Blood of Redemption opens with an In medias res structure that belies a pretty straightforward tale of betrayal. It’s the kind of storytelling that will leave you confused if you don’t turn your brain on, and that’s Blood of Redemption’s crucial mistake. It’s called Blood of Redemption, it stars Dolph Lundgren, and it’s brimming with corny action scenes and cheesy acting — do you really want to turn your brain on for that?

You can almost feel a smarter, more thoughtful plot brewing beneath the Syfy channel shark-movie-of-the-week production values, but it never truly surfaces. The acting is mediocre-to-terrible all around, with big names like Dolph Lundgren and Billy Zane phoning in passable performances while Gianni Capaldi delivers what would be so-bad-it’s-good if the movie wasn’t taking itself so seriously. The true pro here is Vinny Jones, who has the advantage of being Vinny Jones, but he’s still awesome for giving it his all.

The film is schizophrenic, bouncing between deadly serious drama and fight sequences that would make the cast of They Live blush. There’s a balance to achieving fun-bad cinema, but Blood of Redemption is too dry to capture laughs with its corny moments. A shameless Godfather quote could have elicited a laugh, but a pained groan was about the best I could muster.

A fine piece of cover there.

Once the film gets out of clunkily explaining itself, the plot does level out somewhat. The core story is a whodunit with a mobster foundation. A murder in the Grimaldi crime family leads to jail time for its second-in-command and a change of guard, as the new guys take over a family business that doesn’t belong to them.

In the chaos, the family bodyguard, Axel (Dolph Lundgren), goes into hiding in an attempt to piece it all together. He even creates a crazy conspiracy wall! Working in parallel is Kurt Grimaldi (Gianna Capaldi), playing the role of the film’s biggest plothole. Why in the world would the FBI hire the son of a mob boss

That implausibility leaks into the films later plot twists, which are certainly twisty, but barely make a lick of sense. It’s never entirely clear who the protagonist is in Blood of Redemption, and the redemption at the end is hard to get excited about. The whole mess wraps up in an oddly grim manner, overlayed with a smug monologue that explains how clever the film thinks it is.

Blood of Redemption could have used a script rewrite and an injection of energy into the cast. To make matters worse the cinematography and editing is every bit as cold and clinical as the slickly designed DVD cover suggests. Even taken on the B-grade terms it aspires to, it never connects. If you’re looking for a dumb, modern action movie starring Dolph Lundgren, you’d be far better served with The Expendables 2 — a film that understood exactly what it was and reveled in it.

Credibility be damned, I like Uwe Boll. It’s an unpopular sentiment, but it’s true. Sure, the guy has made a lot of trashy, nearly unwatchable video game movie adaptations, but they aren’t all bad (Postal) and some of his work is legitimately great (Rampage). That, and the guy is a lovable character in the media, boxing his way to notoriety and spouting some of the best angry rants the internet has to offer. No matter how dumb his work might get, he’s entertaining through and through.

His name is what initially caught my eye when I decided to check out Zombie Massacre, and I was disappointed to learn that the film is actually “presented by Uwe Boll”. Thankfully, beyond a producer credit, he makes an absurd cameo that’s one of the film’s best highlights. More than that, though, you can feel Boll’s influence throughout. He didn’t make the movie, but he may as well have, for better or worse.

The premise seems more than a little influenced by Resident Evil. A small town is infected by a deadly virus, turning everyone into zombies. The creators of the virus stage a cover-up, hiring a ragtag team of mercenaries to go in and clean up the mess. The team is as colorful as any cast of video game characters, with a sniper, bomb specialist, lady Samurai, and your typical white-washed grunt.

Unlike most B-horror, which would dive headfirst into zombie film cliches, shooting, and gore, Zombie Massacre spends an uncharacteristically long time on each character’s backstory. It backfires a bit, as the film revels in some dumb, cumbersome dialogue, but that’s kind of the charm. This is a movie you riff on with some friends, and it provides plenty of dumb moments to poke fun at, especially as things escalate. Most scenes go on far too long, but that eventually becomes another funny quirk if you’re in the right mindset.

