Movie Review - Near Dark (1987)

One of my avorite movies is the James Cameron movie ALIENS, sequel to Ridley Scott's Alien.  It was not only a wild sci-fi romp, but the characters were somewhat likable to the extreme, namely most of the characters who didn't die in the initial Xenomorph attack--I'm talking Hudson, Vazquez and Bishop.  It is a testament to the actors' craft that Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein, and the great Lance Henriksen are still widely remembered for their performance even in light of that totally sweet battle at the end of the movie.  However, I did not know if they all had been in another movie together since that film.  Behold, I have watched Near Dark, and sure enough...there they all are.  This time, Paxton wore the makeup and it ended up being plastered all over the cover because it was that good...but was not nominated for an award in the Special Effects category--anywhere.  It's a shame, but it was a stepping stone for smaller things into bigger things.

Our story opens up with a shot of a mosquito feeding on a handsome hillbilly named Caleb Colton (Adrian Pasar, the future President Nathan Petrelli from HEROES) as he wakes up to a sunset.  He heads into town and meets his friends, only to be distracted by a very beautiful young country ingenue.  He finds out her name is May (Jenny Wright) and she's in town with "friends".  He tries to woo her and convinces her to come with him out of town in his truck.  They go to his dad's farm and he attempts to show her a horse--which promptly runs from the petite young woman.  Figuring nothing's up with her, Caleb tries to put the moves on May but she stops him and wants to know what time it is.  Caleb reminds her it's near to dawn and she demands to be taken home.  He wants to know why and May suddenly persists to be taken home, as if something bad will happen.  He agrees, but before he takes her any further he begs just one last kiss.  May gives him one heckuva steaming kiss...and slips in a small nip to his neck, just before she flees into the morning twilight.

Vampires from LV-426 (l-r): Jesse Hooker (Henriksen),
Diamondback (Goldstein), and Severen (Paxton)
(not pictured: Homer [Joshua John Miller]).

Caleb shrugs off that rather odd foreplay and tries to start the truck, but the engine fails to turn over and start.  He decides to walk across the town fields as the sun rises, but finds his energy sapped every minute he's out there and can't figure out why his skin is burning and smoking.  Suddenly, he is kidnapped into a runaway RV and confronted by a pack of five filthy, murderous drifters--one of which turns out to be May (who is not so filthy or murderous).  On top of being a kidnapping victim, Caleb gets the worst news he could possibly get (thus far): he has been bitten and transformed into a vampire.

From this point forward, things get interesting.  With the previous statement, I present to you my Understatement of the Year for 2013.

Above: May (Wright) and Caleb (Pasar) share a tender
embrace.  This might be a case of beating a dead horse, but...
STILL A BETTER LOVE STORY THAN TWILIGHT

This movie was one that a few friends had recommended to me, namely those from US states with rural backgrounds.  It was entertaining, and a fun experience pointing out all the actors who have marched across the silver screen (namely Tim "Dollman" Thomerson and a young Theresa Randle).  I also found it interesting to note that this is the first mainstream film for director Kathryn Bigelow, who would go on to direct hits like the movie that got her name in lights, the 2008 military drama The Hurt Locker (starring Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters' male lead, Jeremy Renner) and the 2012 critical darling Zero Dark Thirty.  If this is the kind of movie she would direct in the future, she should have been a big name in Hollywood well before The Hurt Locker.  I suppose the accusations of a Hollywood Boys' Club preventing her from making movies are true: HER MOVIES ARE A LOT BETTER THAN WHAT MOST MALE DIRECTORS MAKE. 

To think, if Ms. Bigelow kept making movies like this, we might not deride the movie industry as mush as we do and we might've actually paid for the films we watch.  Sadly, we are too far gone and more people know of a world where you always have an option on how you watch your movies.  They will never know the feeling of sitting in a filthy non-IMAX/non-HD sound movie theater with a bunch of strangers (some of whom are smoking) over and over again to watch the same movie (because viewers in theater seats can't rewind or pause).  To know such a world of inconvenience no longer exists and has cost the movie industry brings a tear to my eye...but not as much as the ending for Near Dark.  It was sooooooooo bad, it's gonna cost the ratings score.

