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moorek
Reviews
The Marvels (2023)
Trim 30 minutes and approach it as a pre-teen movie and it would be OK
By the time I saw this movie, added, I think unofficially, to Youtube, I knew what to expect. It was as bad as everyone said but had at its core an OK superhero plot.
First thing is that you have to go into this movie thinking of it as a pre-teen movie. I'd say teen movie but I think it was still a little too immature for most teens. If you accept that then you'll accept some of the tropes of pre-teen movies such as there will time when the teens are correct and the adults wrong. That's the basis of those movies. So accepting that, you can appreciate the tone of the movie.
Secondly some of the worst elements of the movie could be edited out without changing much of the movie. We could have them arrive on the water planet then remove all the dance and music. Then jump to the scene of them in uniform walking down the stairs. Remove any references to how few escape ships there are on the space station and thus remove the whole thing about the cats eating the people. In fact you could likely edit out the whole egg story line.
With some edits you have an hour long movie with a logical plot, in as logical as superhero movies go.
Overall it is a bad movie not just for the terrible elements but for making Captain Marvel, who is very powerful, come across so undecided and weak.
I mentioned in continuity errors of an error that is far worse than just a continuity error. What is the core element of the story? Don't bring the two bracelets together. But that happens and Ms. Marvel uses them to charge Monica for the big finale. Yet when she walks off the shuttle only a short time later, she is only wearing one bracelet as she was the whole movie. (We see Captain Marvel re-starting the sun and she's not wearing one.) How could this be missed regardless of the shooting order? It's a core message of the plotline. And when you did notice it, go back and add it in post-production with CGI. If you wanted to do it easier, go back to the Captain Marvel footage which is already CGI and just give her once bracelet. It wouldn't explain why but it would explain why Ms. Marvel only had one. When the Director makes this obvious a mistake then you know he's not focused on the movie s/he is making.
Svaniti nella notte (2024)
Average but has some highlights...
I didn't know what to expect but the opening scene with them all diving into the water gave me hope that it would at least have great visuals. The movie was slow but that seemed to work at first. We are left to fill in some of the blanks in many areas but that's not too bad as the details aren't as important as they are simply the catalyst for further actions. Let we are left wondering why some aspects became so extreme. For example who was the man who called and demanded the ransom. That's a fairly loose end to have floating out there.
There are subtle parts that make you think something else might be happening. Does the old friend who lends the money know more than he is letting on? Is the night boat trip a set up? Why aren't the children forthcoming with their father about what happened? Yes they were drugged but they must clearly remember the boat trip, the sea urchins, visiting the Uncle's boat and being at the farm. Even if they don't remember how they woke up at Mom's place. So we do create a variety of scenarios.
In the end the core blackmail plot makes no sense. Using the tape for blackmail would expose the whole thing. Even if the tape were the evidence for a crime, at worst he could say he was drunk and made up the story. There is no other evidence. But if the case proceeded anywhere then the whole rational for the drug run would come out. There would be the proof the kids were at the farm. There would be NO proof that the mother actually took a flight somewhere as she didn't. The kids would tell their story of going asleep at Dad's and waking up at Mom's.
Since they would have no memory of it then them being drugged would be suspected and tests done. The drugs would have been detected. There would be the question of why she taped him upon entering with his story as there was no previous evidence of any odd behaviour. The call with the blackmail might have be deleted but they would have found the call on his phone even if she used a burner to make her call. The fact she had the kids ready to go the very night after she taped the call would be very suspicious. Also if she only wanted him to get dirty money then that wouldn't even be such a negative thing. He goes to the only person he knows with that kind of money and if the guy lent it to him then there is no way to know if it is dirty money, laundered money or if this could be legitimate money. As she said herself, she didn't know he would be asked to do something illegal. So in the end even if everything came out, he might have gotten off because he was trying to save his kids. The mother would never have been given custody.
Having said that I did still enjoy the movie. It was too bad that he only got 150,00 Euros as he owes 250,000. So his future is still not clear. And I did enjoy the ending. Unlike some, I don't think it is his imagination as we the audience see her through the door before he does. So if she has come back then where the hell do things go from here? Nothing good will come from this. A sequel? Unlikely.
Overall I liked the acting. I liked Wallis in some scenes but in others, she didn't seem to be as good. It would be curious to see which scenes were filmed first as she likely wasn't in the character yet.
Hard to imagine the two children were hers as I couldn't see any familial similarities at all.
Worth an evening watch.
Gods of the Deep (2023)
Should I give it 2 stars?
When I saw this on Youtube and it was listed as 2024 then I thought it was one of those short-lived uploads of a good recent movies. Sadly I was wrong. It might be short-lived but I suspect it will stay here as that would likely be the only location to find viewers.
Normally I look for the good in a movie first but there is so little to find here. Actually the only thing I can say that I really liked about the movie was Rowena Bentley. She intrigued me from the first and I suspect she is much better in anything else that she has done. She has little to work with here.
The bad is actually everything else. One of these writer/director movies when the person really doesn't have the skill to do one or the other well.
PLOT. There really isn't one. Or many there are too many but none go anywhere. Is it sci-fi? Metaphysical? Conspiratory. Dad issues? God envy. Is it a portal or just an abandoned underwater structure? Full of most stereotypes from other movies from the Abyss to Aliens. In fact if you think of this as a really really low budget underwater version of Aliens then you might understand it.
ACTING. Average at the very best and then only for 2-3 of the actors. Terrible for most. Again they can only work with what they are given.
SET DESIGN. Bad. Takes place on a submersible that is very large and yet it feels like they were sets in a person's garage.
PACING. It might not be pacing but just poor writing but so much happens so quickly without any sense of development. No sense of underwater preparation for the assembled crew. No efforts to show them how this amazing submersible works. At least two people use the sub-submersible and a third was going to without any sense that they were taught how. There are references to what the earlier probes saw but that's never followed up on. That was likely the most glaring oversight. You say it is a portal. You say some probes came back. When you ask what they found - you are brushed off. What? You want us to go further down into the ocean to explore something and you won't tell us what the probes recorded?
So hard to recommend even if you are bored. Better to re-watch a movie you like even if you've seen it a dozen times. Now for me to go see if I can find Rowena Bentley in some other movie.
Dark Planet (1997)
Is two too generous?
This is the kid of movie that you watch on a slow night, like tonight, and it is free of Prime. You anticipate how the movie will go and you are not wrong.
Nothing really works in this movie and the plot is also non-sensical. Four things really stand out poorly:
* The Dark Lighting. It is often difficult to even see what is going on.
* Overall the acting is poor and don't be fooled by those who say Michael York is good in this. He's not. But worst, the main male lead is just terrible. How did he get this role?
* Eyes. There are so many close up of people's eyes. Dull spots in the movie where time just drags by with more footage of someone's eyes supposedly expressing some emotion.
* They make the effort to have two strong female characters but they rarely do anything. It is always the men that come to the rescue. It is especially annoying when the male lead, an Ensine, at the end is talking for all of them even though they both outrank him and when he's talking of their abilities, throws in they are beautiful. What the hell has that to do with preventing the new settlers bringing their war efforts with them?
