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Locke (2013)
Being a descent human being is hard enough...
Surprisingly emotional movie that doesn't let go once it got you, Tom Hardy does an amazing work given the claustrophobic space this movie give him, a lesser actor couldn't have pulled it off, but he can, I can respect that. I would also like to mention the other actors which you can only hear in phone conversations but also deliver amazing performances.
Not many movies deals in what a human being can do when he or she is under pressure, realistically , this movie does it and beyond and even if there are flaws, they are forgiven in my view given the difficulty and the depth of the matter.
I didn't enjoy Locke by the way, it made me uncomfortable, but I'm glad I watched it just the same.
The Snowman (2017)
Bad but funny
Ok, so I haven't read the book, but I like watching a good thriller once in while, the trailer promised a nice Scandinavian film noir with great actors like Fassbender, Gainsbourg and even Val Kilmer , what could go wrong?.. Plenty apparently.
Good things first.
The cinematography generally is lovely, great setting with this weird dark film noir settings, interiors with classic 70s IKEA furnitures in about every houses. In fact some of the details are so strange that it pulls you out of the usual stuffy feeling noir thrillers usually give you. . In one scene the detectives are working in what looks like an abandoned library, concentrated on their desk while police officers literally skated around with the book rolling tables , it all looked so weirdly surrealistic , I couldn't help but laugh.
You'll see also lovely opening shots of sceneries from Norway, the coastal cities as well as the mountain, at times this movie felt more like a tourism commercial than a thriller, in that aspect it succeeded.
Now the bad...
The plot is completely disjointed and finish abruptly , the motives of the numerous characters are at best unclear, some of them are never followed upon, as the director must have lost interest in the middle of the movie.
The actors did their best they could with their script, but in many of the scenes , it's if themselves didn't seem to understand their own lines.
The killer who you'll guess the identity after half an hour seems more weird than scary and while the murders are ghastly, they're so strange and out of place that it felt more like a mediocre episode of X-files . There is also an attempt of romance in there somewhere, but that too falls on its face.
Luckily the movie goes into this area where it's so bad it's funny, which make it an enjoyable experience in my book. I'd definitely recommend it to a show like the Red Letter Media to review as a schlock on YouTube. If you can't appreciate the humorous mediocrity, you'll like the cinematography and lovely scenic shots. So this movie, while not a good thriller, will probably not feel like a complete waste of time, just don't take it seriously.
Hitman (2007)
Completly illogical and incoherent, but funny...
Movies based on computer games are generally bad, so I didn't have any illusion when I decided to watch Hitman.
Watching the movie was amusing , but I'm chocked that so many on IMDB gave this movie such good reviews.
their are some good things about this movie. The actions scenes were competent enough, even entertaining at time as long as you don't think too much about the context around it. The "Bond girl" of this movie , a Mila Kunis look-alike who wear as little as possible, is obviously easy on the eye even if she couldn't act to save her life.
Unfortunately, the movie is trying way too hard to remain faithful to the game. The bar code in the back of the head of the assassins is one example, it looks cool in the game but in the movie it just looks ridiculous . In many scene they tried to reenact agent 47 the way you see him often in the game , 3 person view which doesn't really make sense in the movie. He also put on costumes when it's not really necessary , another mechanic from the game which they kind of forced into the scenes of this movie.
I am also surprised of how powerful the Interpol organisation is in this movie, the policemen looking for agent 47 literally go around and boss around the authorities in Russia. In the end they even show up in force to arrest the alleged killer of the Russian president, and the whole police apparatus in Moscow is okay with that , what the hell?
Does the director of the movie really expect us to believe the Russians would let any agency , let alone Interpol, a organization with no real power or authority, order the police and the FSB around(todays equivalent of KGB) with impunity?
The plot in itself is overcomplicated and illogical even by gaming standards, why do the Russian opposition hire Agent 47 to kill the "moderate" president when they obviously control most of the security forces in the country. Can't they do the dirty deed themselves, the Spestnatz was on vacation or something?
Why the stupid "switcharoo" to replace the nice president with an evil double in full public view which sound difficult and unpractical? Just kill the guy and blame the terrorists, and place your own hawkish canditate in power. Russians in movies aren't exactly known for their subtility.
Agent 47 , himself the main protagonist , is badly played by an actor who tries his best to give a vibe of mystery and deadly efficiency but only manage to appear stiff and honestly rather stupid. He also really stand out in a crowed, a tall bald guy with a bright red tie in a suit. That works in a computer game, but in spy-movie it doesn't. He was much better in doing action scenes than dialogues which he thankfully had few of.
The female protagonist falls in love with him in about 3 minutes , even though Agent 47 threaten her, lock her up in the trunk of a car (with a dead guy) for no reason, and basically put her life in great danger during the whole movie. Must be the worse case of Stockholm Syndrome I've experienced in a movie, however she was a little better at acting than her counterpart and looked positively hot when she didn't talk.
