Fluke_Skywalker

Plot; Police scientist Barry Allen faces an existential crisis when he ponders the vastness of the universe and his place in it.

Just kidding. He fights a giant ant.

Even though this aired a little before my time (I was born in 1974), it's at least an older sibling to the kinds of cartoons that I grew up with. There's no self-serious nonsense or heavy-handed preaching here. No attempts to make a fantastical premise feel "grounded". In fact, it leans into the former, and it's all the better for it.

At only seven minutes, 'The Flash: The Chemo-Creature' is appropriately fast and breezy, retaining the spirit of the Saturday movie serials that inspired it.

The look, tone and feel are a perfect example of the Filmation and Hannah-Barbera cartoons of its time. Boy do I miss them.

Like its predecessor, this new incarnation of 'The Naked Gun' never takes its foot off of the gas, firing away with a seemingly bottomless clip of jokes and gags. The formula can get tiresome after awhile, but the gang from Police Squad thankfully don't overstay their welcome.

Liam Neeson steps into the well worn shoes of the late, great Leslie Nielsen, and while it's nearly impossible to match or surpass the latter, Neeson does an admirable job. To his credit, he doesn't try to mimic Nielsen and the movie is all the better for it.

The surrounding cast is solid, if not exactly spectacular. The real standout is actually Pamela Anderson. Don't get me wrong, she's not exactly Meryl Streep, but she really goes all in and she and Neeson have good chemistry together.

The jokes that work here are laugh out loud funny, and even the clunkers aren't so bad that you'll be groaning. If nothing else, the movie aims to please, and that's something that's been missing in movies for a long time now.

The success of 2000's Oscar winning 'Gladiator' should have ushered in a new era of large scale "Sword and sandal" films. Instead we got a few offerings and then comic book movies became all the rage and the historical epic got lost in the mists of time. One of the ones that did get made before heroes in tights took over was 2004's criminally underrated 'Troy'.

This is the kind of movie that needs a big stage, and boy does 'Troy' have a doozie. The production values here are just off the scale. And the special f/x! How in the world does a movie made twenty years ago look five times better than movies released this year?

The cast is uniformly excellent, with even the side roles filled by seasoned and accomplished actors who don't appear as if they're just there for check.

It even has a terrific James Horner score (did he have any other kind), pitch perfect for the operatic tone and huge stakes.

This was a hit when it was released, but it seems to have become somewhat forgotten. That's a shame, as it really is a very, very good movie.