Hello, I’m back! Sorry I have been a bit inactive lately, recently it’s just been a lot of hard work working on this Roulette series, both emotionally and physically! This is all because gambling is not one of my best suits and unlike the last Roulette I was given what must be the most average bunch of movies anyone should be given to watch.
If they’re just average then it shouldn’t be too bad, right? I would normally agree, but a bad movie is fun to talk about if it’s ironically entertaining or even plain abysmal. Average movies on the other hand are average for a reason and therefore not worth mentioning.
Don’t worry, there are a few silver linings here so let’s get started. As always if you want to try this torture out for yourself links are below.

232: World War Z (2013)
Remember when the zombie genre was a big thing? Thank World War Z for being one of the reasons everyone got tired of zombies.
The movie stars Brad Pitt as an everyday perfect white man saving his perfect white family, and humanity, from a violent horde of bloodless hungry zombies. It’s the most generic Hollywood blockbuster movie and it’s so uninteresting that I allowed my mind to wander.
To sum up every scene, basically Brad Pitt goes to a location, learns the necessary exposition from a boring one off character, zombies show up, people die, Brad Pitt leaves location and the cycle starts again.
There isn’t much praise I can give it but it does look nice. The best scene in the movie was when some scientist guy was freaked out by the zombies, so he runs, but slips and shoots himself in the head. I had to do a double take on that and it earned a well deserved laugh. That’s it. Next!

1756: Eragon (2006)
Eragon. I remember when it came out as it was around the time of The Golden Compass movie. I mention this because both movies dropped out of relevancy immediately after their box office results checked in.
This movie is above World War Z because it had much more potential. If this movie was more like How to Train your Dragon by mainly focusing on the bond of the young kid and his dragon it would be way better. Unfortunately HTTYD didn’t exist yet so it was trying to be the next Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter by making this big epic universe with the added bonus of cool looking dragons. Too bad it forgot one of the key elements that made those franchises so great and that’s to make the characters and the world interesting and to make it standout from the competition by not being forgettable boring fodder.
Before seeing this I already knew this movie was depending on a sequel that will never happen, but after the credits rolled I only then realised I didn’t really care about anything in this story. I only liked Jeremy Iron’s character because he’s played by Jeremy Irons, an actor I like. I didn’t care much for Eragon because he’s a generic wide-eyed fantasy protagonist.
There are some cool shots in this that reminded me of better movies. The CGI on the dragon wasn’t too bad for 2006, but those dragon rides on the other hand were atrociously fake looking. Lastly I didn’t know magic was this easy as all it takes is to know a few elf words and the world is then yours to bend. Damn, who needs a dragon when learning magic is so easy! I may have misinterpreted that, but whatever, let’s move on!

530: Kingpin (1996)
Sorry, comedies aren’t really my thing, especially raunchy comedies, which is where Kingpin lies.
I will give Kingpin credit as it’s our first movie that’s on the slightly above average scale. Also for being the most unexpected movie on this list. I had the feeling Woody Harrelson’s character was going to have to come out of a rough place, but I didn’t expect it would be because he got beaten up by the mob and they forced his hand into one of those bowling ball return things. Thus forcing Woody to wear long sleeve shirts for the rest of the movie to hide the fact that he’s holding onto his prosthetic hook hand.
Other than that I found most of the humour too stupid for me and how the main three characters end up on this road trip together and become best friends felt really forced. I guess what saves it is the acting and how the actors deliver their jokes. Bill Murray is in this and though he’s not in it much when he shows up he’s great at playing the most unlikable ass in a movie.
Not too bad, I might watch it again one day.

2079: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
Hitchhiker’s Guide takes the cake for being the most strange movie I have seen for this series thus far. The main appeal being the abstract ridiculous concepts that the movie throws out there. For example there is The Infinite Improbability Drive which can take you anywhere across the galaxy with no worry of crashing into anything on the way. There are some side effects, but don’t worry they don’t last long.
This type of comedy is very much up my alley as this is a hilarious movie. One of my favourite sequences is when our heroes have to go and rescue the damsel, but instead of shooting up the place, they queue up and fill out some release forms before she is eaten by a space monster. Another was Stephen Fry’s narrations for the actual Guide of the Galaxy and here is where my problems start.
Hitchhiker’s gets too carried away with it’s own comedy at multiple points throughout the film. It’s trying to be the funniest thing ever with it’s concepts and clever commentary while also telling this fun story with these quirky characters and it’s struggles to do both. It’s all over the place with the locations it goes to and the characters it chooses to focus on. I genuinely forgot about the evil hunchback aliens at numerous points. It was almost too much for me because less than 30 minutes in I wanted to shut it off. Luckily my obsession with completion helped me get used to it’s style and helped me finish the movie, which I’m glad I did.
If Hitchhiker did one thing right, it made me want to check out Douglas Adams’ books to get the best version of this messy confused movie.

7220: Shock (1946)
Our final movie was actually pretty good, it’s the most consistent out of the movies we have covered in this post.
Shock tells the story of a woman waiting in a hotel so she can meet her husband who is now just returning from the war, but tragedy strikes when this woman witnesses Vincent Price murder his wife in the room across the hall and she goes into shock. The rest of this 70 minute movie is dedicated to Vincent Price and his affair partner debating if it’s okay to purposely make the other woman go insane so they can cover up his accidental killing of his wife.
For what it was able to pull off it’s good. It kept the suspense building for the whole movie and there was some good acting that made the melodramatic moments more tolerable. If it was even shorter then this would be a perfect movie, maybe.
The biggest Shock was that this little movie I haven’t heard of was better than those four other crappy movies that I’ve known about for years!! Argh! I’m tired, this third part has bummed me out. I can’t do this series on a monthly basis if I’m going to be watching the same mediocre garbage every time. So if there isn’t a fourth Roulette anytime soon, that’s because I got another bad hand.
Once again, another great collection of reviews! Out of these films, I’ve only seen ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. However, I was not a fan of it. Your review of ‘Shock’ has convinced me to check the movie out! Maybe I’ll review it for the “Clean Movie Month” Blogathon. If you want to learn why I don’t like ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, I’ll provide a link to my list of the Worst Movies I Saw in 2019. I will also post a link to my review of ‘Long of the Long Shadows’, since you talked about one of Vincent Price’s films.
https://18cinemalane.wordpress.com/2019/12/30/the-top-10-worst-movies-i-saw-in-2019/
https://18cinemalane.wordpress.com/2020/04/17/take-3-house-of-the-long-shadows-review/
No problem glad you enjoyed it! I’m normally quite fond of Sci-Fi so that probably gave Hitchhiker’s a bit of an edge over most other comedies. Hope you enjoy Shock, I still can’t believe it was the best out of those 5 movies.
Thanks! Looking forward to Part 4 if you choose to write about it!
We shall see, stay tuned! 😉