So why did I watch it? Because I was enthralled with Harley. Jane Kozak. I have seen her in other things but she came across differently in this. I kept waiting until the dominant character she was portraying actually did something but the script never got there. But I liked her appearance and demeanor. I just read that she now spends much time writing mystery novels so I'm going to try those. She has been in better projects but she was the one character I watched the whole movie just to watch.
Project 12: The Bunker (2016)
A B movie but a good B movie
When you see Eric Roberts is in a movie, you can be sure of two things. 1) You'll have an actor with the greatest hair in Hollywood and 2) the movie will be B at best. So this is a B and maybe not at best but close.
We've seen these types of movies made over and over. Why did I find this one stood out over the others?
GENREA SWITCH. The first half of the movie comes across as some type of international spy or heist film with a crew from all over the world. The second half is a B level, suspenseful, jump scare horror movie that should be lumped with zombie movies.
LOCATION. I read it was filmed on the Canary Island which I know nothing about but some of the exterior shots are different than most B movies. They at least spent the money to go to an exotic location. The latter half of the interior shots were clearly in some type of facility that also looked unique to me.
I felt they also did well utilizing small sets and then dark sets to project a variety of locations. There is one scene, in the dark, where they pass and old car while being told the bunker has not been open for 40 years or so and there is really nothing to set that scene except that old car.
EDITING/CAMERA WORK. While nothing in this movie would be considered unique, they did try and use different perspectives that we've seen in other movies such as sequential lights in a corridor; the use of up-close in focus to fade to distant focus. Nothing special but for a B movie they tried.
ACTING. Overall the acting was very middle-of-the road. But there were times when I thought the actor (or the screenplay) took a step beyond B level. The scene where Irina re-enters the corridor saying "we need explosives" and then see the Soviet soldier and draws her gun almost didn't seem rehearsed. When Alan is talking to. Tabeel about shooting the soldier multiple times, he appears to be on the edge of a breakdown. When I saw that, I was thinking that is how many movies should play the first experience with zombies or monsters or whatever. The character just not understanding what the hell just happened.
I liked Joaquin. Sanchez at Tabeel and would like to see him in other things. Natashia Alam could go on to do better movies with the right direction as she has some previous movie and TV credits but she's not done much since this movie. While I can't picture anyone other than Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, I think Alam could have done the role justice.
PLOT. There's no need to think about the plot as there is really very little there. The "key" is actually a small key. Really? When we see what the key opens, you realize that could have been forced for far less effort than going to get the key. I don't think there is ever any reference to exactly what they were doing to make these super soldiers. Or why their eyes glow red.
It has the irksome things that many B level horror movies do like separating into smaller groups. Noises nearby that don't lead to jump scares. Although I think this movie did that well as that set the tone for what we would see.
A few plot points are given away too early, such as the Koreans,. But to give credit, it makes sense it would be the North Koreans as who else might know of these experiments? The two main "villains" are killed running from a blast which on one hand is fitting and a fast way to end them but on the other hand, we are used to there being some type of more focused revenge or ironic death.
I've gone on for too long as the movie really isn't that great but clearly I found it oddly interesting as many B movies are not interesting.
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
I don't normally give 1 star reviews
There are times when I'll watch really bad movies but still give them 3-5 stars because they tried to do something different or with a limited budget. They fall short but deserve some credit IF the movie is worth watching for some reasons. Now if it is an absolutely terrible move regardless of budget then it gets a low rating. But I don't give one star too often.
As someone who watched all of the earlier MCU movies up to End Game and then many afterwards, I like this universe. I even like a number of the movies that other fans don't like. However Thor: Love and Thunder destroyed so much and with such a large budget and with such great cast that it deserves a zero score.
I watched this with caution especially as I didn't like Thor Ragnarok very much. The latter was a bit too silly at parts but became a serious movie in the end. Almost two different movies. Sadly not the case here. The humour was poor throughout and placed in all the wrong places. No sense of comedic pacing.
Hard to describe all the things wrong with this movie but the key ones were:
Destroyed any notion of Thor as a noble God or superhero. They have just continued the descent of this character into ridiculousness. We need a complete reboot to bring Thor back. And not just Thor but also his weapons. The treating of Stormbreaker like a pet was one of the low points.
Likely one of the lowest points for the Guardians of the Galaxy cast as well.
Nothing was above bad humour. Dialogue. There was a ridiculous God of Dumplings. Just terrible ideas. Asgard also losing any mystic that it had and now being a tourist scam. And that terrible play. It was a little funny when Loki arranged it but no excuse for it in this movie. And on a minor point, taking Melissa McCarthy, who I like in most things, and making her Hela, who had been portrayed very well by Cate Blanchett, just seemed insulting to both actors. Clearly we are to immediately recognize that the distinctive, strong, athletic Blanchett Hela is now being played by a short, chubbier woman. The type of cheap laughs as the expense of both women.
And then the overused, burnt out music of the 60's and 70's because there hasn't been any other music made in the last 50 years.
Hopefully Marvel learned their lesson and will never let Waititi never a movie again. He's good with smaller movies designed to be comedies. But he doesn't know how to provide balance between humour and drama. Yet considering how much dialogue Korg Iaka Waititi) had then he likely thinks he does. He have to wonder if he realized the self-referential irony when Korg says that he can't be destroyed as long as the talking mouth remains intact.
The first Marvel movie that I would not recommend anyone watch. Makes the second Thor movie look like a masterpiece. I'd watch Sony's Morbius again long before I'd watch any of this movie..
After the Lethargy (2018)
Not good but worth a look
If you go into this thinking of it as a horror movie instead of sci-fi or alien then it comes off a little better. It is still a low budget B movie but has some interesting twists even if they are not fully fledge out.
Just to note that this is one of those beginning movies by a guide who wrote it and directed it. In sort doesn't have editors or producers to focus him.
LOCATION. The location is simple and they use some same spots more than once but knowing it is in Spain then the area was new to me including whatever old base they filmed inside of. I liked that.
ACTING. The acting was sub-par most of the time but it looks like a number of actors, and maybe all of them, were dubbed. Hard to tell. I think for sure the police officers were.
The actress who played the nurse played her part well.
PLOT. The Alien Invasion element seems minor and not really the point of the movie. This is a enforced human-alien hybrid impregnation program so the scares revolve around that the most.
There are a couple of plot twists that are easy to predict if you are thinking about them but since the movie doesn't make you think too hard then they came as a bit of a surprise.
There are a couple of subplots that don't really go anywhere nor are explained.
ENDING. I wonder if people skipping quickly through the movie miss the ending. One reviewer said he didn't like movies that don't have an ending. But this one has a clear ending. The woman escapes and runs into the guy making the videos, just after he says that one of the evil doctor's sons has a mark on his face. So when the woman finds the police and is "rescued", it is revealed that the police officer has a mark on his face. (A rather drastic one so we couldn't miss it.) So as we see at the very end, she's back in captivity. Also the park ranger shows up and then repeats the same dialogue that he did at the start of the movie as this time he goes after female victim. So we are left with the bad guys winning.
It is worth an hour plus of your time although should not be a high priority if you have many other movies to watch.
White Sky (2021)
It's slow but oddly compelling
I had watched the trailer on Netflix a few times but never watched it. It seemed a little slow in the trailer so would likely be equally slow in the actual movie. That turned out to be correct. The trailer also showed this was a very low budget and it was right on that too. So I skipped it until tonight.
