Quarantine got you down? Stoski’s Ultimate Movies Rating Guide is sure to fix what ails ya. Discover something you never knew existed, or rediscover an old favorite to keep you warm in these trying times. In any case, here are a few things that might have flown past your radar. 

 Commando (1985) 

This is as 'cheesy 1980s action flick' as it gets; bare-bones plot, wild action, terrible puns, and tonnes of punching dudes tf out. When we say bare-bones story, we mean bare-bones. A group of ex-special forces strongmen conspire to kidnap the daughter of retired Colonel John Matrix (See that impossibly cool name? 80s action flicks all the way, baby!), and he must move heaven and Earth to get her back - by 'move' we mean 'mame and kill' and by 'heaven and Earth' we mean ‘anyone who stands in his way’. The kidnappers want Matrix to assassinate some politician or whatever, but you can tell by his name, the fact that he's played by Arnie, and that this is an 80s action movie, that there's no way he's playing ball!

It's all on Matrix as he makes his moves and takes everyone down in an effort to take his daughter back from dudes who honestly seem a little rape-y now that I hear that one line from Scully again. Did I mention that she's like 12 or something? Yep, these guys are potential child rapists. There's no identifying with these villains! Evil to the core! That's the way they did it in the 80s. 

When I say that this movie is jam packed with action and punching and Arnie bowling dudes over, you can take that to the bank. When his daughter is first kidnapped, he's left with a negotiator who's supposed to give him his instructions. Rather than comply, he immediately kills him and runs out to his car, which has been disabled, so he pushes it down a mountain to t-bone the kidnappers, while still inside the car! And that's the first 10 minutes! Wild. I'll be fair in saying that the last half hour or so really drags on. There's a 15 minute (or which felt like 15 minutes, god damn!) sequence where Matrix just mows down goon after goon with a machine gun and occasional grenade. No variety, no dialogue, no nothin'. Just mowin' goons down by the dozen. It might have been amazing to see in the 80s but doesn't really hold up considering what we've been treated to in the 35 years since this movie came out.

Solid 80s action flick though. You should watch it.

3/5

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) 

Piss off kids, I've been waiting years for a new Terminator movie. That's the meme, right? Anyway, I have been waiting years for a new movie, and even longer for a new one involving James Cameron. Good news; this movie completely lives up to the hype. I was honestly kind of upset when it ended because the movie was over and I love this franchise so much! If you've been burned by Terminator films after the departure of James Cameron (T2 was his last film), then some back and enjoy the heck outta this one because it matches those movies in both quality and tone, to a T(erminator).

None of the following is a spoiler of the movie, but a major logical error stood out to me. Arnie’s terminator apparently successfully killed John Connor (lets ignore that the terminator he played in that movie was destroyed) in South America some time after the events of Terminator 2, after which it decided to adopt a woman and her son. This makes no sense, given that, as we learn in a Terminator 2 deleted scene, Skynet sends terminators out on missions with their brains set to ‘read only’, preventing them from gaining sentience and going rogue. How, then, was this terminator able to formulate this idea, and execute it? By all accounts, once it’s main function was completed, it should have powered down for good, and not asked itself what it should do next. These are soulless machines that are not supposed to physically be able to do this, after all.

In any case, I enjoyed every film in the series, but the Cameron movies stand head and shoulders above the rest. If you liked the first two but were turned off by the rest, or even if you haven't seen any of them, you just can't go wrong here.

  4/5

Knives Out (2019)

Picture it: Daniel Craig, as a famous detective, in a murder mystery, with suspicions galore and a southern accent. Chris Evans as a supporting character. It's a classic "butler in the pantry with the candlestick" whodunnit.

An absolute pleasure from start to finish, and plenty to sink your teeth into if you're one of those perceptive types who likes to deduce details before the movie explicitly reveals them. The motive is laid out in the beginning of the movie - an old man's family are expecting a large inheritance once he passes - but the rest, my dear viewer, you'll have to find out for yourself. 

Daniel Craig's and Chris Evans’ aren't the only noteworthy characters. Every member of the family has their own story and their own personality. Even the two police detectives tasked on investigating the case are excellent character writing examples. They aren't central to the plot, so they aren't terribly fleshed out, but they were given enough attention that they add to whatever scene they're in, rather than being little more than fodder for the rest of the cast to bounce lines off of, which could have easily been the case.

4.5/5

All Movies Added this Month

Fear, Inc. (2016) 3/5

Why Him? (2016) 3.5/5

Terminator Dark Fate (2019) 4/5

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) 3.5/5

Knives Out (2019) 4.5/5

Frozen 2 (2019) 0.5/5

Commando (1985) 3/5

13 Cameras (2015) 2.5/5

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