Welcome to the Movie Rental Finds blog. Don't know what to rent? Want to pick a good movie for your house guests? We watch, rate, and recommend them.

Turtles Forever

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

Tur­tles For­ever is a made-for-TV movie that bridges the gap between the dif­fer­ent ver­sions of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles’ that have hit the big and small scren and it does it amaz­ingly well. If you’ve ever been a fan at any age of any TMNT show, movie, or comic then this ani­mated movie was made is for you. I started watch­ing this think­ing it would be just like any other Tur­tles car­toon. What I got was sci-fi, com­edy, satire, and plenty of Ninja Tur­tle action. This movie far sur­passed my expec­ta­tions and kept me riv­eted till the end.

I’ve been a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles since they were just comic book heroes so I may be a bit biased. The orig­i­nal TV ver­sion was fun but made for kids. The lat­est ver­sion got bet­ter and also darker but never held my atten­tion enough to keep up with the seem­ingly end­less episodes. Still I’d watch an episode now and then just to see what was hap­pen­ing in the series. This movie does not require you to be as knowl­edge­able of Tur­tle lore as I am. You don’t have to be fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles to enjoy this movie but if you are, even just a lit­tle, rest assured that you will be appro­pri­ately enter­tained. All that and you can even sit and watch it with your kids.

13.02.2010 Action, Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Thriller No Comments

Highlander: The Search for Vengeance

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

High­lander: The Search for Vengeance tells a story of Colin MacLeod, an immor­tal on a quest for vengeance as the title sug­gests. Like most movies in the long run­ning series, the story takes place over hun­dreds of years and includes many flash­backs. One of the first things you notice on see­ing this film are the amaz­ing visu­als. There’s plenty of sci-fi action includ­ing post-apocalyptic weapons and robots. The pace of the story is good and if you’re already a fan of the wain­ing series, this is a spe­cial treat. You don’t need to have seen any other install­ment of the many movies or series how­ever, as the movie works well on its own.

After hav­ing been dis­ap­pointed with every­thing that has come out of the High­lander sto­ry­line of late, I have to say I was pleas­antly sur­prised by this film. Already an Anime fan, I appre­ci­ate the visual qual­ity and over­all look of the film. It is an untold story of the High­lander mythos and fits well into that fran­chise, paving the way for new sto­ries to be told. That I am already a fan of the High­lander con­ver­sa­tion is what got me to check out this film and I am happy I did. I found it to be pleas­ing on many lev­els and eas­ily rec­om­mend it, giv­ing it a 4 out of 5 marks.

05.01.2010 Action, Animation, Fantasy, Sci-Fi No Comments

Street Kings

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

StreetKingsStreet Kings is the story of a vet­eran cop played by Keanu Reeves. This rogue cop is def­i­nitely not a good guy but he thinks he is. The prob­lem is his meth­ods. He’s a bad ass and will lie, tor­ture, mur­der, plant evi­dence and do pretty much any­thing else he thinks is nec­es­sary to get the bad guys. He’s good at it too and his ambi­tious boss, played by For­rest Whit­taker, always has his back and is not above a cover-up to pro­tect his best guy. Keanu’s char­ac­ter always goes too far but this time he finds his own lim­its as gets caught up in some­thing big­ger and deeper than he expected.

Street Kings must have been the com­ing out party for a bunch of TV actors. You can’t go 15 min­utes in this movie with­out see­ing some star of a TV show. It also stars a cou­ple of well known rap­pers and even a come­dian though lit­tle about this movie is funny. This is a man’s movie. There’ plenty of gritty action and killing and very lit­tle romance. The roles of the two women in the movie are only there to sup­port the man. Like the title says, this is a street movie com­plete with drugs, thugs, and ram­pant crime. Keanu plays the action hero like a woken up Neo in the Matrix.

This was a sur­pris­ingly good movie. There are parts that reminded me a lot of Train­ing Day. I had to get over my issues with Keanu play­ing a bad ass cop but after that I was pleas­antly suprised. I didn’t go to see this in the the­ater because no one said any­thing good about it but I liked it. It had plenty of action and while the plot wasn’t entirely hard to see through, I had fun get­ting to the end. I give this a 4 out of 5 marks.

19.12.2009 Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller No Comments

Blood and Bone

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

BloodAndBoneBlood and Bone stars Michael Jai White as Isa­iah Bone, an ex-con on a mis­sion for a fallen jail­house friend. After being released from prison he turns to the under­ground fight­ing scene and com­mences to destroy every­one that dares to square off against him. Eamonn Walker plays James, the suc­cess­ful local gang­ster with even big­ger dreams who also hap­pens to be an enforcer for Franklin McVeigh played by Julian Sands.  The film begins with Kimbo Slice walk­ing through the jail­house hall­ways with a shank and a crew, look­ing to make a killing. The fight­ing starts there and esca­lates through the movie. If you’re a fan of mixed mar­tial arts then there’s plenty here for you to enjoy. As the film unfolds we are treated to a series of street fights that have to have been the best ever chore­o­graphed for a direct to video movie. All the moves were believ­able and espe­cially well exe­cuted by Michael Jai White.

This film had every­thing but sex and made me think of it as a Black­sploita­tion movie with­out the exploita­tion. Both the good guy and the bad guy were com­pelling and there is a heated racial con­ver­sa­tion between Eamonn Walker’s and Julian Sands’ char­ac­ter that was quite mem­o­rable.  This movie had decent act­ing, great action, and an actual story. Direc­tor Ben Ram­sey did some nice work here. Despite moments of pre­dictabil­ity, I was pleas­antly sur­prised and enjoyed this film. Bot­tom line, it was good and should have been in the the­ater. I give it a 4 1/2 out of 5 marks.

10.11.2009 Action, Drama No Comments

Echelon Conspiracy

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

EchelonConspiracyMy first intro­duc­tion to this direct to video movie was as a poor man’s Eagle Eye. There are a lot of sim­i­lar­i­ties between that film and Ech­e­lon Con­spir­acy. It’s an easy com­par­i­son to make but this movie does suc­ceed in cre­at­ing its own own semi-interesting take. Shane West plays the part of the film’s pro­tag­o­nist, a young guy doing some tech work over­seas who receives a mys­te­ri­ous hi-tech phone which pro­vides him with some com­pelling oppor­tu­ni­ties. The movie also stars Ving Rhames and Edward Burns, the lat­ter of which seems to show up quite fre­quently in low bud­get projects such as this.

Story wise, this film isn’t bad. It starts rather inno­cent and play­fully then becomes a bit of a mys­tery, then later tries to make its way to an action thriller. All the ele­ments are there; the love scene, the young guy get­ting in over his head, the espi­onage, the car chase, the con­spir­acy, and the mys­te­ri­ous mas­ter­mind. The trou­ble with this film is that it takes too long to get to the action and while enter­tain­ing, it never really gets com­pelling. If there’s a rea­son why this was never released in the the­aters then that’s prob­a­bly it. It just never becomes much of a thriller. You can hit pause at any part in the movie and come back the next day to pick up where you left off. You just don’t care enough about the char­ac­ters and their indi­vid­ual plights  to really invest your­self in them. I give this movie 3 out of 5 marks.

31.10.2009 Action, Mystery, Thriller No Comments