The movie plotline never really gelled and was all over the place but it deserves credit for trying to do a few things differently. It didn't know if it wanted to be sci-fi, horror or just a thriller. It wasn't sure if it was an alien invasion or zombie movie. Yet there were elements that I liked such as the "social structure" of the infected humans - when they would move slowly or fast. Or when they'd stop and just bow down. Like the "smoke" effect off the back of the running aliens. The hole in the forehead deaths was interesting if unexplained. In fact I think that was what was both a little interesting and a little frustrating in that we never get any explanation.
The subplot of the junkie sister was unnecessary and just added confusion to the story. The ending was frustrating too as it came out of nowhere and we really can't be sure exactly what it means. Is she pregnant by. Josh after he was infected?
I didn't mind any of the actors although none were outstanding. Martins was certainly the best of the group and I enjoyed her character even if she did have some terrible lines at time.
The woods setting was useful and the aerial shots of the forest certainly gave us the impression of actual wilderness. However , as often happens in B movies, there are some scenes where you can see fences or structures in the background showing you that they really aren't that deep into any wilderness.
One irritating flaw was the poor editing for night and day. Some scenes flicked back and forth between day and night. That was surprising and I thought the overall quality of the direction was decent enough to not have that kind of continuity problem.
It is a movie that you'll only watch once and you'll be interested at the potential it had even if that potential wasn't realized.
Alien Armageddon (2011)
Might deserve 4 stars... maybe
Watched the movie on Youtube which is about what you'd want to pay for it. Free. (Well technically I do pay a monthly Youtube membership so I did pay something to see it.) But that is being mean as I think all involved really tried to do something with their limited budget.
Overall the acting wasn't especially good. Oddly I did like the main actress. (Katherine McEwan) even if she seems to just yell in most scenes. In the 13 years since this film has been released I see she's been in other productions so it will be good to see her and see if she has improved. .Rochelle Vallese was stilted but it fit the cold personality she was supposed to be. Esp when she drove away and not telling Jody that her daughter was back at the ruins. It was also good to see Virginia Hey in a small role.
Locations weren't especially good, again clearly low budget. You can have movies with limited locations (Cube for example) but you need better writing and plot development for that to work well.
What I liked about this movie was they tried to incorporate themes from a dozen different movies or TV shows and while none of them ever work well, you're always wondering what might happen. The female doctor is injected with something but we don't see what happens. We don't get a good explanation for why the "pregnant" women are dropping hard "babies" into the buckets. We don't know how the cowboy escapes and knows how to fly their machines. It's an alien invasion where the aliens have to be the worst terrestrial attackers and should easily be killed off by any trained soldier. It looks like they might have wanted to go with a Lesbian subplot but didn't go there. I don't think they mention blood type again after Cowboy is captured. If they are being fed the meat to become food when they become sick then why did the guy initially in the cell turn up as an alien stormtrooper instead of as food?
And while the movie suffered from the issues filmed in the real world but in a future desolated world - grounds are tidy; cars are clean and roads surprisingly free of blocked cars. - there were some scenes that were appropriately grimy like the birthing scene. Also the, maybe too often, vomiting and using the prison toilet scenes.
I rarely fast forwarded through it which is always a good sign that a B - C level movie has caught my attention..
Leave the World Behind (2023)
Best to Fast Forward through most and watch it in about 20 minutes
Like many others have said... lots of potential but just tossed away.
You can go through the movie event by event to criticize but none of them really make too much sense. The worse problem is that the timing of the "attack" is off. A simple example is that they have signal on the beach when the ship grounds ashore but there's no attempt by anyone to alert them to this. No one on the ship or on land or in any official capacity recognizes the ship is heading for shore? And this is likely not the only ship. No official national broadcast on cell phones? We get them for relatively minor weather anomalies and amber alerts. You'd think warning small craft and beach goers that some, if not all, ships might be heading shorelines would be important. And why ships first? Planes would be a more logical first target. Stopping all electronics in cars and stranding millions of people would be better.
Some of the actions and reactions make no sense. When Julia Roberts remarks that they should be doing something like saving water, the Scott character, who suspects what might be happening, is the one who tries to stop them getting prepared. Hell when I hear a tropical storm is coming my way; I stockpile water in case I lose power and yet I have a generator to run my pump for the well but I still fill the bathtub etc.
When the son starts to lose his teeth, people start thinking it might be the insect bite or even Lyme Disease. Scott says he's seen odder things? Even his daughter questions that. You don't have to have any medical background to know that you don't get a disease that takes out your teeth overnight.
Even if the scenario that Scott outlines is true - it makes no sense with relations to the animals strange behaviour. There is no connection.
The movie is just full of these odd elements that would work in a more cohesive plot but just fall short here. You can't help but think they are purposely manipulating the audience to thinking this might be a horror movie or alien invasion.
Yet in the end it appears to be the type of attack that Scott outlines which just doesn't work with parts of what we saw.
Overall the acting is not bad. Ethan Hawke plays a really useless person and that seemed off for the actor but the fact it did seem out of the ordinary, implies he pulled it off. Esp his request for help at Kevin Bacon's house. Julia Roberts was Julia Roberts although more dull and boring. Ali was his normal self but had some bad dialogue. Myha'la was a throw-away actor in a throw-away character. MacKenzie wasn't bad and in some parts carried scenes. Evans was a fairly average character but he did come across well as the tolerating old brother.
Some say the ending is the point of the movie but even if that is the case, and I'd suggest it isn't, then the point could still be articulated. If we go on what the movie implies, "Friends" takes us back to a safer, simpler times. However before the events of this movie unfold, this is a family that seems to be living that middle-class lifestyle. They are living in that safer, simpler times. I'd suggest if the ending is the point of the movie, it is because Friends represents all the dullness and self-focus of American society and thus the reason whey the USA would be attacked from the outside..
In the end you can fast forward through much of this movie. You can tell when there are long periods of exposition which really don't do anything for a movie about the beginning of a global disaster.
Ju ji shou (2022)
Worth a watch
War movies are not my favourites mainly as the vast majority of them are so strongly one-sided - regardless if Americans or Chinese make the movie. We have decades of pro-western war movies and in the last decade, China has been pumping out pro-Chinese movies. It is why when directors take the time to make a good war movie like Tora, Tora, Tora or Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers / Letters from Iwo Jima then those films so easily stand out compared to so many bad movies.
This movie will never fall into any "great war movies" list but it is worth a watch for a few reasons. It is a good example of Chinese military movie propaganda if you've not seen any other similar movies. Certainly no different than any western propaganda war movie. Some great camera work. Some good acting from some of the Chinese cast. The American cast were rather dull with very negative dialogue that made them out as evil while the Chinese appeared honourable - ignoring that they were helping maintain a dictatorship in Korea.
One thing I enjoyed was the fact it was winter and the filming appears to have been shot in an winter environment although it might be possible that some of the trench scenes were done in a studio. But it gave some realism to the movie. A few times you see Chinese fingers that really look like they are close to frost bitten. However on the other hand, the whites of their camouflage, especially the Americans, were just too white. No sign of dirt esp on the helmets.
Overall there were many tense scenes that worked for me as soldiers fought at each other. Also a movie where almost no one gets out alive.
Resurrected (2023)
Surprisingly Good
This sort of caught my eye on Netflix but from the start it caught my attention and pulled me in.
