26 | December | 2015 | Lasers, monsters and barbarians oh, my!

1976

I know that I promised a Bewitched Christmas episode, but I changed my mind and went with this one instead. For you Bewitched fanatics this one does have the second Darrin playing a major role.

Steve Austin gives Oscar a present and then screws up because he gets an assignment right before Christmas. What a Bionic hothead. Steve goes to inspect the operations at a contractor named Budge (Ray Walston-My favorite Martian, Fast times at Ridgemont high). He’s a real grumpy pants and all around not so nice guy. He looks like he lives off skunk cabbage and old pickles. After an accident at the plant Steve starts looking at records to see what is going on here. Although Budge is not dishonest he is very cheap to the extreme and gets his standards for his company just above passing. Steve uses his powers to crush Budge to dust…just kidding. Budge also treats his employees like dirt including Bob Crandall ( Dick Sargent-Bewitched). After seeing how stubborn and nasty Budge is Steve decides to use his powers to try and ~~manipulate~~ influence the nasty old guy. Budge gets sick from taking too much of his medicine-serves you right, Mr. Awful. Steve uses a ten buck Santa suit and his Bionic powers to show the tightwad the error of his ways and what could be if he keeps on being a butthole. Budge ends the nastiness and starts being nice. Steve fixes Oscars present when he gets back to the office. Hooray! Roll the holly jolly credits.

The negatives- There’s no menacing robots, super spies or bigfoot in this one so some fans may not be thrilled by it. Given the plot you know there is less action here than in a normal episode.

The positives-In addition to Walston and Sargent other familiar faces include Antoinette Bower as Mrs. Crandall. You know her from Prom Night and lots of episodes of shows including Star Trek and the Twilight Zone. Two of the three Crandall kids weren’t far off from being on shows they would be known for. Little Adam Rich would be Eight is enough in less than a year and Quinn Cummings would end up on Family for two seasons. Other 70’s shows like Sanford and son and The Odd Couple would do Christmas Carol episodes, but they comedies so it was a little more unusual for an action show to try it. It’s kind of corny, but decent. Ray Walston helps the role greatly. I also liked the scene where Steve is buying toys in a makeshift store. We see Lincoln Logs, a Jaws game and right behind Steve is a Six Million Dollar Man action figure. Also at least the try to make it look like Winter with appropriate trees and all. I watching a Christmas episode of Dennis the menace recently and they acting like it was cold as they went past trees filled with leaves. Come on, at least try and make it look cold. Overall a decent episode of the Six Million Dollar Man.

Avengers-The age of Ultron Some of the heroes create a new baddie. He is so powerful, but talks way too much. The heroes argue a lot and pitter patter around. More new heroes show up to hang out, battle and have actin figures create of themselves. There is a huge battle with explosions, lots of stuff getting destroyed and despite themselves the heroes win out. Most of the old Avengers leave and a new team seems to form at the end to get ready for the inevitable next sequel.

The negatives- Even more drama than the first one. The Avengers of the comics got down to business a lot faster. Ultron him/itself wasn’t all that I hoped for. Iron Man needs to shut up more.

The positives- Lots of actions is expected, but good enough. Captain America has been my favorite hero since I was a kid and this film doesn’t disappoint in that category. I liked how they brought in the new heroes. This film had a lot to live up as a sequel to a solid film. For the most part I think it does well, but it’s not quite as good as the first one.

Ant-man- A former convict is given a chance to become the new Ant-man by the old Ant-man. The old Ant-man is afraid that the guy who took over his company is going to abuse his ideas with a new suit. This evil business guy plots to crush the old and new Ant-men because he wants to sell his suit and makes lots of moola. The new Ant-man gets his act together, gets ants to follow him and defeats the evil baldie.

The negatives-It’s a lesser known super hero which isn’t going to appeal to everyone.

The positives- The visuals are overall strong and there’s a lot of them. The acting is overall strong with Michael Douglas being the a major standout as previous Ant-man Hank Pym. A lot of super hero films have their hero come into their own rather quickly and the is movie had our hero struggle more and that worked for this movie.

Fantastic Four- This nerd builds a device that sends people to another place but they don’t know where. Like a Star Trek transporter made by clueless people. One night three smart guys get drunk and bring in a forth not as smart guy just to fill the last seat. They go off to this other zone place. One of the guys Victor gets attacked by green goo. The others get back, but they and the woman at the controls back at the base all get bombarded by different things that cause them to get powers. The individuals get used by the government and they are all sad and grumpy. Victor is brought back and he becomes Doctor Doom and is even more sour than he was as a human. There is a battle the four goodie come together and all is settled. They become a team and please roll the credits.

The negatives-If you are in anyway a fan of the comic this movie will drive you crazy. To call it a reimagining of the Fantastic Four is being light. It’s like they took very few parts of the original story and just added in whatever they wanted. The results are a very watered down movie that’s far too slow in the first half. The effects very from alright down to looking they were down ten years ago. The acting from the leads is mostly not that great. The Thing needs to put some pants on.

The positives-Not as totally bad as I’d heard because I was able to make it through the whole thing in one sitting unlike the last Spider-man movie. The guy playing Reed Richards did a passable job amongst some other rather cringe worthy performances.

Once again we have yet to get a good Fantastic Four film.