Reviews

Mind the spoiler alert.

So we have a group of soldiers send to a training island to test their skills against their replacements aka droids. Because there is an excessive amount of data being learned by the droids the tech girl who designed and programmed them is send along with them to asses the product.

They easily take out some old versions and think they're done. All the wile outwards communication is being blocked but they don't seem to mind that and just stand around a lot. Don't get me wrong the movie is quite decent, way better than most of the other "low budget" sci-fi creations.

Anyhow here are a few things I didn't like about the movie. The girl/creator is way to silent. Even when it's abundantly clear something is wrong she still keeps quiet wile all the information they can get would have been helpful. Mayor annoyance.

At some point they walk into the storage facility for the droids not activated at that time. Did they turn this into an advantage, NO! They could have destroyed them as all of them are equipped with a self-destruct EMP bomb to prevent their tech from falling into enemy hands.

Or better jet as the creator is there with them she could have disconnected them from the network and given them a command to protect the humans. Did I mention she has a chip in her head/neck that gives her the ability to interact with those droids through a neural interface. So something like that really shouldn't have been hard to do and would have made it a much more realistic final battle if you have a good portion of the enemy taken out and then some left to battle by human hands.

For some reason 1 of the droids is the boss. Even though they're networked and at some point 3 of the same boss type droids are activated. Anyway they salvage an EMP bomb from one of the destroyed droids somehow up it's power (don't ask how) and manage to take the boss out. Sacrificing herself as her chip gets affected too. But guess what that thing made to take out the tech to prevent it from falling into enemy hands doesn't work the boss gets up again and now goes after the creator who plays dead and then blasts a hole though it's head. Then her chip gives out completely and she dies. Guess what happens next, the darn boss droid gets up again and manages with his last "breath" to upload itself into her destroyed chip!? So quite a bit of ridiculousness at the end and if that wasn't bad enough it also leaves an open ending. No one likes those, hell personally that's for a large part why I don't watch horror flicks anymore as they nearly always end without an end.

I actually just wanted to say that you can just watch the first one and a half minute and the last four minutes everything in between is a waste of an episode. In reality we have a four and a half minute episode extended with fillers for a total of thirty eight minutes of garbage. Come to think about it you can also skip the first minute and a half as it gets repeated at the end.

For those who don't want to go trough the effort of everything in between let me tell you what happens in this episode. Normal human being Damien learns he's the anti-Christ. That's it.

So we already know that this once again is going to be a "drag things out as much as the general public can tolerate" kind of TV show. I'm so sick of those kinds of shows. Remember back in the day when most TV shows actually offered a full story per episode instead of just a little dragged out chunk of larger story-line!? By the way I read that there are movies on which this is based? I'm totally not familiar with those so I was just a blank slate going into this. Going to give it 3 stars as those few interesting minutes did get me bummed out the rest of the episode was such a waste resulting in the review.

I gave it a go, I thought it might be similar to Timboektoe which was pretty entertaining. But no it was once again this dark dramatic crap most dutch movies feature. As if acting has to be all strong emotions all the time. Anyway the result an entire movie of awkward tension. I don't see how anyone can enjoy watching such a thing. Then there is the standard bad acting going on, mostly because of the as per usual unrealistic scripting full of sentences people rarely actually say in real life.

So this family moves to France in an effort to save the marriage although this only becomes clear later on in the movie as it starts out more like they were seeking adventure. Making it very odd how willing the wife is to entertain flirtations with one of the workers they hire to rebuild the decaying house she inherited from her mom (who didn't raise her).

Then there is the one other dutch guy in the village who just happens to find the daughter when she disappears (ran of to the toys department) wile shopping. This whole character is so weird. The bad acting doesn't help either.

Anyway lots of gloominess.

Long (boring) story short, unhappy wife sleeps with hired worker, gets pregnant, turns out he is the son of the weird dutch guy, tensions rise, the weird guy gets pushed, falls, hits his head and dies, son takes the blame.

No one likes flashbacks. Let me repeat that NO ONE LIKES FLASHBACKS! The whole show is pretty pointless but this just pisses me off. Not much of anything ever happens in general one could describe the whole show in less than a minute as it's just a bunch of people traveling in circles in a zombie infested world (OK there are "pits-stops"). But that doesn't mean it's OK to just push this back story of some character we hardly remember on us. It's not even a good back story.

This is what 95% of this episode is used to tell: I was killing everyone that wasn't me either alive or dead made no difference but then I came across this zen guy that adopted a philosophy of no killing so he managed to take me prisoner and eventually he convinced me to adopt this philosophy of no killing.

And for the last 5%: Oh and now I'm trying the same thing with another guy (which isn't gonna work of course (with a guy that doesn't brush his teeth)).

