering, confused and dumb but...hello? That's the point. It's a 70's style biker flick! Of course you need lots of ladies in hot pants, gratuitous nudity, unmotivated biking, a trippy magic mushrooms scene and nonsensical dialogs!

GHOST RIDER - REVIEW

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After watching Ghost Rider for the first time since I saw it at the movies back in 2007, I re-read the review I'd written at the time: in a nutshell "1 star, avoid". What's with the anger? What drove me to banish Ghost Rider to 1 star Hell? I seriously don't know. I mean, I remember hating the first bit where you see a young Johnny Blaze making a deal with the Devil, I remember hating Eva Mendes, I remember hating the direction... Now don't get me wrong, the first bit is pretty bland, Eva Mendes is annoying and the direction feels more suited to a music video than anything else. But then there's the Ghost Rider! Sure the CGI isn't exactly top of the line but the Rider scenes are all pretty gosh darn awesome: riding in town melting parking meters, riding up and down buildings, pulling down helicopters with chains, riding with a fiery Sam Elliott cowboy, melting a jail cell... pretty kick ass. It's just a shame Nic Cage feels misca