Puppet Master: Axis of Evil [Blu-ray]

Puppet Master "Axis of Evil" What happened to the great acting in the Puppet Master series? This film was a real letdown. I have been an avid fan of this series since the very first film, Puppet Master. This film is not anywhere near how the originals were acted. The actors are horribly amateur. Each puppet was only shown once in the film and they are the main reason I watch these films. I wanted to see more puppet action, not bad acting. The evil madame was the worst campy bad guy (girl) I've ever seen in a movie. No, this is not how I envisioned this movie to be. And then they don't even finish the story, they leave it open ended so they can make another one. Not cool. Stick to the originals. Buy Puppet Master 3 Toulon's Revenge (the Best), or Retro Puppet Master (second Best),or even Puppet Master 1 or 2,4,5. Any other one is better than this one. Sure, the originals had some campiness to them, But it was classy campy! Rating: 2 (Puppet Master: Axis of Evil [Blu-ray] customer review by J. J. Law, 2010-08-29)

Full Moon Strings It's Fans Along Make no mistake about it; the glory days of Full Moon are over. Puppet Master 9 is a drab, horribly written, dreadfully acted mess. When I say it (the film) has no redeemable qualities, I'm not kidding. This film is so low-budget, even the puppets barely move. Puppet Master 9 is allegedly a direct follow-up to Puppet Master 3, which set the Puppet Master and his creations in the middle of World War II. It was a novel approach that breathed new life into the dying series after the wrong turn of Puppet Master 2. This film, however, is far from a successor to PM3. The story concerns a young man who discovers Andre Toulon's puppets hidden away after Toulon kills himself to prevent Hitler and the German army from stealing the secret of the animated puppets. What follows is endless talking about how the main character would love to kill Nazis, but his bad leg prevents him from doing so. It's not till the very end that all this talk comes to any sort of fruition with the boy and the puppets taking on the Nazis who chased Toulon to his death. The sets look as if constructed by a high school drama team, and the actors as if they only just graduated from there. As a long time fan of Full Moon Films, I had rather high hopes that this would be a return to what once made Full Moon Films something to look forward to. Alas, it was not meant to be. Save your money and find copies of Puppet Master 1 and 3, the best of the series. Rating: 1 (Puppet Master: Axis of Evil [Blu-ray] customer review by Tai Pan, 2010-07-30)

Finally!, Full Moon is Making Movies Again. With the recent very disappointing Demonic Toys 2, i really didn't have much hope for Full Moon Films or Puppet Master: Axis of Evil. But i couldn't resist watching a Puppet Master film, even though last few havent been gold,(PM VS DT, RETRO, and CURSE(Curse wasnt that bad)). After viewing the new Puppet MAster i got this sudden reminder of the golden age of Full Moon Films: Sub-par Acting, Bits of Gore here and there and Low Budget but actually gave a crap about the movie. I wont say Puppet MAster: Axis of Evil is 5 star film because their are flaws to the film, but its still very solid fun movie. Good Work...oh yeah the ending...Big CLiffhanger. Rating: 4 (Puppet Master: Axis of Evil [Blu-ray] customer review by Eva Kelly, 2010-07-28)

The Puppets are back, baby The Puppet Master films are a series that had fallen on hard times. The once proud films had been the shinning star of the Full Moon empire. As Full Moon fell, so too did these films. The decline started promptly after part three, as bad acting, poor scripts, and embarrassing directing murdered a once proud franchise. They hit their low with the piss poor Legacy film, which was nothing more than a rehash of footage, with a few small vignettes to bring it together. After feeling ripped off by the secret origin of the puppets in Retro, and the confusing absence of Rick Myers in part 6, I was worried about what I was getting when I picked this up at the San Diego Comic Con. The most recent Full Moon films, Evil Bong, and the Killjoy films weren't even good enough to use to balance an uneven table. It was purely a whim that I grabbed this, but I had a few hours to kill in the hotel. I was very pleased with what I had when I finally popped it in to view it. Nothing mind blowing, and perhaps a little slow to pick up, but when it did, hot damn! Nazi's drop dead, and, well, that is always awesome (let's not forget the greatness that was part 3.) This movie won't win any Oscars, nor will it change how you feel films should be made, but it breaths life back into a franchise that I had written of 15 years ago. You actually care about the characters (which I haven't done for a Full Moon film in years,) and the main star manages to have his angst over being cripple without being obnoxious. The puppets are well done, and the villains are evil, without being over the top. This movie has heart, and that makes it stand out in the very crowded B-horror film genre. If you, like me, thought this franchise would never drag itself out of the mire, rejoice, the puppets are back, and they bring back with them the mayhem and action they had once delivered so well. It is truly a heartwarming coming of age film. Our hero Don goes from likable, but unfocused boy, to puppet wielding Nazi killing man in 80 mins of smartly put together film, with few surprises, but no mistakes. Hopefully this will be the great return of these films, and a triumphant comeback for Full Moon. Often at the end of reviews for recent Full Moon films, people say the film was so bad it was good. I would just say that this film was simply good. Rating: 4 (Puppet Master: Axis of Evil [Blu-ray] customer review by John Cochrane, 2010-07-26)

A Welcome Return So Full Moon return to the franchise that made them a name. It's been quite a while, and Full Moon's output of recent years is really nothing to brag about, so we could only hope and pray that a new Puppet Master would remind us of the quirky fun Full Moon had put out in the 90s. The Puppet Masters weren't high art to begin with, and they got pretty lousy near the end there(Retro Puppet Master!), but Axis of Evil brings the series back and seems more like one of the Full Moon films of yesteryear. Demonic Toys 2 was another recent more ambitious Full Moon film, but fell pretty short. Axis of Evil is much more fun. It's a prequel, and ties more into the plotlines of parts 1 and 3. During WWII, Danny wants nothing more than to fight for his country, but a bad leg from polio has kept him out of the military. He's refinishing furniture in the Bodega Bay hotel at the same time puppetmaster, Andre Toulon is hiding out there from the Nazis. In a clever editing of new footage mixed with the original opening sequence of the first film, we see that Danny arrived at Toulon's room right after his suicide and sees the two Nazi spies ransacking the room. Danny manages to find Toulon's trunk(too easily), and our little puppet heroes inside. Danny discovers a Nazi sabotage plot, and armed with his new puppet friends he finds that he can indeed fight for his country after all. Like I said, it's actually quite fun. The WWII setting is good, the tie-in with the opening scenes of the first film are clever, and the story, while not epic by any means, is interesting. The movie is obviously low budget, though not as low as recent Full Moon features. The puppets are still "nice", as they have been since Part 3, and I kind of miss the evil puppets of the first two films. The puppet effects are nothing to brag about, quite primitive, actually. They make the David Allen stop motion animation of the first two films look like Spielberg in comparison. And in the tradition of many Full Moon films, the film doesn't so much end as it does stop in it's tracks, as if the film had run out. Oh, we'll be seeing another Puppet Master in the near future. And considering Axis of Evil, that's not a bad thing. Rating: 4 (Puppet Master: Axis of Evil [Blu-ray] customer review by Stanley Runk, 2010-07-24)