RATING: 7/10

Movie Review: The Lost Future (2010)

I was working on a Dungeons & Dragons campaign that involved an entire orc nation with human slaves, and looking for visual ideas to work from.  I read the manga JAPAN drawn by Berzerk's Kentaro Miura for some ideas.  I had watched the old 70's movie At The Earth's Core with Doug McClure, Peter Cushing and Caroline Munro for even more ideas.  Upon a trip to Blockbuster Video (yes, they still have those), I picked up a copy to watch, since they didn't have a copy of the sequel to Uwe Boll's In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale.  When I reached a certain point, I realized I had seen bits of this movie before on SyFy Channel, and hadn't watched the whole thing.  Now I had paid or it, and I would watch this joint South African-German production and review it.

Our story concerns a caveman tribe called Grey Rock, containing the very manly Savan (Corey Sevier) and the not-so-manly Kaleb (Sam Claflin).  Both live in a wild untamed wilderness with their tribesmen, hunting giant mega-sloths of the Ice Age and bring back the spoils to their mates: Savan to his yellow-haired mate Dorel (Annabelle Wallis) and Kaleb...not so much.  Kaleb pines for Dorel, and his sister Miru (Eleanor Tomlinson) makes a point to make fun of him for it.  While they live in relative safety, they are still in danger from the Mutants: a subhuman race that roams the forests and mountains.  They are savage and if they bite you, you're infected and you'll turn into one of them.
The lives of these cavemen is turned upside down by an invasion of Mutants.  Most of the tribe locks themselves away in a cave, but Kaleb, Savan and Dorel are left outside to make their way to go for help.  They are almost killed by a Mutant when they are saved by a mysterious stranger named Amal (British actor Sean Bean).  He is a member of an elite group of protectors of various other tribes and bears strange artifacts with him.  He says that no matter if they were bitten or not, if a Mutant breathed on you then infection would set in.  With that, Amal leads these cavemen into the real world -- the world AFTER the fall or mankind -- to find a cure for the disease.

Playing with the idea of cavemen in the future is not a new idea.  It has been explored in films like America 3000, Battlefield Earth, the remake of The Time Machine, and even Planet of the Apes (both original and the remake).  The thing that makes it such a fertile playground is how exciting it is to get the reveal.  When people see that the world is changed so much, save the visual landmarks that have stood the weathering of time for familiarity's sake, it can awe a person or shake them to the core.  It's one of those moments that make a passable movie great.  The same could not be said of this movie.
When the reveal comes, it's in the friggin' title: THE LOST FUTURE -- as in "the future in the past."  If you missed that on the cover of the DVD, it comes up again as the title card.  Understandably the movie was set in the future, but if they had tried to let us know that in the movie without a whole lot of exposition at the 2/3 mark, the movie would have done a lot better. 

Movie Review - Conan the Destroyer (1984)

When I think about the person I am today, I can definitely say that the world of the 1980s has shaped me a great deal. There was a bunch of good stuff on TV then, and you can find any of that stuff on the Internet on any old 80's webpage. What really sticks is the films of the day. I remember a lot of the movies that ushered me into being a big sci-fi and fantasy fan. I'll eventually end up naming them all at some point, but I want to focus on the fantasy films of the time that influenced me the most.
Many films fall into this number, but a choice few stick out as really good. Of this number, two of them star the Austrian bodybuilder-turned-actor Arnold Schwartzenegger.  One of the two is a sequel to the character movie that made him famous: Conan the Barbarian. The movie I speak of is Conan the Destroyer.

A lot of people think that Conan the Destroyer (callin' it "Conan 2") is crap and that it brings down the first movie, a grand work on its own. I have to disagree; this movie is the perfect spot for someone NOT familiar with the exploits of the Cimmerian to get acquainted INITIALLY. For those of the 'happily ever after' set, this was a believable hero on par with violent 80's hero Rambo. This was a vehicle in which Conan could be the 'good guy', be violent and do what good guys do: SAVE THE PRINCESS. With my previous sole knowledge of stories of heroes existing to save the princess, I was sold. After reading the last paragraph, I think it's time to give a brief synopsis of the movie Conan 2.

