Change Your Image
t-rexx-568-196825
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
The Reef: Stalked (2022)
Nice photography... but not much more
My expectations were not very high about this "sequel" to the very noticeable "The Reef" which, as a licensed scuba-diver myself, I found truly interesting - perhaps because it was easily relatable.
Not so much with this sequel. The story centers around a group of 4+1 girls, three of them being sisters. They want to kayak from one island to the next but guess what? Things go south quickly, and that involves a great white shark of course.
So, briefly, the shooting and photography are pretty good, but the rest is easily forgetable. I had the whole plot figured out in the first 10mn, even going so far as to anticipate who would be killed, and in what order. The story is flat, predictable, unemotional. There are a few close-ups focusing the face of some of the characters that are totally useless, and too long. None of the character is truly relatable. But worse, I growing really fed up with this sort of Me-Too agenda that all directors seem to want to stick to. I mean, of course some men still have a long way to go to understand the psyche of women, and respect them for who they truly are, but not ALL MEN are pigs, like the one and only one that the film features. Was it really necessary to portray yet again another white male as the perpetrator of a hate crime on his spouse? Was it really necessary to start the whole story on that premise? I mean, Cath could have drowned by herself, and her body been retrieved by her sister, the resulting impact would have been the same. In that sense, I don't think this hate crime brought anything to the movie, other than checking the box of Me-Too compliance... I hate this two-bit vision of the world, which is replicating what women have rightly criticized: a short-sighted, close-minded, limitating and narrow view of what the other gender really is...
Outback (2019)
Slow moving, a bit boring, but a tale of what NOT to do in the Outback
This is the story of a young, unmarried couple who decide to head out into the Outback once in Australia. Of course, they get lost... Nothing new in the plot, apparently it is based on a true story.
It's slow, a bunch of sequences don't add anything to the plot or to the characters' introspection, but the scenery is beautiful and, overall, it's well shot.
I couldn't help but fume about the succession of fatal mistakes these guys made which, ultimately, let to their demise. Here is a few of them (warning, spoilers ahead)
- Left the main track (populated areas, regular traffic, paved road), with risk of a flat tyre.
- Left their car with little to no water, no matches.
- ... at dusk.
- Didn't stop when they realized they were lost. Should have backtracked to the hill top they came from.
- Separated from one another in the dry waterbed without leaving basic indications to the one left behind.
Perempuan tanah jahanam (2019)
It's official now: the future of cinema no longer resides in the US!!!
This is a pretty darn good movie!! I'm not much of a big witch/ghost horror fan, but this flick took me by surprise. The story is actually quite good: two Indonesian female friends decide to take their chances in life by returning to the large property that one of them recognizes on a picture as being her own family's house. This is the chance of a lifetime to start all over again. With her best friend, the two travel to a backwoods rural village, deep in the jungle, where life is being lived very differently from what both are used to. Witches, old curses, weird traditions still live on them, and both girls may well at the center of these...
The two lead actresses play a key role in making this horror movie an enjoyable ride, and most of all, the shooting is absolutely mesmerizing! It's not everyday that we get a chance to "visit" the beauty of the deep Indonesian/Javanese countryside, its jungles, waterfalls, narrow tracks, backwoods villages, customs, spirits, witches... Seriously, it's a must-see movie! Well done, dudes!
It's clear to me that the future of cinema no longer resides in the US: the Koreans, Indonesians, Thai, Russians, Brits, French and even the Chinese are starting to break new grounds and it's a very promising trend!
Russian Yeti: The Killer Lives (2014)
A misleading mess
In this era of overwhelming fake news, this production is just adding its lot to an already huge pile of badly misleading movies, with potentially devastating consequences on the lesser educated viewers. The problem is not so much that it builds its storyline/narrative on a collection of totally unscientific approaches, but rather that some viewers will actually believe all this crap!! I bet that some will take it for granted that a "brilliant" reporter actually came across some hard evidence that the Russian Yeti not only actually lives, but that it also kills people "when cornered or threatened". The movie itself is pretty well made, with all the stereotypes of what you would expect from a real documentary, but the succession of pseudo-evidence and the numerous shortcuts taken to reaching conclusions are just a pure insult to science and intelligence. I would strongly recommend that a big headline be put in the opening credits to warn the audience that it is a FICTIONAL DOCUMENTARY. This would at least prove the director's willingness to stay true to his/her own intent.
Prey (2019)
For undemanding teenagers only
This movie is all about deja-vu. A boy - what an irritating character at that!! - is trying to find solace on an uninhabited island off the coast of Malaysia by taking part to a survival program called "Lost & Found" after having experienced a traumatic event. The tropical setting is beautiful, the shooting and photography are top notch. But the acting is just meh. Everything is predictable, the balance between slow and fast-paced events is very unequal. And the scenario is full of blatant errors or non-senses which, after a while, get on anybody's nerves. There is some material in it, but just not enough to give it a good review.
The Cropsey Incident (2017)
Absolutely worthless... Bad, bad, bad in every and any possible ways...