All in all, an incredible mediocre movie , even for something inspirated by a computer game, as a spy movie, it's just ridiculous. Only view for the laughs.
Drinking game suggestion for this movie : drink a shot every time the Interpol detective call Agent 47 for "our boy" or "our guy" . Drink two shots every-time a Russian officer/policeman cower in fear when a foreign agent tell them they have jurisdiction.
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)
Star Wars: The Last Snore
I didn't expect much from this movie, and I was still disapointed.A single X-wing piloted by Poe assisted by a few more ships take down an Imperial Dreadnought in the 10 first minutes of the movie, a massive space warship which apparently can be destroyed by a dozen small fighter and bomber ships?
Why weren't there hundreds of T-fighters dispatched to stop them ? I saw five of them or something.
If the First Order is so inept at designing and using their massive fleets, how were they able to take over in the first place? This problem comes up in most Star wars movies, but here they really went too far.
Then there is a kind of space chase where the First Order fleet ,bolstered by its flagship, almost but cannot quite get to the weakened resistance fleet to obliterate it for some unfathomable reasons.
The most unforgiving, was how boring and sluggish the first part of this massive two and a half hour movie went. Rey is in planet "North Scotland" trying to convince Luke to teach her to be a Jedi, the conversations are contrived and do nothing to advance the plot for a solid hour. While this happens Finn and the chubby girl written in the story to please the Chinese market leave the space chase (yup no problem...) to some Casino
planet to find some hacker (drunk Del Torro) who will disable some tracker device on the main First order ship which.
The people running the casino are of course bad guys, and the children labor used on the casino planet for taking care of the horse creatures (why don't they use droids???) for no reason decide to help our heroes who will later let them stranded there, probably to get punished by their evil masters. What is it with the Star Wars franchise and their "live and let live" philosophy when it comes to slavery?
This subplot is both contrived and dull , most importantly it doesn't lead anywhere and the remnants of the purchased resistance fleet escape at the last moment of course to some planet convienantly in the area with an even more conveniant old deserted resistance base located there.
Who wrote this???? I've seen Saturday afternoon Hanna Barbera cartoons with better plot!
I don't mind that they're recycling the main plotlines from The Empire Strikes Back, but couldn't they have done it a bit better?
Anyway after about one hour and a half of this slug, you'll finally get to the better part of the movie where Rey and Kylo Ren confront ... Gollu... I mean Snoke ,Supreme Leader of the First Order. The confrontation actually
managed to keep my interest, not much surprises there, but the fight between Rey and Kylo and Snokes's guard was actually enjoyable to watch.
Then there is the last showdown between the forces of the First order and the resistance on the planet, which actually was pretty well done, again, no real surprise here , and like most of the movie, you never feel like the main heroes
are in real danger , of course some Deus Ex Machina device show up to save them from hopeless situations and they finally escape. It's not unusual for an action movie, I just wish it wasn't so obvious.
Oh and Luke dies back on his planet after fooling the First order, because... he was tired I guess, thanks for all the money Walt Disney! At this point I didn't really care anymore, I was just happy the movie to finally end, it lasted two and a half an hour but felt like five...
The visuals of the movie were really well done, and I especially liked the planet at the end, with the red and white sand (or salt or whatever). The music score was really good and much more true to the classical Star Wars than the last movie. The plot however was for a great length boring and tired-some, the characters played by good actors did the most they could with what they had, but unlike Force Awakens, didn't feel so fresh or invigorating anymore, there were times when they looked positively bored.The New characters ,like the Asian American girl who play Rose and Del Toro weren't bad, they were just victims of a lazy script and felt rather unnecessary in the whole.
I think the director tried to appeal to children with some funny and cute animals on the "Scottish Island" planet and children(labor...) on the "Casino" planet, but I honestly think they'll mostly feel disoriented by the disjointed plot and bored just like many grown ups were.
In short: Apart from some good parts and an "ok" ending, and despite amazing visuals and music score, the "plot" and underused characters let the movie down. I honestly cannot recommend this movie even to casuals, only to Star Wars Die Hard who will watch it no matter what... oh well, at least it wasn't as bad as Star Wars episode one.
Synchronicity (2015)
Reflected and interesting movie about time-travel paradox.
Synchronicity is an interesting movie that makes you think. I've seen others movies on the subject of time-travel but few that goes that deep into the subject and explaining it that well.
It's by no mean an easy movie to understand as a whole plot-wise because of the whole time-travel paradox , but it actually illustrate the complexity of it in a very elegant and subtle manner without too many shortcuts.