Zombie Massacre doesn’t quite live up to its name, as the amount of zombies killed isn’t any more than any other zombie movie. That said, I have to give the effects department credit for making so many unique zombie designs. It really is a grab-bag of gory zombies, bloody zombies, and strange mutations.

The biggest problem with the film is, oddly, how sharply shot each scene is. For all the so-bad-it’s-good dialogue and awkward action, there’s a few oddly artful shots in there. The visuals fit in more with a dreary apocalypse or disturbing horror piece than a silly-action-zombie-thing. The result is a film that at times seems to be striving for legitimacy, even when that goal couldn’t be more ridiculous. The net result is something that falls squarely middle-of-the-road, neither serious or silly enough. It sits in this spot were it’s simply too dry to get the full mileage off of its cheese-value.

There are worse films you could rent on a drunken movie night with some friends, but there are also a ton of better-bad and better-good films out there. That said, a fantastic Uwe Boll cameo and completely left-field ending make Zombie Apocalypse a worthwhile watch, even if it could have been a lot better. It’s recommended if you’re into watching corny horror movies, doubly so if you can get through a Uwe Boll movie without walking out.

The pervasive complaint among critics for Only God Forgives is that these characters aren’t human, that they don’t act in ways a real human would.

Pacific Rim is, for a large portion of its runtime, a pornographic recreation of my childhood. It’s an amalgamation of cartoons, comics, video games, and Japanese anime turned up to a visual volume that no cartoon, comic, video game, or anime can compete with. If the things Pacific Rim references resonate with you, it will be hard to deny the goosebumps of excitement every time an epic battle between Jaeger (robots) and Kaiju (monsters) begins. It also makes it easier to laugh it off when someone says something incredibly dumb.

The Hangover Part III presumes that you have so much love for this cast of characters that you’d watch them in any genre of film. It presumes you care or even remember what happened to these characters in the last two films, weaving together a narrative from small plot points in the first two entries. It reads like fanfiction — what if Phil, Stu, and Alan got dragged into a crime plot instigated by Mr. Chow? What if John Goodman were an angry crime boss threatening the Wolfpack with death if they couldn’t track down Chow?

Ever since the second film, The Hangover writers have put a lot of stock in how “cool” their characters are. They’re the Wolfpack, man! What started as a joke that Alan took too far has become a genuine identifier that the writers feel can hold up to a semi-serious crime story. Yes, The Hangover Part III has jokes, but they’re few and far between, and the very funniest ones were carefully plucked and featured in the preview.

This is a film about the trio fumbling around in the dark, out of place in a violent world of crime. They’re in over their head but manage to trip and fall into not dying at every turn. It’s the kind of story that you write after binge-watching all of Breaking Bad, and I can only assume that’s exactly what happened here. It was pretty clear with the first sequel that The Hangover was a one-time thing and the concept had run out of ideas, and Part III only solidifies that notion by drawing inspiration from left-field.

I don’t care about the characters in The Hangover, if you haven’t noticed. I’m not interested in their bond, nor their relationship with Mr. Chow, the painfully racist character the series refuses to let die. Sometimes comedies can have depth of character and laughs, but I come to Hangover movies simply to laugh. Considering only one of them was genuinely funny I feel like a bit of a fool. Rubbing salt in the wound, I spent maybe 45 minutes or so waiting for Part III to hit its stride and “get funny.” It was only after a solid twenty minutes without a peep from the entire theater that I realized I wasn’t actually watching a comedy.

For the few times a laugh genuinely sneaked out, it came with the recognition that the joke was only funny because it was referencing a much funnier YouTube clip or internet meme. That’s the kind of humor you expect out of cheap parody garbage like A Haunted House or the “____ Movie” series. The Hangover features Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Jeffrey Tambor, and mother fucking John Goodman. It should be above these lazy references, even if the crafted humor falls flat.