ACTING. Overall I enjoyed the acting. I'm not sure why some people don't like it but many of these people feel like real people and not in a movie. The main character is a little inconsistent but still overall is not bad. The boy who played the son at the beginning was very good. The actor who played him when older was more aloof but we could assume that was part of the resurrection process. The coldness of the ex-wife to the husband is so perfect for good reason. I really enjoyed the acting of the actress who played the hacker.
DIALOGUE. Much of the dialogue feels like normal conversation. The kinds of things people really say and not scripted.
PLOT. I found many elements of the storyline unique or unusual You're never sure if it's going to go in a certain way or not. Maybe become full blown horror or paranormal but doesn't do anything. I found the movie tense from start to finish.
SUBTILTY and PACING. At times things that happened without being telegraphed or were in the background. Some examples:
*It was a little jarring to see the father go from being a bearded recluse in a motel room to being a priest but we really didn't need to see his redemption.
*At one point in the movie he just says he stole a phone but we didn't need to see him steal the phone.
*He escapes his apartment without any need for a big chase or even exposition of the police finding the FBI body
*At the end he's blamed for the murder of many as the church continues to cover up the problem.
*The use of mobile cameras allowed for many casual everyday things that we might miss in other movies - even things like moving the liquor bottle to the side.
FORMAT. The whole movie is made using mobile or CCTV cameras and I think it was done very well. Unlike many found footage movies, the majority of the images in this movie were clear.
NEGATIVES. There are not many things I found negative about the film. Some were very minor:
*I'd have liked to have known how the process worked but that really wasn't the point of the story.
*While much was not telegraphed, a few things were (FBI agent, wafer) but not too serious. At the same time, prior to the FBI agent, there had been two other times when we thought it was being set up and nothing happened.
*An obvious plot element considering over a billion people had been resurrected - how did those in the cult know which ones had already been resurrected or not. If you're shooting someone at a distance or hitting them with your car then you could be killing one of your own.
*The speed and clarity that others did not believe the hacker when she was putting in her messages under the FBI's handle. There might need have been some password or phrasing to make that kind of statement but we'll never know.
*The story is in the USA but some of the mass murders are in other countries. The FBI would not be involved in those. Do we assume all the intelligence forces around the world have been infiltrated so that no one finds their way to the dark web website?
Overall it is a movie that I would recommend to most people I know.
Awareness (2023)
Squandered Potential
I knew nothing of this movie until I saw it on Prime and decided to watch it. There are some good elements and effects to the movie but too many fall flat pulling the movie down.
It starts out fast which I like. No waiting 10-15 minutes before the story comes into play. It opens with Ian using his powers, then almost right away the pursuit. There are a number of slow moments in the film but also some good staged action pieces.
The acting is okay for the most part. The two female leads are the better actors or at least have better written characters. Pedraza as Esther is usually good and does the choreographed fight scenes well. Loren as Adriana does her best aloof Noomi Rapace imitation but it works.
There are a few elements that show the potential but they are not followed up with. The most obvious one is if Esther is truly an illusion. If you go back you see that she never interacts with Ian's father when they are together. The father never references her. Ian might have shot past her and not through her in the final battle. If she was an illusion then why did the villain have to hold his gun up and his hand holding air if it was his illusion. If she is an illusion then why was the father, injured from the car crash, sleeping on the coach while Ian had the bed. When Ester gets out of bed, clearly only one person has slept in it. But while it does look like she might be an illusion - clearly Adriana also has an illusion of her own that she talks to. This has great potential for has someone put a more "strict" loop in Adriana's head and why?
Like many movies from Europe, the different locations, cars, houses etc add to the movie as it provides images that are not overused.
The movie falls down through some terrible editing and unexplained plot points such as:
*If Esther is an illusion set in Ian's mind at the arcade then why not make it sympathetic to the villain from the start.
*The father seemed so sincere at keeping Ian safe over all those years so why did he drink so much? Talk about lowering your guard much of the time. I know alcoholism is a disease but in a case like this when you have to hide - you'd think you'd give it up.
*And where do they get their money to live? He won't do anything to draw attention to themselves but live on an abandoned ship. That's never going to raise any flags. And they've done good for themselves as he apparently has at least three monitors with his computer equipment.
*Why didn't Adriana shoot the villain instead of shooting an innocent bystanders who is under the control of the villain in the final battle? The villain had no value any more..
*There's some odd editing. A) At one point Esther and Ian are talking about some scientist and we see a flashback of them getting some information but that was not in the movie. Must have been filmed but deleted. B) Adriana sends in her team to capture them while at the old facility yet suddenly shows up at the boat to talk to the father. This piece of the film moves NOTHING alone. C) Ian goes after Esther after the final battle and the death of his father and then suddenly we are in the midst of some formal party.
Overall I still enjoyed it and it did set itself up for a good sequel which I will watch for.
Hwangya (2024)
Not bad, Good filler but a one-time viewing
While I give the film a 5, I'm not sure if it should be that high. I watched it and didn't fast forward and that is a good sign. They didn't laden the film with too much subtext so the plot moves along fairly quickly. Yet it didn't offer anything that we've not seen before.
But that moving of the plot along also made the movie oddly disjointed with chunks of the story left unanswered or touched on very briefly. Things like:
*Why did an earthquake in one area destroy so much of the world? And that scene happened so fast and there was no explanation. And then suddenly we were in the future.
*After that kind of earthquake, why wouldn't people be out in rural areas for farming.
*A crocodile?
*How did the two hunters catch up to the same area where grandmother was killed? If the group left as early as implied then they'd have had a great head start.
*The ending comes as fast as the beginning. Just a passing reference to "staying here and rebuilding" and the visit to the grave. They could have added a few more minutes to show us the repercussions.
*What is "mister's" background? Everyone seems to know him.
"How did he save the girl before? That's just dropped on us.
*Where is all the security? Three people, one of whom is not a fighter, were able to break in and take out all the security. You'd think roaming gangs would have been able to do that to get access to the water.
*And really, rain at the last moment?
The acting wasn't bad but still fairly average. I liked some of the actors playing bit parts as parents more than some of the main characters. I like Ma Dong-seok in the few things I've seen him in and he did well but he's not the kind of actor that I see carrying out this role - even though I know he has a martial arts background.
So it's worth a watch but just put your brain in a holding pattern.
Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)
Worth a watch - there is worse on TV
In short a big sci-fi evil empire type movie. A cross between Star Wars and Justice League. To give him credit, if you give Zack Snyder millions of dollars and let him make movies that do on longer than anyone wants, then he can bring a big movie to the screen. It won't necessarily be original or even that interesting but watchable. In this case he steals whole sale from Star Wars as well as pieces from Starship Troopers, Blade Runner and the Chronicles of Riddick thrown in.
I know he originally wanted this to be in the Star Wars universe but was refused so decided to create his own universe. But in many ways, this movie has stolen so much from the original Star Wars movie.
*The main farmer character is a Luke Skywalker analogy. A farmer from a backwater planet, overly naïve and who provides the vehicle by which the background and history can be told.
*Same farmer/Luke character saves the day in the end doing something that is not in his personality nor in his skill set.
*There is a robot, who I'm sure will be more important in part two, that gives us the C3P0 analogy but so far, less irritating. Voiced by Anthony Hopkins whose voice sounds much too old for this role.