The movie has its flaws however,some of the plot devices related to the time-travel paradox seemed a little bit too convenient in my opinion, and the ending could have been better. But as a whole I liked the story even though I didn't understand all the details involved. There is also a nice little love story which actually fitted quite well in the overall plot.
The cyberpunk setting wasn't a bad idea for the movie, but I wished they had been a bit more subtle about it. Some of the scenes of the movies were almost screaming "We bloody love Blade Runner" at us. I still liked the style and music but I think it was a bit overdone.
Apart from Ironside all the actors are refreshingly unknown, and do a very good job given the complex story they play.I liked the characters which were both human and interesting.
Synchronicity's story is by no mean easy to grasp , but I enjoyed it. It wasn't overly complicated but still gave me something to think about after watching it. I recommend this movie if you're in the mood for a bit more serious scifi.
Sicario (2015)
A Steven Seagal movie staring Del Toro
Good cinematography and good actors only get you so far in a movie. If it was an action movie I would have been willing to suspend my disbelief, but as a realistic drama it borders the ridiculous given the plot holes.
Some secretive CIA group deeply involved in the drug war decide to recruit FBI agent Kate Mercer because of her ability to look both frightened and confused at any given time. It's her only facial expression during the whole movie and you'll see it a lot. She also whine and complain a lot while the scruffy CIA\paramilitaries tells her to shut up or give her cigarettes. I wish I could say there is more to her character in the movie but...
As any law enforcement person will tell you, it's always best to have an unstable , psychopathic person in your ranks to do some serious-police-work/torture for you. That's where Alejandro played by Del Toro gets in.
When he is not torturing someone, he just sit brooding or tell Kate how much she, a mid twenties law enforcement woman from USA remind him of his lost Mexican teenager daughter. He also know how to resolve the cartel problem in Mexico, you shoot the evil boss! Why hasn't anyone though of that before? It's genius!
As a suspense drama movie based on real event, the plot is just too silly despite the beautiful scenes and able actors. As an action movie, it's too boring and the action is too mild to make it entertaining. Oh and there is no humor whatsoever, nobody smiles, everybody is miserable and sad in this part of the world, I guess they read the script...
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
A New-New Hope
Being a survivor of the date rapes that were "Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the clones" in 1999 and 2002, The Force Awakens was certainly a good surprise (I didn't bother to show up to watch the third one in 2005 as the beaten-wife-syndrome had worn off at that point).
Some people have noticed that this movie has many of the same story-pattern as "A New Hope" , it's true, but in this movie it's not necessarily a bad thing, in fact i enjoyed this movie a great deal, but yes creatively speaking it doesn't take many chanceS.
Being a J.J Abrams movie, it's very action oriented and lose some of the poetry from the original, but since it's Star Wars which has always been about glorious space battles and clashes of characters, it tackles it well. In fact I particularly liked the way "the Force" was presented to us as its presence is getting felt thorough the movie in the many action scenes The new characters were... fine, but as main characters they certainly lacked the panache and charisma from their counterparts from the original movies.Especially Harrison Ford steal the show from the younger actors more than once.
The bad guys had an even harder time here as the Darth Vader "wannabe" lose most of his steam half through the movie and comes out as a rather poor reflection of the original. The "First Order" itself although well armed with everything from Storm Troopers to "Super-size-Death-Star" didn't feel half as menacing and threatening as the soul crushing Empire from the original.
The special effects are great with impressive armadas of enormous space ships on the screen and the battles are amazing (3D is recommended, it looks pretty amazing), but unfortunately most of is still CGI and computer rendering,it's all very nicely done, but my hopes that lifelike models of the spaceships would be used like in the original movies didn't materialized. Walt Disney even cut corners on some important alien characters like Maz Kanada whose CGI was rather poor, and the "Supreme-Leader-Snoke-Emperor-wanabee" who looked like an over-sized and ridiculous Gollum.
J.J Abrahams did a great job with the atmosphere however, especially at the start and the action scenes are smooth and entertaining. But at the same time those scenes are so numerous that they strain the connection between the characters who have very little time to get to know each other between yet another space or planet battles. I wouldn't have minded a couple less action scenes for a little more conversation between the characters, but that's J.J Abrahams I guess. Still it's a very solid movie and although it's not as good as any of the originals from the 70's or 80's it doesn't put them to shame either and bring new elements into an universe which I can't wait to see more of.
The Visit (2015)
Worst episode of X-files ever...
I wasn't exactly expecting a Carl Sagan or Bill Nye experience here. But a well done documentary about our views , expectations and fear about possible first contact with an alien civilization on a scientific and philosophical level seemed like a great idea.I'm a long time fan of science fiction and scientific documentaries in connection with such controversial themes can be incredibly interesting What I got was over an hour of bureaucrats, scientists and officials spouting very generic one-line sentences about a possible meeting with aliens and having fake monologue with the viewers like they were aliens. A monologue can be a very efficient way to transmit a message to the audience , I understand what the director was trying to do, but you must have some skills in acting and none of the persons in the movie were actors. So as a result it seemed increasingly forced and fake, actually it was downright embarrassing.