Conan and his thieving sidekick Malak (Tracy Walter) are captured at the grave of Valeria by soldiers of Queen Taramis (character actress Sarah Douglas). She hires the barbarian and his friend to escort one Princess Jehnna (a young Olivia d'Abo, in her first movie role) and her bodyguard Bombaata (basketball star Wilt Chamberlain) to find a jeweled horn for some kind of ritual. Upon mention of possible treasure, Conan agrees to take the job. On the way to find the jeweled horn, they meet the warrioress Zula (supermodel Grace Jones) and team up with the wizard Akiro (Japanese actor Mako) to make the job easier.
They'll fight many minions, wizards and insurmountable odds to reach their goal. Many in the party will level up from this mission, but will a prestige class be worth having to watch Arnold doing the grandest phallic flexes since Pumping Iron?
This movie introduced me to the concept of not having to be a knight to save a princess as well as not having to accept what anyone gives you, no matter how prestigious. This movie also taught me that princesses are ALWAYS naive and allowed me to form an opinion on women warriors before Red Sonja or Xena ever came around. This movie, a Dino de Laurentiis production, has not diminished with time; I still get goose bumps when they swim through the icy waters of the wizard's castle. It's a great movie that'll entertain even when the world laughs at the primitive special effects of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

...but that is another story...

Video Game Review - Streets of Rage (1991 - Sega Genesis)

And now, I recite the lyrics to the old TV cop show "Car 54, Where Are You?" as an opening to my review of the Genesis game, Streets of Rage:

There's a holdup in the Bronx,

Brooklyn's broken out in fights,

There's a traffic jam in Harlem

That's backed up to Jackson Heights.

There's a Scout troop short a child,

Khrushchev's due at Idlewyld--

CAR 54, WHERE AAAARE YOUUUUU?

Car 54 is providing backup to the only 3 cops who give a damn about their city, with the best firepower available to the local police force. More on them later. Let's focus on why the city is in the grip of terror...and the three brave souls determined to save it.
Mr. X, a crime lord of unparalleled aims, is taking over the city. He's flooding it with drugs, thugs and psychos. It's not safe in the daytime, and you'd be insane to leave your home at night for any reason. The police are doing something about it: taking bribes from Mr. X to look the other way. A few cops are fighting back, but many of them are fired or killed in the line of duty before they can go into action. Three cops decide to play by Mr. X's rules and take it to the streets!

The three people who fight a private war against Mr. X are:

• Adam, a former boxer who is leading our trio
• Axel, a brash young police recruit that treats every battle like a video game
• Blaze, a female martial artist that doesn't take no for an answer

Each of these cops has pledged to fight Mr. X anywhere and everywhere he holds sway until his army of hoods and killers are off the streets. The three realize they ARE up against an army, so they have backup units. When summoned on the walkie talkie, the police cars pull up and fire either a bazooka or a gatling napalm in the general area, injuring many enemies. They have a limited amount of rounds, so our heroes call them only in times of dire need.
The army of Mr. X is legion, with some members more outstanding than others. With boomerangs, clawed gloves, super-strength, martial arts and the ability to breathe fire at their call, our heroes have their work cut out for them. Despite these forbidding opponents, the trio fight their way into Mr. X's penthouse suite and confront him. At one point, Mr. X tries to turn the cops against each other with the promise of riches and prestige. The act was all for naught, because the heroes want only one thing: to get JUSTICE for their city or die trying. Mr. X is more than happy to oblige them as his goons rush the heroes as Mr. X fires at them with his machine gun.

The battle was deadly and raged into the dawn. The sun rose just as Mr. X fell and surrendered. Justice was served and the streets of the city were free for its people. Adam, Axel and Blaze were commended and smiled great smiles as the sun beat down on their shoulders, relieved of the burden that were...the STREETS OF RAGE!

Our heroes (l-r, Blaze, Axel and Adam.) look out
over their city in "GOOD END."

Streets of Rage (titled Bare Knuckle in Japan) was basically a modernized version of a favorite game of mine, Golden Axe II. The characters in Streets compared to Golden Axe had similar traits, such as the case of the female character Blaze and her ancient counterpart Tyris-Flare. Both wore red, had excellent control of their movements and wore next to nothing. Axel and Axe-Battler had somewhat less in common; both wore blue, had the word "AXE" in their name and were musclebound lunkheads, yet Axel proved to be more useful than his earlier incarnation. Adam and Gilius Thunderhead, on the other hand, were not that similar. Both were wise, had powerful moves and a good reach, yet Adam was a 6-foot tall Negroid in a yellow tank top and that contrasted visually with Gilius' Dwarven stature and green clothing. The magic aspect of Golden Axe was replaced by the weapon-bearing police cars. But with all of these slight changes, one thing stayed the same between these two games: they were both extremely therapeutic.