*They are on a farming planet and need to go to the nearby city for a ship. This city is simply Mos Eisley from Tatooine.
*They go to a bar full of bounty hunters and the scum of the universe. The Mos Eisley Cantina.
*The Empire is dressed and act like fascist governments of Earth so we can't mistake them as the bad guys.
*Like Star Wars storm troopers - the empire soldiers fire dozens of shots and never hit anything.
*The dreadnaught ship is a planet destroyer like the Death Star.
*There is a Hans Solo analogy who is a smuggler with a ship for a price.
*His ship doesn't seem in the best shape - not unlike the Millennium Falcon.
*Some of the characters are not whom they seem to be aka Obe One and then later, Leia.
*One character has light saber style swords.
*There is just a passing reference to a life force, more like magic, that might come back in the second movie. Could be analogous for the force.
*A betrayal not unlike but also not like Lando Calrissian
*The last battle between good and evil has a feeling of the Darth Vader and Luke battle even with that character dangling over a huge drop. At least this guy didn't admit he was her father.
I felt Sofia Boutella as the main female lead was weak but not too bad. Her roles in other movies like Star Trek Beyond and The Kingsmen were secondary. Maybe not the right person to carry the lead role but acceptable. A pet peeve of mine is that if your are a character who can fight and throw people around then you should look that part. You don't have to be ripped but at least toned or sinewy. Boutella isn't. But to be fair this is common in movies with actors like Gal Gadot and Pierce Bronsan clearly actors who've not gotten in shape for their roles as Wonder Woman or James Bond. Boutella is 41 which gives me some context to her age even in this movie so that she could have done many of the things that her character was supposed to have done.
A few things I liked:
*Some of the aliens were different in a Star Wars way. Yet they even had some bumpy headed aliens that would feel at home in Star Trek.
*He touched on a few quirky things like a squid like creature and taking drugs through holes in the body. A touch of the old Dune movie or some of Cronenberg's movies. Should have had more of these oddities.
*There is a huge change in the third act that I was not anticipating. That came as a surprise in an otherwise by-the-book type movie.
*Liked his nod to them getting the Dijmon Hounsou in a Gladiator ring. BTW if he was so easy to find then why hadn't the Empire found him. He wasn't really hiding. In fact you could say that about all the characters gathered together the Rebel Moon Justice League.
*I also initially liked that they used Bae Doona as Nemesis. Finding original names is also not in Snyder's skill set. However she doesn't have too much of a role. I did realize that every time I've seen her - she always has the same expressionless features. She doesn't emote. In the South Korean movies, that might not be too bad, but in English roles, it is more obvious. Although I did like her in Sense8 although she did not emote there either.
*Ed Skrein is the main bad guy and I don't know him from much but he was the main bad guy in Deadpool (Frances - Ajax) and I like him in that. He plays his role in this really over the top but he's written that way.
Overall it's a time filler movie with lots of plot holes that you might question in a more serious movie. Things like:
*How will the Rebel Moon Justice League and a bunch of fighters take on an Empire that can destroy the planet from space?
*Where did they get the money they needed for the months they were on road rounding up the Justice League?
*How can pulling one lever, in a gun turret no less, crash a huge spaceship? Is this the analogy to the vent in the Death Star?
You'll leave the movie thinking that was okay, not much originality and any discussion, like this review, will be about how many elements are stolen from other movies. You'll have that dull feeling you get when you've watched a big explosion movie with little content.
Finally something really did irk me and was clearly a post production error. When the two characters leave the village - we see them riding their mounts across the newly seeded field. Why? No one would ride their mounts across the field. To make it worse, there is a road near them that they would logically travel on. And then later when they and others return - they are all riding through the ripening crops. What? Clearly the guys working in the CGI special effects department have never been on or even near any agricultural operation.
Patients of a Saint (2020)
Tolerable but you'll ask yourself "why?"
I like watching B level zombie movies. Some are just terrible from the start and unless you are a masochist, you'll fast forward through most of it. Others are cookie cutter movies - the Hallmark Christmas movies of the horror genera. A few, although still B level, try some thing, maybe only one thing, different. Or have one character who catches your attention.
This movie is mainly the second but attempts to be the third but doesn't do it well.
LOCATION. The location has much going for it. Clearly a real prison. With a different director and movie, this would be a great location for a real movie. Some of the exterior scenes were very well done.
PLOT. There really isn't any. People run through corridors going from one part of the prison to another. Disjointed editing makes that hard to follow. At one point near the end, the main protagonist goes back to her room to retrieve a library book. WTF? This likely was supposed to happen earlier in the storyline as she has the paper inside the book that we saw at the beginning of the movie.
MOOD. There was some effort to bring a mood to the film like the bugs in the ventilation shaft in the hospital. A few of a sleeping woman with bugs on her face. The main character's dreams of her mother. Shows promise but not enough.
PACING. It was slow at parts which I didn't mind when it was planned. Some parts of the movie were slow for no reason so that was dull. I suspect most people who watch zombie movies will not like the slow pace of this one.
CHARACTERS. All very stereotypical and nothing outstanding. We've seen them all before. The guard we all hate was written well.
ACTING. Editing was poor, the pacing was off but it was the acting that really hurt the movie. Sadly the main character, Stone, was not portrayed by a good actor. In fact I was sure she was not an actor at all but some celebrity that was stuck into a movie. Partly right on that. She simply is not up to the role.
Other actors did their job okay although often overly stereotypical. The doctor and the warden come to mind. There was one.of the female prisoners (maybe Lynne Anne Rodgers) who had little screen time but was one of the few actor that made me feel she could be a prisoner.
This was actually the second time I watched it but not sure if I finished it the first time. I did this time. If you're looking for a weekend zombie movie to eat your popcorn with then this will do. It won't ever jump into anyone's top 25 or even top 50 (maybe not top 100) zombie movies.
You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment (2024)
A vegan promotion series but worth watching to meet the twins
Paradoxically while I loved many aspects of this quasi-documentary series and it will make me switch more to a plant based diet; it is also that terrible type of program that brings you in with a false premise to hide its underlying purpose. I came to the series to honestly see what the outcome would be between identical twins on a meat or a plant based diet. That is what the trailer offers although now that I've seen the series, I recognize the trailer from the start was setting up that meat is bad; vegan is good. Also unlike the trailer's claim, the results are not profound. The results are average at best. I thought it would be objective but it clearly is not. From the first episode you realize that this four part series is less a study and less a documentary and more a promotion for people to move to a vegan lifestyle.
Some of the positives were:
**The four sets of twins focused on were all great people. I'd love to have any of them as friends or neighbours. I loved watching their interactions and their progression through the eight weeks.
**Some of the resource people, and there were many of them, were interesting although definitely the minority. One woman in particular, whose name escapes me as I write, who founded Miyoko's vegan cheese company was very interesting and dynamic to watch.
**Knowing that this is a promotion for a vegan lifestyle means you quickly learn which parts of the episodes you can fast forward through. So you can get through the 4 episodes in about 2 hours.
**The results weren't very conclusive and were portrayed in a biased manner but there were a few things that seemed clear, such as lower cholesterol and TMAO levels. Although this will come as a surprise only to people who have not looked at these factors over the last few decades.