At least the rest of the cast had free time this week (or whenever they did the filming), must have been some party that made them resort to this filler ep.

Tell me something though how is it that there are still so many Z's walking around? That they decompose like any other dead body has been established already so how the hell can most of them still be moving? (not to mention the more obvious ridiculousness at a multitude of points)

I really don't get the high ratings for this movie many reviewers give out. It's like watching vacation video's of some forgotten 70's family, boring as hell.

So this is what it's about, although it's not really about anything. There is an angry chain smoking father constantly reacting excessively to all sorts of little things. That's it.

The only redeeming feature of this movie was Zoe's pretty face.

Now I'm just filling space as to fill the minimum of 10 lines for these reviews even though there is noting more to say about this movie. Maybe that's why it got such high ratings from others. Being forced to look for more substance than there really is just to be able to fulfill the criteria.

Unlike most others writing reviews, I'm not a big fan of the cartoon series. I did watch it tough. Just like the cartoon this movie is a nowhere going "drag-fest" ending in disappointment.

I was really hoping the movie was going to give some actual answers but as usual with this Asian stuff one gets utterly disappointed as lots of the really important stuff isn't explained (you have to have someone say what is happening at least once out loud even tough I would take clear suggestions at this point). Spent the whole thing waiting for some explanation. Even the cartoon was more revealing than this but was just as much a drag going nowhere (unless there are new episodes I haven't seen).

Here this is what happens. People are living behind 3 big walls surrounding a big city size area because a hundred years ago humanity was nearly killed off by giants.

The movie starts of with 10-15min of boring social interactions.

Now suddenly the first wall is breached by an über-giant letting the smaller giants in. And the über-giant just disappears. Here I got actually a bit exited for what else was to come but then » DRAG DRAG DRAG DRAG DRAG DRAG DRAG DRAG DRAG (empty boring childish social interactions not explaining a darn thing).

Then there is a little bit of action instigated by sheer stupidity. As if the whole journey to the hole isn't stupid. They have to stay quiet to not be heard but equipping the vehicles and people for that matter with lots of lights is just fine.

Now halfway trough the movie there is a friggin flashback (everyone hates flashbacks and there was no reason for dragging out this piece of information) explaining that the giants can be killed by destroying the back of the neck. Until this point there wasn't much of a reason to anything they were doing from the audiences perspective as up until that point they were immortal so plugging the hole is pointless if you trap the giant killers inside with no way of beating them.

DRAG DRAG DRAG DRAG DRAG, now we get to the last 15min yes there is action here and it is pretty cool but every little chance they get to drag a moment out they take even tough it makes no sense to do so at the heights of danger. It really ruins a good portion of all the action sequences in this movie. All the giants wait patiently if there are some long winded "stare contests" to be done.

Now at the end one of the guys gets eaten but somehow turns into a somewhat different kind of giant himself wile being digested inside the stomach ripping himself out. Now this giant is more intelligent than the rest and therefore kicks ass. Looks different too more defined. The leader scout somehow knows about this possibility and tells his sad bunch of troops to cut him out (no one listens) of the neck (veteran outsider cuts him out). A remark is made "oh that's why they are vulnerable at the back of the neck". Suggesting that all the giants have people in their necks. But again this does not explain the lack of intelligence in the others and the lack of definition. With the cartoon I always assumed the regular giants were some sort of unmanned mishaps gone out of control working on controlled transformation as part of some military weapons program as to account for the lack of intelligence and their zombie like stamping around.

Oh and the scouts ODMG's (their biggest asset in fighting giants) are not even used by most of them as if they haven't had any training at all.

Well it started of promising when I first saw the show but there was already a dread of it being to much of a drama and not sci-fi as the show is called star crossed (lovers). I hoped there wasn't going to be a silent lovers in the title.

The actors are to old especially the human ones as they explained the aliens maturing faster than humans. Especially the lead (btw wasn't she a blond as a child?) she has one of those older looking faces than her actual age. Too much sunlight maybe? It constantly bothers me seeing wrinkles that shouldn't be there, dark circles around her eyes, cheeks that look like they will get droopy in the future.

The whole thinking it was an invasion was stupid. Who crashes a ship as part of an invasion? Also sad to see that in this near future humanity still is being kept in the dark about the existence and interaction with alien intelligence already happening today. Oh and when are we finally going to stop with the engine at the back of the ship kind of spaceships. FTL travel requires you to manipulate space-time itself, this means artificial gravity bubbles and such, a round, oval or dish shaped craft would be the most logic shape for this.