And speaking of John Goodman! His sole purpose in this film seemed to be a reminder of his role in a much better film, The Big Lebowski. It’s clear that Lebowski is the sort of dark crime comedy they were aiming for, and boy did they miss by a few million light years. I think the recently released Star Trek Into Darkness might have more in common with The Big Lebowski. It’s funnier too.

Consider this warning: I may have laughed more during Movie 43 than The Hangover Part III. This isn’t a comedy and it’s one of the more useless crime capers out there. It fails on all accounts. The budget, cast, and competent filming only add to the sense that this was all an epic waste of time and talent. Go watch The Big Lebowski, Breaking Bad, and that YouTube video of the guy who cries really weird instead, you’ll thank me later.

Here, I’ll even get you started:

J.J. Abrams 2009 Star Trek reboot was faithful to the franchise to a fault. It was hobbled by its trans-dimensional attempts to justify its existence in the overall Star Trek lore. Leonard Nimoy’s appearance as the original Spock was surprising, but the effort it took to explain left the film relatively plot-less otherwise. A strong cast of characters and overwhelming visuals kept it entertaining, but it could have been a lot better.

Enter the sequel, Into Darkness. The fear here was that the film would perhaps go too far in the other direction, tossing out Star Trek’s heavier sci-fi elements in favor of an action-packed extravaganza. But while the film is indeed an action-packed extravaganza, it’s also far more faithful to Star Trek. Rather than fumbling with the franchises weaker elements, it embraces the stronger themes, funneling those themes through a kinetic, action-packed plot.

The film opens with Kirk, Spock, and crew attempting to save an alien species from an active volcano. The problem, as any trekkie will tell you, is that interfering with the natural ways of indigenous life violates the Prime Directive. The Federation explores and studies, but they don’t interfere. Right from the start, Into Darkness explores one of Star Trek’s most interesting concepts through an action-packed sequence full of running, chasing, action, and explosions. It’s smart summer popcorn fare, and it maintains that speed and depth from beginning to end.

Into Darkness assuages doubt at every turn. Did you think that perhaps the plot would be too straight-forward? The trailer for this sequel, as exciting as it is, probably has most fans fooled. There’s very little this film doesn’t have: action, drama, twists, turns, variety, strong themes, Robocop. It’s all here and it all feels like a Star Trek film should. I dare any fan with desires for this film to come out and say that it didn’t deliver.

Dialogue is as witty as ever. Zachary Quinto reprises his role as the new, young Spock and again his lack of emotions and overabundance of logic brings about some of the films best dialogue and moral quandaries. The way his personality plays off of Chris Pine’s energetic and snarky Kirk is fun, funny, and thoughtful. Again, the characters are as strong as they were in the original, but the plot and themes have caught up to make a much, much stronger film.

There is only one thing about Into Darkness I take issue with, and it’s perhaps a little nit-picky. If a film can be too high-energy, I think this one might take the cake. Almost every sequence, from explosive battles to moments of quiet contemplation have the same heart-pounding soundtrack and quick editing. The result is that excitement becomes the norm, and I found myself no more thrilled during the action than the talking. Maybe that’s the point, but when the entire film is dialed to 11, there’s no room to dial it any higher. Yes, summer movies are supposed to be endlessly exciting, but lets not get burnt out on it, okay Mr. Abrams? Leave some room for everyone else.

That’s the best criticism I can muster–okay, there’s a few silly bits in the villain’s back story, but otherwise Star Trek Into Darkness is immensely satisfying. More than anything, it adapts what’s great about Star Trek, rather than the more convoluted bits that require a ton of explanation. It presents interesting morality and challenging conundrums and blends it all into an explosive stew. It’s all a summer movie can be and more.