Some of the negatives were:
**The program lures you in as if it is an unbiased study but clearly it isn't. From the start a plant based diet is clearly the position they want to promote.
**While the four sets of twins focused on were great people, it would have been nice to have met some of the other sets of twins who we see in the background.
**When the results were given, if positive, then they are always attributed to the plant based diet.
**Some positive results were not presented with any metrics or comparisons so the audience is left without a way to superficially evaluate the positive result. The longer telomeres being the most obvious example. How much longer? Was it statistically relevant?
**If the results were negative, it is always attributed to some other factor and NEVER to the plant based diet. So when physical tests show loss of muscle mass or increase in fat it's because one of the twins didn't work out as much as the other or they didn't eat enough. When the cognitive tests showed no change then it was the shorter time frame and the younger age of the twins - without acknowledging that clearly some of the twins we see are clearly older adults. With biological aging, of the two metrics mentioned, only the results of one is given. I don't think we hear any results from the pre/post study urine/stool samples.
**There is no reference to other major factor involved in the study - exercise. Clearly for some of the twin's, having a regular exercise program was as different to them as the change in diet.
**There is also no reference to other aspcets of the twins' lives. One of the twins for example moved three times in the initial part of the study. How does that stress impact that person? Clearly they all have different home lives - is that an impact? Did being on camera multiple times at home and at work impact those twins compared to those not on camera.
**Some of the more glaring biases were the inserts about the production of meat. While most of them were quite accurate, there was no attempt to look at alternative meat production. We saw small scale urban gardening in Detroit profiled but no small scale chicken, food fish ponds or livestock operations. There was detail about the environmental damage of industrial meat production but almost nothing on the environmental damage and use of insecticides, herbicides and fertilizers of industrial plant production.
I would suggest you go into this series as a biased promotion for a vegan lifestyle but knowing you will meet four sets of twins who are enjoyable to watch and follow. You can fast forward through most of the resource people who are all just saying plant-based diet is the best. It might be eye-opening to you to see some of the destruction of the Amazon rainforest for meat production but it isn't like that information is unique to this documentary. And don't expect any discussion about the destruction of natural habitats for plant-based cash crops such as coffee, pineapple, or chocolate. Or massive irrigation of deserts, like the Napa Valley, in order to grow crops.
I will take the message to heart in spite of the documentary's bias.
After the Pandemic (2022)
An amateur project but worth watching
I saw this last year and dismissed it as too simplistic and poorly made. I watched it again tonight and while those opinions are still valid, I think the movie is fairly well made for an amateur project.
LOCATION. Other reviews point out some of the obvious flaws such as mowed lawns but that's a minor point. We see mowed lawns and flower beds in major post-apocalyptic movies and TV shows let alone an amateur production. We can finds scenes like that all through TWD. We can't ignore the reality that these type of shows are filmed in the real world with streets or houses blocked off for filming for only a day or two. Having said that I did find that the film makers were able to portray communities that appeared to be empty. Many movies do that only at night or early morning when they can get access to the streets but I felt this movie portrayed that emptiness in the middle of the day which is unusual.
PANDEMIC. The effect of the virus on people did seem a little extreme with the red skin and holes. You'd think people would die long before that but that is not a major issue in this movie. Again some reviews are saying that bodies are not decomposed after five years yet clearly some adults are still alive. Not only those adults hunting the kids but we see at least two adults in the end stages of the pandemic. So while the core of the pandemic might have been five years ago, some adults are still living and dying so not all would be decomposed. Also the pandemic is just the reason to set the story up. There was a feeling that they might have wanted to take that story in a different direction with the killing of the infected male but they never did.
CHARACTERS. Some reviews complain that Ellie is completely unprepared for this world. That's correct but that is what they show us. She still lives at home. She goes to her local dance hall. She has stayed in her own neighbourhood. She's buried her family in the backyard and we don't know how long ago they died. She might have been with some her family only up to months before we meet her. Yet she is able to forage for herself and can make choices when she needs to like killing the infected woman. One day she bikes over to the dance hall again and is then chased away so does go out unprepared. From her reaction I think we can assume this is her first time encountering the men in white.
The Quinn character is interesting as she is very practical and yet we could argue that knowing of the men in white, she could have been better prepared. Have "bug out" bags ready and placed in various locations. Having to go to the hardware store to get supplies when she had upwards of 5 years to gather that altogether. Again something that we see in more main stream movies as well.
The Men in White are neutral but also don't make any sense. Any teen who is still free and surviving on their own will likely have one or more weapons. All they needed was to have a team killed by teens and they would be a more military, well-guarded force. Not a bunch of guys with dart guns. We saw what happened to some of them.
ACTING. The acting isn't bad. Eve James as Eliie is actually better at the start of the movie when she is on her own. Kannon Smith as Quinn has a slightly more rounded character and plays it OK. I found I was interested in her character. Both are young novice actors so let's see how their careers might continue on.
LIGHTING. I also appreciated the fact that the lighting was bright and the filming very clear. Even the night scenes. Far more crisp than some better well-financed movies and TV shows.
BAD ELEMENTS. There were bad elements but so many are common in this genre.
*Grass and flower beds as mentioned above.
*Where are adults getting fuel 5 years later?
*Why are they not driving more off-road style vehicles?
*Disease make-up too extreme.
*Foolish things like there being cannibals. Really? There would still be enough canned food for years. You have access to thousands of guns (but you only have pistols?) and since there was no reference to the virus affecting other mammals or birds so you'd have an ever increasing wildlife population let alone the hundreds of thousands of all the various livestock still around.
All of these minor complaints can be found is so many other movies and TV shows.
In the end this is a low-budget movie, fairly slow, about a developing teen Lesbian relationship. With the subplot of youth against adults. Go into it as an amateur production and you'll find it worth your 80 minutes.
War of the Worlds: The Attack (2023)
A poor movie but you also expect it to be
I went into this movie expecting it to be bad. I wasn't wrong and would rate it as one of the poorer adaptations of War of the Worlds. I would still rate the two Asylum movies worse simply because they would have more money behind them.
If you go into this with the expectation that it is very low budget with unknown actors then you'll not be disappointed. Yet it doesn't fall into the category of movies so bad where there is clearly no acting skills at all. We've all seen those - often C grade horror movies. The problem is that none of the three leads are especially good. While they seem older, esp Gittins, he was still a teen when this movie was made. I think Gittins might grow into a better actor with Lemon and. Fofana possibly becoming B actors.
Retelling the story from a teen perspective could have some advantages but I think they were lost. I'd think teens would be more alert to doing things illegally, thinking more practically, knowing ways to cut corners. Using logic like arming themselves against other humans. Even just carrying practical items on them. Sort of what we saw in Attack on the Block. But we don't see any of that. These teens are dull and don't seem to do anything helpful for their survival. The main character continues to wear his brightly coloured jacket even though time after time they have to hide. Change your frigging jacket. Teen movies are often full of teenage angst and issues and while this movie stays clear of much of that - it is still talkie for the sake of being talkie. I did forward through several of the talking parts as they were increasingly uninteresting.
The Fofana character was written poorly and is the kind of character I dislike in movies. More correctly he is the type of character that bad screen writers like to include in movies. The person who cracks jokes at the wrong time; who gets upset over stupid issues in face of overwhelming more important issues; just being a jerk as he was playing with the pistol and then the grenades. It's why the Nick Frost character in Shaun of the Dead didn't work for me.