The whole game was based on beating the ever-lovin' crap outta the bad guys. When you beat one up, there was another waiting, or more than one would challenge you. Once you got done with them, there was a stage boss to defeat. After 7 stages, the eighth and final stage forced you to fight every boss you already fought once again in order to reach the final boss. I always expect him to be hard as shit, and he never fails to disappoint. If I didn't beat it, I'd vow to fight the forces of evil much later--and win. When I did beat a game like this, I'd breathe a sigh of relief and revel in the credits and the feeling of a job well done.

This game's good, yet it could be better.  And that's why its sequel blows it out of the water.

RATING: 7/10

Movie Review - Shuang-Qi-Zhen daoke (1992)

I picked this up at Blockbuster in the Martial Arts section, even though it would fit much better in the Foreign section. I say that because Swordsmen in Double Flag Town doesn't have the copious amount of swordplay that most martial arts movies have and that doing so would be giving Blockbuster too much credit. Enough about the rental company, here's a movie about the Chinese West that took place around 71, no 81 years ago...
Upon his deathbed, old man Hai told his young son Hai Ge (Gao Wei) that he was betrothed as a baby to a girl in Double Flag Town. She's got a mole on her butt and her father is a lame man. Armed with the information and a trusty pair of daggers, Hai Ge sets out across the Gobi Desert to find the town. Along the way he crosses the path of Desert Eagle (Wang Gang), a self-proclaimed champion of the people. They part ways as Hai Ge approaches  Double Flag. He meets his father-in-law Lame Man (Chiang Jiang) under the worst circumstances and makes a fool of himself in front of his bride, Hao Mei (Zhao Mana). Once everything is straightened out, Hai Ge starts to work at Mr. Hao's restaurant. Even if Hai Ge gets no respect, it's a living, until bandits come to town.
These bandits are under the command of the Lethal Swordsman (Sun Haiying), and they want a little fun. That fun comes in the shape of trying to rape Hao Mei. Quick with the daggers, Hai Ge makes short work of the offender. Sadly, the offender is not just any bandit--he's the Lethal Swordsman's brother. This is sure to bring the wrath of the Lethal Swordsman down on Double Flag Town, so the townies ask for Hai Ge's help, but expect to be wiped out in a bloodbath. Their fear is justified; Hai Ge is barely 15 years old.

This movie is an award-winning film in its native China and across the globe, winning six awards over three years from different countries. To quote the back of the DVD case, it's a style that can be describes as "Sergio Leone meets Hiroshi Teshigahara". I can understand the Sergio Leone reference, but I'll have to take the time to watch a Teshigahara film to truly appreciate the sentiment. Nonetheless, it can get bloody, but not so crazy that the fighting overshadows the story. It probably won't grab the imagination of most martial arts fans because of the lack of fighting, so I should recommend this film migrate to the foreign film section, where its merits would be appreciated.

Movie Review - The Wolf Man (2010)

Werewolf showdown.

 

When I saw the trailer for this movie, I immediately said, "I hope they have some sort of werewolf battle at the end."  I went to see it, and I was not disappointed. But I am getting ahead of myself in this review of a remake of a movie from 1941.

So, there's an English guy who got attacked by a werewolf. He died, so he obviously isn't the werewolf. The guy's brother, Lawrence Talbot (notorious Hispanic-at-large Benicio Del Toro), comes from a very successful stage career in America to see to the details of his brother's funeral and his estate, Talbot Manor.  He would not have known about it from his aloof asshole of a father Sir John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins) who still lives there, but instead learned about his brother's death from from Gwen Contliff (Emily Blunt), his brother's fiancee.  Lawrence eventually got to view the body before burial and found a medallion on the corpse, the kind sold at the gypsy camp outside of their town, known as Blackmoor.