Most of the people in the interviews seem to be bored, uninterested or unsurprisingly somewhat embarrassed. Worse nothing they said was interesting and you have heard it all before in more entertaining and educational settings. Yes the director managed to make an noneducational and boring documentary focusing mainly on confused officials discussing the fine points of diplomatic protocols when encountering aliens, double whammy.
The whole thing lasted one hour and a half but felt like four, people around us were sighing loudly (And rightly so), some even smarter left as I should have.
Stay away from this travesty , and if you're interested in the subject I would recommend the excellent "Through the wormhole, How aliens think" (s4ep5) with Morgan Freeman.Even a descent episode of X-file will leave you feel more enlightened than "the Visit" with the added advantage of providing a bit of entertainment
Godzilla (2014)
Stay away , boring.
It's a Godzilla movie, so i wasn't expecting Shakespeare or something like that, but I was expecting a movie with goddamn Godzilla in it doing something cool.
What I got was about two hours of horrible actors looking lost, a lot of nonsense and 15 minutes of Godzilla (if that, and it wasn't great, the 1960\70 original movies in all their cheesiness are better...). Godzilla deserves better, you deserves better, the guy who made this movie should be punished by having to watch it ... once!
the only positive thing in this movie was Bryan Cranston who depart from the movie pretty early. Follow his example and save yourself from a mediocre nonsensical and boring movie.
In Time (2011)
good idea, bad movie
People stop aging at 25 but get only 1 year, after that they time out which means death, time is the currency. An individual can earn more and of course their are inequalities, the people in the ghetto usually live day to day trying to earn hours or even minutes to make a living. While people in the Greenwitch area can live for centuries.
The idea is a great idea for a movie but the execution is atrocious, Justin Timberlake should stick to music videos , his acting is stiff and he has about one face expression. The others actors are not much better except for the Cilian Murphy and Vincent Kartheisser who made an impression as respectively the incorruptible cop and the rich time mogul.
Given that the creators of the movie used a lot of time to set up an interesting universe with parallels to ours (lot of poor so a few rich can prosper...) The story is full of holes , why are time banks so easy to rob, the police (or timekeeper) so inefficient, the time "armwrestling" thing is just ridiculous...
The love story is not really believable or interesting for anyone but for the hormone induced teenagers who get a chance to watch Timberlake without a shirt on.
All in all the film is watchable but could have been much better with a better plot and better actors.
Änglagård - Tredje gången gillt (2010)
Too long, no story
The Änglagård series was apparently a big hit in the 1990 here in Scandinavy, i kind of remember seeing the movie-poster a couple of place but i have never actually seen the movies. From what i gathered it was about a Swedish city girl returning to her ancestral village an causing all kind of situations and incidents with her modern and fresh way contrasted to the conservative villagers. Maybe the experience is better if you've seen the former movies, but to be honest you probably have to be a very big fan of the series to enjoy this. Fanny who has now settled down in Malorca let her daughter Alice convince her and Zac (Alice step-dad and longtime friend of Fanny) to return to Anglagård to discover the true about who her father and Alice grand father might be. Apart from the priest nobody in the village want to have to deal with her and try rather awkwardly to stop her in her investigations, although it's really unclear why. The mystery in itself really isn't deep or interesting to say the least and deal with the past of Fanny's relatives. It is resolved less than an hour into the movie and my first though was "can i go now?" , but no, the movie goes on and on and it get even less interesting with characters whose antics might get a smile out of you if you're easily entertained and haven't been bored to death by then.
The actors do an OK job presenting theirroles, but there is no real story and their motives are really unclear. 15 year's old Alice seem hellbent to know the place her mother's family is from and to find out about her relatives, however when it is done she seems to lose interest (she barely talks to her new found grandpa's) but still want to stay in Anglagård,a little place in the middle of nowhere where everyone is your relative, every teenager's dream place. The villagers in the start of the movie treat Fanny like an outsider , but it isn't clear why since they all know her from the former movies and most of them have no particular reason to dislike her. The movie explore a few more plots along the lines of gossips about some weird incest story,but it just get more ridiculous and uninteresting and goes nowhere. The imagery in the movie are nice, and you'll see a lot of nice takes on the Swedish countryside, but there are plenty of good Scandinavian movies who fit that bill and on top of that have a believable plot and great story. Only the more hardcore fans of the original movies would find any interest in Änglagård - Tredje gången gillt , for the rest of us, you better avoid it, there are better Swedish movies out there.