Deadly Strike

Deadly Strike (1978) – Past the terrible dub, bad acting, and horrifically dodgy camera work lies one of the most entertaining films of the Bruceploitation corpus (once it gets going, anyway): it’s got an interesting quasi-Morricone-style score, it features a wide array of weapons, and the enemies appear in sequence like the bosses of a ludicrous NES game. 6

Kirikou and the Sorceress

Kirikou and the Sorceress (1998) – The animation cuts some corners, but it has a nice visual style; it’s a folk tale, which means it’s got a leisurely pace and a meandering and mostly easygoing storyline; the traditionally influenced score complements it well, though, and there’s enough themes and symbolism to keep adults involved even though it’s pretty family friendly (as long as you’re not uptight about cultural nudity—seriously, don’t be); man, that messianic baby can do some cardio. 6  

Animal Farm

Animal Farm (1954) – This adaptation of Orwell’s anti-Soviet allegory retains the book’s powerful message on the nature of power, although it’s watered down by the overuse of the narrator, which saps the characters of their personality, by the cutesy stuff used to pad out the super-short running time, and by a new propagantastic ending. 6

Mulan

Mulan (1998) – It’s an attractive film with an interesting score, but it’s got a goofy brand of humor that, headed by Murphy’s proto-Donkey buffoonery, is likely to appeal only to small children (this silliness also saps the movie’s belated attempts at a serious story); other issues include the mostly forgettable songs, the all-over-the-place accents, the astounding dumbness of some of the characters, and, of course, Disney’s projection of modern Western values onto other cultures. 5

Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) – Driven by its cast of fun characters, this is a film with a good sense of humor, great visuals, and a well-realized world that manages to be quite entertaining in spite of its generic villain, weak climax, and thin by-the-Marvel-numbers story. 6

The Face of Another

The Face of Another (1966) – It’s hard to know what to say about this one: Teshigahara does a lot of interesting things visually and the film raises interesting questions about the nature of identity, although it tends toward talkiness and can be over the top (and in that respect, it may not fully engage the viewer), and the plot lollygags along to a conclusion that may lack both payoff and purpose for the viewer. 5

Creature with the Atom Brain

Creature with the Atom Brain (1955) – This is a generally competent, respectably satisfying B movie (who can say no to a detective story with radioactive Nazi zombie mobster hitmen?) that gets the job done with solid pacing but without a great deal of ambition toward storytelling or suspense; goodness, that glamorous domestic diva wife is quite the ’50s relic. 6

The Expendables 3

The Expendables 3 (2014) – Exploding with dumbness, this big-casted, poor-scripted mess has some value as mindless entertainment, but it’s bloated with a bunch of next-gen kids I didn’t pay to see, some of whom can’t even frown convincingly; it’s nice to see that Wesley Snipes is still alive. 5 

The Hunters

The Hunters (2013) – Walmart presents a dumbed-down, family-friendly teen Alias/BPRD mashup with dodgy dialogue, silly scripting, buffoonish bad guys, and enough tiny crossbows to choke a horse; while it’s not good by any stretch, it’s nevertheless decently fun—Victor Garber is far and away the highlight as the villain (I was actually rooting for him throughout)—but it also feels like a pilot for a TV show I wouldn’t watch. 5

The Wild Geese

The Wild Geese (1978) – If you can somehow make it past the title song, you’ll find a fun, slightly thoughtful, slightly dumb, and fairly hammy film with an all-star cast of aging badass mercenaries (it’s lacking only Michael Caine in the Jason Statham role); it’s got some nice character development, but it’s also trying a little too obviously and too preachily not to be racist, which is kind of odd given how steeped in colonialism it is (let’s not even talk about the cartoony gay character). 6

Equilibrium

Equilibrium (2002) – It borrows copiously and obviously from its dystopian betters, and it just isn’t well crafted—it lacks subtlety entirely, Bale’s character is mind-bogglingly sloppy, and nobody involved on either side of the camera seems to have a handle on emotional suppression (Diggs is pretty emotional throughout); yeah, the gun-fu is fundamentally very silly, but it’s everyone’s flagrant and amazing inability to shoot Christian Bale that takes the film into the realm of the ludicrous and makes it impossible to take seriously—and this is a film that dearly wants to be taken seriously. 4

It! The Terror from Beyond Space

It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) – It may be noteworthy as the progenitor of Alien, but this is a film that takes itself way more seriously than it has any right to given its rubbery creature, its lack of atmosphere, and, hilariously, its use of cigarettes, toxic gas, grenades, and a bazooka on board a relatively small rocket ship (this sort of amusement, plus its relatively brisk pace and short running time, keep it well within the realm of watchability). 5