Upon visiting, Lawrence meets with an old gypsy woman, Maleva (Geraldine Chaplin), who tells Lawrence that his brother was attacked by something evil. Just then, the gypsy camp comes under attack by the werewolf, and Lawrence is bitten. So begins the most awesome displays of movie makeup magic since the late Stan Winston, as created by Rick Baker. You can feel the burn of the wounds as the curse reddens the flesh while coursing through Lawrence's veins.  It's really amazing stuff.  Then the change from man to wolf-man occurs and IT IS INCREDIBLE.  The digital FX are able to twist and shape the actor into a monstrosity that doesn't stray too far from the base of the werewolf design, that can give a great blood-curdling howl against the biggest full moon since the time of the dinosaurs.

Eventually, bad stuff happens. One can only expect a werewolf on the loose to cause havoc.  So Inspector Abberline of Scotland Yard (Hugo Weaving) comes to investigate the Blackmoor murders and was able to catch the person responsible for them--Lawrence Talbot?  The madness does not stop there, as Lawrence is taken to a London mental institution for incarceration and study.  He promptly escapes by transforming into a werewolf and causes havoc on the streets of London, all on the way back to Blackmoor. It is there that the truth is revealed about Lawrence's past, his brother's murder, and his mother's death--all in the same shot.  It also gives me the satisfaction of seeing something I called at the beginning of the movie and this review: WEREWOLF SHOWDOWN.  A werewolf showdown, I might add, that does NOT disappoint.

End spoilers.

Movie Review - Red Riding Hood (2011)

 

I've been on an Amanda Seyfried kick lately.  I seem to be watching a lot of movies starring her, the last being Chloe.  I'm not sure why so many of her movies draw me in, but it might have something to do with her status as a rising star in Hollywood.  Or the fact that she's attractive. Either way, it probably isn't the movies. I'd be open to watching Mean Girls, but I draw the line at Mamma Mia!, as a rule.  This also goes for several other movies designed for the fairer sex, like Beastly and the omnipresent Twilight series.

Despite being marked as being an imitator of the Twilight franchise, I found myself drawn to Red Riding Hood. The most likely reason being Miss Seyfried, but I also had an academic curiosity to see what was done with the story of the legendary  little crimson-covered child.

Said child is little no longer: Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) is a willful young woman, promised to the blacksmith's son, Henry (Max Irons) in marriage by her mother Suzette (Virginia Madsen).  Alas, she loves the woodcutter Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) and has done so since they were children.  They want to run away and live free, but a murder in their village of Darkmoor brings them back to reality.  The culprit: a wolf that preys on their village that takes a sacrifice of a living being to sate its bloodlust on a full moon.  Now the wolf is back, and draws an even more dangerous enemy into the midst of Darkmoor--this time, a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Father Solomon (the scene-chewing Gary Oldman) and his armed escort roll into town in an armored carriage, bristling with weapons.  The good father says such things are necessary in his line of work--as a hunter of devils, demons, witches, warlocks and werewolves.  To wit, he reminds people that he is willing to go to great lengths to find out who is the werewolf in Darkmoor.  Yes, they're dealing with a werewolf and it lives in the town.  Soon, Father Solomon has people accusing each other of witchcraft and of being the werewolf.  The chaos spreads fast, but not enough to slow the romantic subplot down at all.

The sexual tension is so thick, you could cut it with a knife.  Heap on the extra layers of lies and the mystery of who the werewolf could be, and you have a fine movie.  Some might even say it's lame because it is slavish to the original, or not slavish enough to the original.  If the audience can't relate to Valerie by virtue of teenager problems, you just blew a wad of cash on kiddie porn or a poorly visualized juvenile fantasy (see: Robin Williams' Toys). If Valerie doesn't make it to Grandma's house or have that ears/eyes/teeth conversation, then the story told is baseless.

The movie has a story to tell, and it does so admirably with all the history of the original supporting information with modern twists.  I especially liked what they did with all the different versions of Little Red Riding Hood (there's more than one) and other wolf-related fairy tales, like the Boy Who Cried Wolf and the Three Little Pigs.  The movie's got some pretty chaste gore effects that do an effective job of conveying the carnage in the film.  For a movie directed by the woman who directed Twilight, starring a man who played the lead's father in both that film and this one (Billy Burke), it's not as bad as people make it out to be.  Ultimately, the only ones who would hate this movie would be Twilight haters.

And yet I still liked it.