Something else that stuck with me the alien girl saying that they are not limiting themselves to the opposite sex love wise. Asking the human "do you" as if it's a choice. Promoting the grossly misinformed idea that sexual preference is a choice. You really should know being anything else than heterosexual is a simple genetic defect just like down syndrome. It causes people being born with a brain of the opposite sex or in the case of bisexuals something in between.

Anyway the occasional continuation of the underlying sci-fi storyline keeps the show interesting enough to listen to it. Yes you don't need to watch this show you can just as well listen to it as you do something else at the same time (5.5 stars).

I didn't expect much of the movie, seemed like one of those film festival pieces of crap. But it really wasn't. Yes there is a certain amount of artsy-fartsy stuff put in there but that fits quite nicely.

I actually watched the whole movie. To me that says something. These days most of what's new isn't or great concepts are horribly executed (and Hollywood is only remaking stuff lately). Because of that I often find myself trying to do something else while the movie is still going. That didn't happen this time.

I also kinda hope this movie serves as a bit of an eyeopener, there are places where advertising is actually banned or at least from public places mainly the streets. Makes you feel peaceful being or even seeing such a place especially if you are used to be bombarded with all sorts of advertisements all day and everywhere.

BTW: I didn't even have subs for the Russian parts, still very watchable. BTW: Leelee Sobieski, doesn't she look a lot look Helen Hunt (but younger)!?

I first came across Gantz in comic book form. Online that is, read a few pages and liked the story (somewhere in the middle of the alien invasion, one/two of the people being kept as pets) but really wasn't looking for this kind of stuff at that moment.

Some time after I came across the movie Gantz. It was OK but no more than an intro and as usual with Asian stuff slow passed and with little explanation of what is happening.

Now I just learned that there is a second Gantz movie. Haven't watched it jet, well not completely. But I doubt it's gonna be worth watching.

However Looking for Gantz 2 I came across this anime show. Now I read the Gantz story on Wikipedia so for me the whole point of watching this show was to see that story, so Gantz training missions » alien invasion » beating the aliens » explanation where Gantz comes from.

Imagine my disappointment after going trough all the immense slow progressing episodes and not even getting to the alien invasion at the end.

Let me list some more things that made it so bad.

* The lack of explaining stuff to newcomers just because people wouldn't believe it anyhow. And when there is an explanation attempt it's mostly gibberish. How hard is it to tell the newcomers the sphere seems to be some piece of alien tech that duplicated and/or teleported them just before their deaths and that they are now recruited to fight aliens hiding on earth and if they do well they can get a second chance at life without interference of Gantz. Just don't die during a mission and all your wounds will be healed. Plus the custom fitting suits give you super human abilities. See it takes only a few seconds to explain. They even have time to have sex before the actual mission starts so plenty of time to go into details as well. A survivor could also just write down what they know and pass that piece of paper around amongst the newcomers. * Constant standing around doing nothing while people are being killed around them. Basically the same deal with pointing guns with no follow trough. * Long boring really really inappropriate dialogs discussing all kinds of stuff in the middle of a battle where the enemy basically just stops until they're ready to resume. * The lack of basic teamwork. They can't even manage to shoot at something together. * Total lack of explanation whether or not the aliens have actually done something that warrants their destruction. They all seem to be just minding their own business until they are attacked. * So lets say they are bad and that's why they are hiding on earth. Why the hell do they keep messing up opportunities? Like taking aliens out before they get dangerous. Like still refusing to put on the suit even after it got clear that it's really the best.

p.s. What's up with the weapons delay!? With all the amazing tech it just makes no sense to equip your people with such disadvantage. And why the hell is there a delay anyhow?

What went trough my head at the end of the movie.

To bad they spent so much of the time portraying a standard slasher and had to rush trough the "good" part.

It's like someone came up with the idea for this movie and in one sentence told the studio what to make.

Because they rushed trough the end nothing got explained. Evil giant gods living inside the earth. Being satisfied with some rituals that keep them down. These "gods" must be huge couch potatoes watching TV (the rituals) and the idea is to just keep entertaining them so that they never get motivated to get up and do something else which would be destroying their own property for some reason?

If you have any idea how huge the universe is, it also makes no sense. On a universal scale the earth wouldn't even be as big as a single cell organism is to us. Putting gods inside something smaller than a bacteria is just nonsense.

Who created humanity? These same gods? Why did they let themselves be kept down there by some rituals? And why was that necessary in the first place? Or in other words, what was the point of humanity? Destroying humanity, and then what? The same deal with another species?

Was there a forcefield around the cabin in the woods? Or was it an invisible wall? Would seem to me that a forcefield would not consist of honeycomb segments as was the case. Where did they get this technology from everything else looks like regular tech except for maybe the monster cube structure.