It's rare for me not to find anything worthy of interest in a movie, but here comes this film. The editing is nerve-wracking. The shots, video quality and colors might cause diarrhea with some viewers. The characters just won't die quickly enough to stop the bleeding of our ears and eyes, especially the lead woman, who's constantly yelling obscenities and who actually comes across, really, like a human piece of garbage. She's despicable in every possible ways, which in itself is a very, very nasty way of portraying women these days. She and her male companion are totally obnoxious. The whole thing is an ego trip, both from the standpoint of its characters, and from its producer/film director's. It's overbloated, distorted, insulting, incoherent, brainless and it doesn't even portray the youth in a very positive way. Worse, it takes its viewers for less than nothing. Ugh. What a waste...
The Predator (2018)
It's official: the Predator franchise is now dead!
Nothing makes any sense in this movie. There are so many gaps between several sequences that the whole "finished" product comes across as a relentless insult to viewers. I was 18 when the original Predator was first screened and I felt mesmerized by the whole concept. 30+ years later, we are very obviously at the end of a downward path. I forced myself to go through this abomination, mouth agape, thinking what I was watching was not real, that it could only get better... but nothing came in to save it from a total collapse. It's too long to cite what went wrong, from the lack of characters development to the shallowness of the scenario, to the lacklusting SFX, to the irrationality in the succession of sequences, etc., etc. etc. The list goes on forever. IMO, it will not be possible to go any lower than that. Well, they might try, after all, but it'll be without me. Enough is enough. And by the way... if we could give zeroes in our film reviews, this one would qualify hands off!!!
La nuit a dévoré le monde (2018)
Definitely not the stereotypical zombie flick!
For starters, the zombies are totally, utterly mute. Believe or not, it's quite scary! In the real world, a simple cough would get anybody killed in an instant... More generally, one of the most powerful features of this movie is the strength of the overwhelming silence: in the streets, buildings, cars, rooms, hallways... Gone is the human agitation we have grown so used to!
Then, the setting in beautiful Paris, downtown-style. Lots of nice Haustmanian buildings. This comes in sharp contrast to the horror that awaits our character at virtually every corner.
The story fits on a simple sheet of paper, but the interest of this movie lies elsewhere. As some reviewers have described it before, it's about survival of the worst kind. I found myself planning what actions the "hero" should be taking to survive, ahead of him and, ticked, he went through each of them! In this regard, it is a pretty consistent movie which feels quite real.
My biggest complain is about the ending, something that a lot of French movies typically fail to do properly (just like the Americans and Asians, but for some other reasons): there is absolutely no closure to the storyline, far from it. I won't get into the details here, but please be warned that you will be left with a virtually limitless number of possible endings for this movie, way too many in my opinion to feel comfortable with it.
Predators (2010)
The potential of sending the Predator series of movies straight to the trash-can...
Adrien Brody was impeccable in "The Pianist". He was even beyond any kind of criticism. But in the role of a battle-hardened soldier? Give me a break... The whole movie feels weak. The cast is good, and so is the picture. But the scenario, the lack of tension, the relentless feeling of watching a movie with no beginning and no end put together just for the sake of showing the Predator... all of these things are pretty tiring. In a nutshell, it is clear that whoever was being that movie had been assigned a single, crystal-clear objective: make as much money on the franchise as possible. With the potential side-effect of sending the whole Predator sequence straight to the trash can. Are we there yet? Well, we're close...
Battleship (2012)
Quintessentially a pop-corn movie: put your brain at rest, forget all you know about reality
My 13 year old daughter loves this movie for its indirect humor. She doesn't quite grasp the fact yet that nothing in this movie makes any (physical / scientific) sense, or that it is a direct product placement for the game of the same name... Isn't Hasbro part of the producing landscape by the way??? With that said, if you are ready to enter a world of pop-corn where the laws of pragmatism, reality and physics no longer apply, then help yourself with this one.
Cold Ground (2017)
Not a great movie, but not worse than most either!
I find most other evaluations on this site unfairly bad. Granted, "Cold Ground" is not breaking any new grounds. Nothing original in it. Actors are average, filming is just OK, picture quality is voluntarily made bad, the plot has its share of loose dead-ends and unchartered paths...
But overall, I found it quite pleasant to watch. Why? For the setting, first and foremost. Coldness seems to creep out of the movie and get directly in the viewer's body. Also, it's entirely shot in nature. No CGI, no studio, just genuine snow, mountains, caves... Then, the suspense and its lot of jump scares kind of worked for me, for once... Also, characters were fairly well crafted altogether, quite a feat in itself, considering that they speak so rarely.
So, all in all, it wasn't that bad. I must say I wasn't expecting anything from the movie to start with and I have noticed that, most of the time, with no forward expectations, good surprises are more likely to come around the corner... I guess it was the case for me here.
Alien Implant (2017)
What was the concept about??
Ouch... What went wrong with this movie? Where did the 1M$ budget go to? Certainly not to acting as there must be a maximum of 3 protagonists. The scenery? Outdoors, a forest, the same place all over again. The scenario? No. The picture? No. In short, I don't know where it went. I'm usually careful in my reviews, not trying to hurt the piece or its producer, as it's art, and as the saying goes "art is difficult, criticism is easy". With thousands of movies under my belt, I think I've seen many a different take on science-fiction, but I really didn't get this movie. What the heck did it try to tell? Was there something missing from post-production? It certainly looks like it, that's only one explanation out of the two I can think of. The other one, of course, is that I'm too dumb to understand it. Could be, not sure. In all seriousness, this movie is incomplete and misses its point entirely.