Video Game Review - Altered Beast (1989 - Sega Genesis)

When I first saw this game, I was not particularly impressed. I saw it in the arcade between a 4-player cabinet for Gauntlet and a cabinet for the original Golden Axe. THOSE were video games to me. Not some crap about how I beat up zombies and two-headed albino wolves. Anyway, the years passed on and I got a Sega Genesis. We didn't really have games for it (just Sonic the Hedgehog and Streets of Rage) so we'd hit the video store and rent stuff. I saw the cartridge for this game and I was like, "Hey I remember this." So I popped it in and set off to play Altered Beast, not knowing that a specific sound clip I heard would change my mind about this game.
The game starts off with 2 headstones of fallen Roman warriors. Then (I suppose) Zeus comes out and says in a booming voice:

RISE...FROM YOUR GRAVE...

Lightning strikes the tombstone and our hero has awkened! He heads off in an undecided direction to fight off the hordes of evil undead. The music helps greatly when doing so. Occasionally, a two-headed white wolf will come bounding by and, being the hero, you'll kill it because it is evil. When it dies, you get a power-up globe: grab it and our hero looks at the screen as his form becomes more muscular to Zeus' voice saying:

POWER UP!

Your hero can do more damage because the punches he throws now have an energy wave coming off them. Kill another white wolf and Zeus'll say "POWER UP!" again and watch your body become insanely muscular. The strange thing about this form is that it's the most powerful form in the game. You'll have one more powerup globe to grab before you change into your "ultimate" form. Do that, and the screen will be bathed in fire with our hero's face shown transforming into that of a wolf, complete with howling effect:

"ARROOOOOOOOOOO..."

The music now changes to meet your new powers as a bad-ass werewolf. Your hero can throw fireballs from his hands and move in a dash pattern to destroy the enemy. After a while, you'll bump into an old man in a purple robe whom you can't attack because of his lightning shield. This man is the antagonist. Further evidence is supplied when he's ready for you and alerts you to the fact with the phrase:

"WELCOME TO YOUR DOOOOOM!"

With a column of smoke, here begins our  boss fight. It's a big dude that throws lotsa heads at you and wants to kill you. Easily beaten, you think you can take the man in purple now.
He wouldn't be a proper antagonist unless he was more powerful than you,  so prior to leaving for the next stage, he strips our hero of his werewolfdom with a laugh:

"HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA"

The man in purple jumps in a portal in the ground and you follow him to...gee, I'm not sure why Zeus woke the hero from his grave...oh wait, here we go. 

Between stages to the tune of ominous harpsicord music, you learn that our hero's female relation has been kidnapped by Hades, the man in purple. I guess Hades is gonna do something nefarious, so hustle on and SAVE HER!

The second stage was an eye-opener to me as a young boy. The stage was some weird ass cave that had weird things in it. That wasn't the eye-opening part, though. I had grown up thinking that the only king of were-creature was a werewolf. Little did I know that when you grab 3 powerup globes, you transformed into a WEREDRAGON. This weredragon was modeled from Toho's King Ghidorah, due to his helix-shaped breath lazer and golden exterior(for 2P only). This weredragon also has an electrical shield that kills things inside its radius. Per the usual, here comes boss #2. Boss #2 is weird, because it's made out of eyes. Yes, eyes; stinging, crowding eyes that don't want to look at you anymore and would rather you dead. Hades strips you again, you follow him, and more of Hades' plans are revealed. This is how the game runs for the next 3 stages.
The game changes it up some more by letting our her transform into a werebear(!) on stage 3, with breath that turns the enemy to stone, and on stage 4 the hero turns into a weretiger. I forget what exactly the weretiger does, but I know that the weretiger is bad-ass.  Stage 5, the final stage, allows us to get at Hades personally and fight him as the Golden Werewolf, the most powerful form (yeah, right--the form pre-transformation is still stronger) in Altered Beast. You beat Hades, save the female relation, Zeus is happy. The end, and pretty much, GAME OVER.

The sound on this game is great for its time, but it's not on par with the music from Streets of Rage.  My mind still reels from the idea that there's more than just wolf lycanthropes, and thanks to Altered Beast, I can play D&D with a greater suspension of disbelief.

RATING: 7/10

[Special Note: Altered Beast has  been remade in 3-D for the PS2. All reviews point to it sucking horribly.]