Where is the sci-fi the trailer promised (except for the forcefield)? Never really a good idea to mix 'science (fiction)' and 'fantasy/magic'. Don't slap a sci-fi sticker on it if you don't even know the difference between a galaxy and the universe.

Seeing all those monsters in the cubes reminded me a lot of the door factory in monsters inc.

Still it was a somewhat decent movie. Now that I'm thinking about it: the biggest problem this movie had that they couldn't decide on the genre. It's not scary, it's not funny, it's not serious, it's not deep, it's not light. It's an 'in betweens' mess. But at least they tried something newish.

(why the spoiler tick? isn't that a given in reviews?)

First of all when I saw the trailer/teaser I was already disappointed seeing that this spider-man had to rely on tech for his web-slinging. That has always been something that bothered me in the spider-man stories so I was happy with the previous movies where they did not "cripple" spider-man in that fashion. Makes no sense a spider/man hybrid with no "natural" web-slinging abilities. Also compared to spider-woman, spider-man is quite weak, the reliance on tech only ads to this weakness (they should have been more or less equal). In general I've always been hoping that he would somehow become stronger so the Venom story was great in the beginning, disappointing later on though, it just couldn't be a blessing, it had to be a curse. But all the bruises in this movie made him look even weaker than ever.

Why they chose "lizard-man" as the villain? I don't get it, that has always been a rather unpopular/boring character. They could have chosen so much more fun adversaries. Mysterio for instance (great for the big screen with all the illusions, especially in 3D). Also what makes no sense with this villain, that he loses his arm when reverting back to human. If you regrow a limb and then mutate to a lizard-man why would that new arm then mutate back into oblivion?

I much rather would have watched a 4th spider-man movie with madam-web for instance and maybe some story lines from one of the better games.

If you ask me the whole Gwen Stacy + high school doesn't really fit. Not with MJ as a neighbor (I assume that's still the case even though it's not mentioned).

By the way, I might have missed it as I occasionally "dosed off" but where the hell was the phrase "with great power comes great responsibility"?

I had read about this show a wile back and it sounded pretty cool. I also welcome something new with familiar actors from previous cool shows. And it was interesting right until the moment Charley got his (lasting) outer body experience. Instead of exploring that, what was supposed to be different from other shows, he got shoved to the background and the show turned into a plain old boring hospital show narrated here and there by a ghost.

Now they did promise that he will make contact with the living trough a sick kid (who's gonna believe a kid, the cliché would be no one) the next episode but I already suspect it will be quite anti climactic. I sure hope things will turn around soon and really hope they didn't plan to drag us trough the series with those kind of little teasers and display some accusal worthwhile substance.

By the way did you notice the name similarity with Raising Hope. If that's on purpose they must already have realized themselves that is isn't that good of a show.

When I read Kristen Bell was in it I thought could be fun. I like her ever since she appeared in Supernatural. I laughed my ass of when she went "bullshit bullshit bullshit" with her little fists in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Maybe if she had the lead? But no this black pimp/player kinda guy has the lead. Couldn't stand him from the first seconds into the show. The freeze frame crap made it even worse. Who really wants to see such a character? From the first moment when he wakes up near the naked ass of his ex wife I was thinking what a douche.

Almost no one can identify with a character like that, with good reason. The world is full of bad guys especially these days with overpopulation and capitalism gone wild bringing out the worst in people. The good and decent people getting screwed more than ever. Do we really want to be entertained by this sort of dren? Are we supposed to think this sort of screwing people over is acceptable and funny even?

It gets a few stars because the acting isn't bad but the story what were they thinking!?

So what's it about? What I could make of it since it was quite boring and at a certain point I stopped watching it directly but left it running so that I could still hear that was said, occasionally looking at what was happening.

A woman (teacher) lost her baby in a car crash and gets depressed. A transfer student shows up and there seems to be some sort of grim connection between them. Meanwhile she notices some weird "tumors" on her head like baby devil horns. This apparently is how they chose to differentiate between humans and aliens in this movie.

... Lots of boring bla bla. Near the end apparently she and others are aliens that were drawn to earth because of certain feelings they did not know like (cliche) love, which they wanted to experience for themselves. So they set out to live on earth as humans instead of worm like creatures (how they ever managed space travel is a complete mystery). But somehow or for some reason their memories have been wiped.

Now the rest I'm not sure about. But I think what was going on was that there was some sort of rescue probe drawing them to it to take them home but they had to sort of fight that attraction if they wanted to stay!? More I can't really make of it without re-watching it but that I'm not going to do. Was too boring to begin with. I'd rather pop in an old epi of Farscape or some other decent sci-fi instead of this dren :)