One can only speculate on how a movie this bad could ever be made. Large amounts of money spent on a screenplay idea that is ridiculous and downright stupid. In some conference room, probably in Malibu California probably about 2 years ago, some producers thought “kids love robots”, “kids love dogs”. What we need is a Robot Dog. Who cares about a screenplay or a story of any kind? We can delay the release of whatever we come up with to the critics so we can get that first weekend box office of parents and kids so who cares of the movie is garbage.

The new movie A.X.L. is pretty close to garbage, most especially the ending that makes absolutely no sense. There is AI software, a Robot Dog that will be used by the army, using technology that does not even exist. There is a teenage motorcycle racer that finds the robot dog and becomes involved with a young woman and the entire movie is a series of events that are all disconnected that result in one of the worst conclusions to a movie I have ever seen.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for A.X.L are a very low 25%, IMDB is a very low 4.6. This is one movie that should have went directly to DVD. One bright spot is actress Rebbeca Marie Gomez, who looks like she could be related to Selena Gomez and should have a bright future in movies, just based on her looks alone and despite appearing in this horrendous mess.

Miss this nightmare of very bad movie making, one of the worst movies of 2018.

The movie “Papillon” is a remake of the 1973 classic film that starred Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. The most important thing to know about this story is that it is not only true but it also demonstrated the inhumane cruelty that existed in France in 1931. It is correct to understand that any one who commits murder or any kind of violent crime do not deserve a country club when they are sent away to prison, but the conditions and the administration of prisoners in French Guiana were so bad its a miracle anyone survived there. Most amazing is the main character in this movie, played very well by Charlie Hunnam, not only survived living with the fact that he was innocent and framed for murder, but also spent 7 years in solitary confinement for trying to escape twice. Very often this confinement consisted of total darkness. Unlike other bad recent remakes of classic films like Ben Hur, released in 2016, this movie stands on its own as different enough that its not just a scene by scene retread of the original film.

I was also impressed with the friendship that developed between Papillon and another man who committed a while collar crime and had no business being in a prison like this, played by Rami Malek. On several occassions Papillon risked both his life and freedom to save his friend.

As far as the story I was most impressed with the incredible resolve of Papillon who despite facing more years of solitary confinement, kept trying to escape his extreme injustice of being incarcerated for no reason because he was framed for murder. This story is first and foremost about “mans inhumanity to man” when it comes to running a prison. While prison reform has seen some improvements over many years, it is still a very long way to be what it should be.

The ending of Papillon for those who have not seen the original is so unlikely that many would not believe it unless it was a true story. At the end of the movie talks about the book Papillon that was a best seller when it was released in 1969 and sold over 13 million copies. I have included a link to this book on this web site.

Unlike so many other remakes, Papillon was well done and good enough to receive a strong recommendation.

The movie “Alpha” is very similar to the Disney movies in the past about our close relationship with dogs and in this case of this story a wolf. This story takes place 20,000 years ago and despite the prehistoric caveman times the human beings looked in far too good shape and wore clothing that looks like it was expertly made – almost like designer jackets, which of course makes no sense considering the time involved. Through a series amazing events that involve hunting buffalo a teenage boy is separated from his tribe and while trying to survive on his own, befriends a wolf who was also injured and separated from his pack. Some of the ideas here are far fetched and it seemed that some of the logistics did not make sense in some areas, but overall I thought this was a good example of a family movie, although some of the harrowing experiences are probably too intense for younger children.

Rotten Tomatoes gives this movie a rating of 86 and my rating is about a 75% – so I do recommend Alpha.