Fire Birds (1990)

Fire Birds is a second-rate Top Gun ripoff with helicopters instead of planes. Nicolas Cage plays a Maverick-like helicopter pilot-in-training--arrogant to the max. Sean Young plays his independent-minded love interest while Tommy Lee Jones plays a good ol' rabble-rousin' root-tootin' Army instructor. The movie is a complete mess. The scenario is transparent War on Drugs propaganda, and the script is laden with macho posturing, terrible one-liners, and innuendo that is neither clever or funny. The romantic development between Jake (Cage) and Billie Lee (Young) could hardly be called development at all--for the first two-thirds of the film Billie Lee says no, then once Jake passes a difficult flight examination she says yes. This is the character who has a chip on her shoulder because of gender discrimination in the Army. Hilariously enough, when it actually comes to the final battle, she has to be walked through how to assemble a gun with pandering instructions like, "Take that cigar-box shaped thing and stick it with that coffee can shaped thing..." Insulting. The villains are the drug cartels. We do not see them at all in the film. They send a helicopter pilot henchman to defend themselves in the climax. Since we do not see them how do we know they are bad? Just trust the Army blindly that he was bad. And you'll have to trust me when I say Fire Birds was just as bad.

5/10

P.S.: There are not one, but TWO Phil Collins songs on the soundtrack.

Oblivion (2013)

A generous step up from SyFy Channel fare, but a step down from genuinely good science fiction action, Oblivion is an ambitious misfire. Tom Cruise stars as one of a two member crew assigned to maintain drones on Earth. They answer to a commander dispatching from a enormous structure in the sky called the Tet. It's an idiotic premise right off the bat. Fortunately, this problem is slightly remedied as the film progresses and the conspiracies / twists are revealed. Slightly. The main characters are, on the whole, bland with Tom Cruise playing his screen self and the supporting characters not really adding very much. Not even Morgan Freeman, whose role in the film was short and somewhat disappointing. Everyone appeared to be trying, but no one really stuck out. The aesthetic of this future is ripped out of other sci-fi films (the future is always sleek and white), and the special effects are heavily reliant on CGI (yawn). The soundtrack was a definite cut above the usual contemporary action film soundtrack as it showed some signs of good production and was reminiscent of Tangerine Dream at times. Probably not something I'd listen to on its own, but it was nice to see some thought put into the music for a change.

6/10