Movies have lots of different tropes and low budget movies have many too. You can see lots of those in this movie. Lots of forest and field shots as those are cheap. Using what looks like family and friends as extras. Limited or nil costume budget. The clothing Dr. Stint is wearing at the start of the movie as the first Martian comes out are the same clothes she is wearing when she meets the kids at the end of the movie. None of the kids changed clothing but you'd think she would have assuming she would be at various bases. Reusing actors. I'm fairly sure the actor playing the Lieutenant they met on the road on their way to London is the same soldier with Dr. Stint at the end. Shaky camera to input violent movement or attacks.
Bad special effects is also a trope for low budge movies and that is the case here. But I thought better than some other low to no budget films. The scenes of the tripods in London I thought gave a sense of the desolation and destruction that we don't see in some of the other War of the World movies.
I thought the movie did a good job of trying to incorporate most of the elements from the novel: the push to go find loved ones; the artilleryman and his desire to go underground; the mad priest; the red weed; capturing humans. There wasn't any naval scene but the short-lived excitement of the Thunderchild scene in the book was captured in one of the helicopter attacks taking down one of the tripods. That sense of potential victory which was important in the novel is missing in several important movie adaptations.
The ending is a typical movie ending but in this case it also makes sense. Disease has wiped out whole populations on earth before but often some survive. Some survive after catching the disease. Some are naturally immune. If some of the tripods survived then on their own, they would eventually be taken out. But if some young emerged and could hibernate or aestivate then we could an established population on earth.
I will buy this on DVD to add to my collection of War of the World movies just because I am a completionist. But I would not watch it again on my own. If someone else wanted to watch it then I likely would.
Day of the Dead (2021)
Giving it a 2 might be generous
I'm giving it a 2 simply because I did watch the whole thing. If I had dumped it earlier then it would be a ONE. Having said that there is very little to redeem this series and bring it up to 2.
PLOTLINE. We've seen every element of this in other movies and TV shows. There is nothing new. Regardless of the title, the show has nothing to do with the movie other than a nod to the movie by holding up in a department store and shooting from the roof.
PACING. Slow most of the times. Inserts side stories that breaks the action. Often more a teen flick than a zombie movie.
CHARACTERS. There is so little character development that we don't have any sympathy for any of them. Let them all be eaten. A few characters like the husband and the sheriff were just poorly written. The exception might be Holstrum as Blackwood. Very neutral which I suspect is more acting style or lack of but it fits the character. Also Loloya as Dr. Fisher was a really nice but irritating guy who we thought would survive and if killed, not in the silly off hand way that he was.
ACTING. Overall very poor. Better than high school but maybe at a regional festival level.
PACIFIC NW. Another of so many movies made in the Pacific NW but supposed to be somewhere else. In this case Pennsylvania. Anyone who has been in Penn, knows these scenes and forests are NOT in that state.
LOW BUDGET. Repeated use of certain images or footage. We see the same wandering zombies often on different days. There's one pair of the same off-orange shoes that we see in three different episodes. They clearly filmed lots of their footage on the same day and just used it over and over. Also money must have been really running out near the end as the hordes of zombies turned into a trickle. Maybe 10 following them through the neighbourhoods and likely even less at the closing mine scene. I've seen independent movies with more zombies just because they asked friends and relatives to come along.
While it was designed to leave us with unsolved questions for the second season (that will never come), there is one thing that I think the writers lost track of. At the end, Frigon as Sheriff Bowman is seen as a bit of a hero and a better person. Yet she is a terrible person. Not only in her overall outlook but we had two examples that clearly cost people their lives. First was in the Sheriff's office when she blew off the suggestion that this was a zombie outbreak. Yet she had already fought one; had emptied her gun into one with no effect and then saw multiple attacks outside the senior's complex. If she had told the Sheriff what she knew then police officers would not have been sent off as if nothing much was happening. Secondly she let the zombie free inside the store - clearly to show how deadly they were. Of course her husband gets killed by it. So this woman is not the role model who should have survived at the end.
*
Lastly, a combination of poor writing and falling back on cheap Sci-Fy / Asylum type plotting, throws out all the plot devices we are getting so tired of. A few examples:
* Some zombies get shot multiple times with no effect but in another scene, one shot is all it takes to put it down.
* Love story lines thrown in as filler since they can't write quality preparation and conflict scenes
* Everyone keeps on their bloody clothes. So common In almost every zombie show, TV or movie, but here it is even more foolish since we see the department store has lots of clothes to pick from and there is much down time.
* Kid runs into police station, covered with blood, and says there are zombies. So they laugh him off and tell him to go away, which he does. What about the fact he is covered with blood? Say "no" to zombies but whose blood?
* Also, the kid who will fight with his Dad over university admission, even though he actually saw people die, just walks away.
* Men in protective body armour go down just as easily as someone wearing civies. So why wear them?
* Cars breaking down just when you need them. And of course, the flashlight that doesn't work even when you smack it a few times.
Mixed rational. It's ancient curse from drowned settlers. It's the evil corporation polluting the water. You can catch it from a bite. Or not.
What did I like?
* Morgan Holstrum as Blackwood wasn't especially good but I think has potential to grow as an actress. Or this could be the last thing we see her in. Her decision.
* I enjoyed the practical approach to Blackwood's Grandmother. Even when she falls into that trope of telling the ancient aboriginal story of what happened in the past, she says she didn't pass it on as she thought it was just a story to show how white guys couldn't be trusted. Some fun with that character.
* Miranda Frigon was OK but didn't have much to work with. I found I wanted to follow her character. Partly because she's an attractive actresses but also to see when she was going to release her best Sarah Palin or Lorena Boebert caricatures. Based on this movie alone, she is a much better singer than an actress.
* Dropped Lines. I don't know if it was intentional but there were several spoken lines that didn't go anywhere. Husband says to mistress "Will you wait for me?" and wife hears but it gets lost. When complaining about the pre-nup agreement, the old boyfriend says "We did it for your protection." with no follow-up on his working with the father to create the pre-nup. When Blackwood says the police investigation was called off over the initial dead body, the mayor says "I didn't know" implying, what we suspected, that it was her who stopped the initial investigation. No one jumps on that statement.
Nope (2022)
Two might be a little harsh... maybe a 3?
I have given worse movies higher ratings. In part because those movies had elements that surprised me or did something extra with a low budget. This movie is the reverse. Well funded, professional cast and crew and yet it produced a movie that would not have any repeat attraction.
CHARACTERS. I found I didn't like any of the characters. Kaluuya's character is dull and completely unemotional. Palmer, his sister is plain irritating. The other two main male cast members are throw-away characters. You don't care if they live or die. In fact you don't mind if some actually die. The exception is Yeun whose character I did like and wanted to see more of his backstory and development.
ACTING. I didn't enjoy any of the acting. None of these actors are people that would draw me to a movie. Again Yeun is a slight exception but would still not be a major draw.
PLOT. Silly, random. No real logic to it. Too many loose ends not really explained. Several very stupid plotholes that distract from the movie. There is a subplot about a chimp on a TV set that is far more interesting than anything in the main plot. I want to see that chimp movie and not this.