Toki o kakeru shôjo (2006)
Visually stunning, but lacks cohesion overall
The visuals are second to none for an anime. The amount of work, the attention to details, the color spectrum used in this anime are absolutely mesmerizing, a real tribute to and a reminder of the seemingly endless finesse of Japanese art. Alas, I have found the narrative and the story line too lightly treated to provide the sense of cohesion which would have made it a true masterpiece. Too many flashbacks, not enough time for the viewer to properly handle the various aspects of a given action development... But like I said earlier, the visuals are a real sight to see.
AfterDeath (2015)
A fresh look at the... afterlife
Quite a good, refreshing, clever movie. Must not be seen as a horror movie. It stirs a lot of things inside, making the viewer think and project personal feelings, beliefs, explanations etc. onto the screen.
The casting is surprisingly very good, especially the lead, tough as nail female character.
Of course, the movie is far from perfect -but given its budget, it does do the job... There are holes in the narrative, some key elements of explanations are missing -how can you possibly have s*x when you've got no pulse???- but overall, there are minor misses.
Not a film for avid gore or action seekers, though. They might quickly get bored. I've liked its sense of intimacy -well, I could even go so far as to talk about delicacy here- its rather gentle touch on a grave, often disturbing subject (life after death).
A truly intimate movie overall, worth watching.
Contracted (2013)
A different take on the Z-movie sub-genre
This movie about a young bisexual woman who struggles with her life -and identity overall- had me think. Although it becomes clear, quickly, that her situation, seriously deteriorated once she contracted a disease during an unprotected intercourse with a stranger, is not going to end up well, it is funny how, equally quickly, I got interested in the development of the story, HER story for that matter. Quickly into the film, I ceased being interested in discovering what Alice would become and, instead, got focused on how she was coping with her ordeal. Granted, her behavior was erratic and non-credible at times, some situations were clearly exaggerated (physical exam) but overall, I liked the finely crafted depiction that the movie director gave of her. A very fine work in that respect. And although the end is, from the beginning, quite predictable, it still felt like all things were fitting together at that stage: the end of "Contracted" could easily be the beginning of ANY other Z-focused movies such as WWZ, Day of the Dead etc. I like that virtual loop.
Knight of the Dead (2013)
Bleak and poor
I agree 100% with Sjaak Schulteis' review. This movie's appalling, in spite of a promising pitch: the Holy Grail moving through a zombie-filled valley of the shadows of death in the hands of fearsome knights? The plot could have been a killer. Alas! What a disaster. The lack of color, terrible acting, poor shooting (not even giving justice to the beauty of the surrounding landscape...), poor assembling and editing, and this overall, lingering, "this is a (dead-)serious movie so us guys, actors, need to act tough and avoid any hint of humor" feeling just got me worked up in the end, struggling to watch the whole atrocity. I did, eventually, but there was no redeeming for this lazy movie. Actors behave like they are wondering why they're on the set. The storyline never makes it to cruise speed. There is no suspense or challenge of any kind that makes it worth watching it to the end. A total collapse.
Thanatomorphose (2012)
An audacious, flabbergasting and sickening film -not bad for a start!
Many comments on this film out there have been derogative, blaming its slow tempo and overall lack of action. I guess these critics just missed the point entirely. Thanatomorphose is NOT a movie about zombies. Viewers should not expect to see Romero-style walking dead running, or shambling after their prey. The slow tempo is, IMO, completely intentional, in phase with the actual body decomposition process... Interestingly, the process starts concurrently with the discovery, by the female sculptor, or her sudden lack of interest in her art. Also, and that's the main flaw of the movie for me, the connexion between the decomposition process and the growing lust is obvious, but difficult to grasp for the viewer. I guess the whole movie is probably a metaphor for aging: the body corruption is inevitable, while both feeling of love and lust -which are recurrent in Thanatomorphose- might grow stronger in some cases. Beyond these comments, a warning to all would-be viewers: it's a tough one to watch. Put it this way: if you watch it with your friends next Friday, and none of them makes fun of you after it, then they are REAL friends...
Land of the Lost (2009)
Definitely worth the ride!
I wasn't expecting much from the movie beforehand. Came across while browsing the Net. But what a ride when I started watching it! I think the good surprise came from the fact that I had absolutely no expectation on the movie whatsoever. It thus came as virgin territory to me and filled me with good humor. Sure, it's not always very clever, nor subtle, but overall, I loved the mix of second-degree jokes, anachronism, surreal situations. Plus, FX's are actually pretty darn good! And acting kind of OK. At no time does the movie play itself seriously, nor does it pretend to. It's a ride designed to entertain and amuse. Let's take it for what it is. True, (over-)prudish people, or people with high (scientific or movie) expectations, or ones with kids might feel slightly offended by a few scenes. But overall, it's really worth the ride.