gerrytwo

Horror Express has a passable story, good actors and fine production values. The story, about murders that occur on the Trans-Siberian express, is different enough to be interesting. Telly Savalas eats up the scenery as a Czarist officer, in contrast to the low-key acting of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, rival archaeologists who share a common interest in the pre-human find Cushing is taking back to England. This movie, the last to be shot at a Spanish studio about to close, has train interiors that look big budget. The train model special effects are crummy, but the action at the movie's end justifies the title Horror Express. The remastered Image DVD of this public domain movie is the best way to see this movie, a movie full of dimly lit train interior scenes.

Union Depot starts with an exterior crane shot that slowly zooms into the train station from above, with no noticeable break as camera goes through the wall into the lobby of the station. Alfred Green, the director of this and many other Warner Bros. movies in the 1930s, keeps things hopping as two homeless men, played by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Guy Kibbee, come into some money accidentally. Joan Blondell, always a welcome addition to any movie, enters the picture as jobless young woman who meets Fairbanks while at the station, running away from a sex maniac played by George Rosener, usually a screenwriter. Someone figured he looked right for the part. Union Depot, with its cynical view of life and its casual approach to sex, stands up better than the synthetic movies made after the strict Production Code took effect in July, 1934. The stars, the off-beat story and Alfred Green's fluid direction make this dated movie fine entertainment.

2000 AD is a big HK 2000 Lunar New Year (February) movie release, made to capture as large an audience as possible with its story of a struggling video game designer (Aaron Kwok) who gets drawn into an Asian shadow world of spies, counter-intelligence and killers. An opening sequence involving the bad guy's way of delaying the arrival of some officials employs great visual effects, supplied in part by the technicians who worked on Independence Day and Gen-X Cops. Gordon Chan, the director of this action movie, does a good job choreographing the shoot-outs, fights and car chases. The story borrows some plot elements from The Net, but unlike Sandra Bullock, Aaron Kwok is the chaser, after the guys who murdered his brother in a bloody sniper attack. It is not Shakespeare, but 2000 AD moves fast, has colorful Singapore location shooting (no caning sequence here) and introduces great looking Singapore actress Phyllis Quek as key player in the action. Except for some ultra-violent sequences during the shootouts, 2000 AD is a fine, action packed movie.