The trailer has some scenes that were not in the movie I saw on a streaming service. I can only hope there is an extended version somewhere that allows the story to make sense.
Campus Code (2015)
Better than most B movies
The people giving this movie bad reviews are not wrong. Your enjoyment of this movie will depend on if you enjoy B level movies with overall mediocre acting, direction and plotting. Having said that, I found the movie had enough elements that caught my attention that I watched it through.
ACTING. Overall the acting is only mediocre at best. None of them stand out. Some, like the goth-like guys, were just terrible. A few were wasted in their roles based on other work they've done. Jessica Alexandra Green is a much better actress than her minimal screen time gives her here.
When you've watched the whole movie and know the ending then some of the bad acting sort of fits. Like all the security guards. That's how they'd react in the game.
LOCATION. Dull campus but that fits the nature of the story.
EXTRAS. I liked that many of the people in the movie looked like they were hired from the student body. All shapes and sizes.
PLOT. People say there isn't a good plot and there are plotholes. They are correct but many of the plotholes are just like they would be in the game. Since we're only playing basically one day in the life of the game then there are things that we shouldn't know. Why do some characters need something signed by midnight? And how would they "take over"? Who was Jennifer? Why did Arun have his parents locked up? We aren't supposed to know those things in this movie. It would be like watching someone playing in the middle of a zombie game and not knowing how the virus spread; who the characters were; what motivated them to do what they do. You could argue it was also a cheap way out for the screen writers but I thought they gave it enough thought so they added things like doors that don't lead anywhere, blank books, computers that don't work, characters with limited or no interaction with the main characters.
I give the movie more credit because once we know what is happening and we see folks in the real world then that reflects back to things in the movie that we really didn't understand. We find out why Ari is so focused on making money. We understand why Arun doesn't want an arranged marriage and where his character is a painter. Most importantly we find out Izzzy's secret (that she's actually an avatar for a male) and why she doesn't remember that when she becomes "free".
It's not a movie I'll watch again but it was fun to watch the first time. It clearly set itself up for a sequel and I thought I'd watch it and it was only when this movie was over that I realized that it was filmed in 2015. I thought it was just released. So clearly there is not a sequel.
The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself (2022)
I watched it all...
This is not a show aimed at my demographic but I thought I'd get it a shot as the trailer caught my attention. As a general rule I find most YA movies and shows have a similar formula as does any genera of movies and this one felt like most of the rest.
ACTORS. I enjoyed the show as I didn't know any of the actors. I don't think I've seen them even in small roles - with one major exception. Some of them were average which unfortunately included the main male and female leads. They weren't bad but as their character arcs grew, the actors didn't grow to fill the richer characters they were becoming.
There were a few actors who I enjoyed although their role was fairly straight forward. Karen Connell carried her role well although the plotting for her character wasn't good. Fehinti Balogun had a minor role but I liked his presence when he was on the screen. Isobel Jesper Jones had the best role in the series and played it as over-the-top as it was written. At first I didn't like the actor and then realized I hated the character and was transferring that which is a good sign for an actor. It will be interesting to see her in the future and if she can do more subtle roles. I had never heard of Róisín Murphy but have since listened to some of her music.
She doesn't have a large role either but the character was strong and there would be a great back story to tell there.
At first I didn't recognize Kelly Fox who played the grandmother. I liked the character and almost paradoxically found her attractive and erotic which was odd for the role. Then later she is taken over my Mercury and plays that part of her personality so it was good that it felt like it was already there. I had to look up who she was and when I did, I realized that I had seen her in other movies and liked her in those as well.
PLOT. The plot is rather all over the place. Watching the episodes spaced apart would have been better for some of the side stories, which are briefly associated with the plot, really weren't necessary. Watching the episodes back to back they felt like filler.
There was the potential for the creation of a great Half-Bad universe but that didn't happen. We really don't get any good exposition about the division between the witches. Almost nothing about how the interact with non-witches. Does the government know of them? Their actions are certainly not subtle, like approaching a house in the suburbs with cars and armed squads. Do they do a Men in Black thing on ALL the people in the neighbourhood?
So the plot was convoluted but still gave enough action and background to keep you focused. The love triangle element was kept to a minimum so that wasn't too distracting.
Two things about the plot did throw me off a bit. The witches powers were really like mutant superpowers. This could easily be a young X-Men movie or another HEROES TV show. The witch part was almost unnecessary. And so many are so powerful but they all easily get killed with guns. Even with magic bullets. You'd think there would be some witches with premonition or could create psychic barriers to at least warn them, invulnerability, erect physical barriers, that could protect or at least warn people.
LOCATIONS. Overall I liked the locations. The only part that felt wrong was on the boat and going down river and you are to think they are in some wooded area but frequently you see human construction along the shoreline. It's out of focus but it's still clearly a human structure.
Overall it was a good, often average show to watch. Nothing too original. A few new ways of using older plot elements. There apparently will not be a season two leaving the cliff hangers open ended. In this case it won't be a huge loss not having it finished. Although I would have liked to have seen Jessica get what she deserves.
Interceptor (2022)
It was worth an hour of your time...
...unfortunately it is an hour and a half long.
I went into this as a mindless action film and that is what I got. There are a couple of talkie pieces that interrupt that action but you can muddle through that.
You have to turn off your mind for a few things like:
*Why is America protecting itself from nuclear attack with only two stations - both on the west coast? What happened to constant attack over the pole scenario that created NORAD and the DEW line?
*What happened to all the land based interceptor missiles?
*How the hell can they control all the emergency broadcasts from one local point in the middle of the Pacific Ocean
*If you are going to rely on this type of installation for your only defense then why does it have a self destruct system built in that only one person can initiate? Or in this case some dead guy's thumb?
But this would not be the first action movie to have no core logic to its plotline.
The set, by design, was a little claustrophobic, as it takes part in small rooms and corridors. It has some odd doors or vents where you'd think they shouldn't be.
Not knowing any of the actors was interesting especially the female lead. I can't say any were great but at least they were all different. I did come to like the female lead and would like to see her in other movies but I'm not sure if they would be action pieces. She was good in this but it still all felt choreographed and less natural ability on the part of the actor.
The throw-away pieces with Chris Hemsworth were okay but ultimately off-putting and adding humour where it wasn't needed. But he is the spouse and the Executive Director.
It is a very PC movie if you don't like that.
It wasn't a complete lose but watch it only when you are in the movie with action that doesn't make you think.
Vikingulven (2022)
Was worth watching...
I start out by saying that I like watching movies from other countries as they often have actors and filming locations that I've never seen. It does make it harder to evaluate the acting as you don't know if something you don't like is bad acting, bad direction or more a reflection of the culture the actor comes from. I say that as I liked the movie but found most of the characters subdued and not very friendly at any time in the movie. So I'd want more character and emotions but that might not be a Norwegian trait.
The movie does derive from other werewolf movies but I still found parts of it fresh. I thought the modern approach to werewolves was better then most of what I've seen lately.
There are plot holes as with any movie but I didn't really notice many until it was over. Although the crashing RV seemed out of the blue. And how do citizens get to crime scenes faster than other police?
I like the ending, not only for its potential, or not, twist but also had the feeling that the police officer/mother was coming home to an empty house.
Not a movie that you'll likely watch again in the near future but worth a watch now.