Reviews

Every episode had its share of annoying moments, but also some redeeming ones that kept me watching. Dominic Cooper is great as Preacher. The photography is nicely done. Initially this show's vampire Cassidy and its angelic couple Fiore & DeBlanc did showcase some quirky and entertaining elements.

Too bad that the story line is first and foremost boosted by stupidity. Genesis, the strange entity that took Preacher as its vessel, enhances his words so that people will follow his orders. But it works a lot like a djinn, those spoken to sometimes quite mischievously misinterpret their master's voice. Of course, Preacher could easily stop their nonsense by just telling them the correct way, but he never does. So stupid.

Imagine that a priest with the absolute power to make people obey his words tells you to believe in God and you can outsmart him by believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM). What a stupid power, what a stupid priest to let you get away with it. As "Preacher" is not a fun show, instead of the FSM they actually use something like the god of meatballs, but that's close enough. How inept is the author of such tomfoolery, how annoyed is the poor soul unfortunately watching this? Very.

Cassidy's stupidity makes it impossible to imagine how he could have survived more than a week as a vampire. Fiore & DeBlanc are just two petty bureaucrats from hell. You can kill their bodies, but you can't get rid of them as they are replaced immediately. But apart from that feature they don't show the slightest hint of a supernatural consciousness. They are pure simpletons with the squarest of interests. Such a concept might have been fun in the 1950s, but in the current year it gets stale all too soon and turns into a stupid bore.

This is just another show pinned by resentment-ridden, urban, pathologically-15-years-old writers, who sacrifice everything for the sake of a crude and edgy effect. There are some disgusting elements in this show, like the obsessive stereotypical portrayal of Southerners as idiots and perverts. But what really killed "Preacher" for me were two murders shown in episodes 9 and 10 that made me wonder why I've cared for any of these completely rotten characters in the first place. They are all hellbound. All too obviously the show's motto is "Sympathy for the devil". So 1968! It's best left to nasty grandma and gramps with their spooky old hand signs. Seriously, don't bother with this "Preacher"!

Murder is legal during the night of the "Purge". Most serial killers are law abiding citizens, just pathetic wannabes. Thanks to the "Purge" they can finally live their dream and kill, kill, kill. But there are like-minded souls roaming the streets and a better armed group or a sneaky sniper can stop the nicest killing spree. This is total war, like Verdun, and even the toughest soldiers hated Verdun. So actually only total nut-cases with a death wish would participate in the "Purge". Additionally, killing someone you know will make you the prime target of his friends and relatives, it's not "purging", it's stirring things up.

The first "Purge"-movie was just a run-of-the-mill home-invasion thriller with a strange background story. The second installment is supposed to flesh out the original concept, except it doesn't, because, well, it really is a very stupid idea. There are a few psychopaths killing the homeless and each other. But the main "Purge" participants are: a) Soldiers, sent by the white, Christian fundamentalist government to raise the disappointing "Purge" death toll. b) Mercenaries kidnapping random people, so rich, Christian fundamentalist whites can kill them in a save setting. c) Black revolutionaries that fight both groups and save their brothers & sisters. If the main character would have been black, constantly spouting ethnic slurs against whites, it would have been just like the blaxploitation movies from the 1970s. This will doubtlessly happen in part 3, when the revolutionary leader "The Stranger" will turn into a "Shaft"-like savior.

Why do people like this hateful and hypocritical trash? Is it a splendid satire on social trends happening in today's USA? Au contraire. If the really rich would want to get rid of the poor, they would start with ending the illegal mass immigration. But instead - of course - they do promote it. No administration likes heavily armed citizens. They want control, not anarchy, no "Guns are out new gods"-nonsense. Crime is great. If you treat it in a very liberal way, it will flourish until the people will demand all the right things: the abolition of cash, a snoopier and more intrusive police, stricter gun control laws (for non-criminals) ...

Is it "thought-provoking"? Yes, everything that annoying is.

Is it a "gripping suspense thriller"? If you manage to evade the provoked thoughts, you might enjoy the ride. I actually considered part 1 to be a silly, but quite suspenseful "Assault on Precinct 13"-version. Due to the sheer amount of stupidity in part 2, this time around I wasn't quite up to the challenge, it didn't amuse me at all.

250 years ago a prejudice purported that somebody without god would just pillage and murder. As it turned out, there is no such correlation. The "Purge" says that without governmental control and persecution people would just pillage and murder. Again: not true. Except for those few poor souls who aren't, we, the people, are much better than that.

The second part isn't better than the first one. It has a few nice moments, but most of the time it makes you wonder - again - if there is a tough competition in Hollywood to produce the most illogical and insultingly stupid blockbuster ever.

Just a few things that really annoyed me:

Peter was 4 when his parents disappeared. His father had developed the genetically enhanced spider that sat in the lab for over 10 years, until Peter accidentally stepped into the room and was bitten.

When the father tries to escape from the powers that want to misuse his invention, leaving little Peter with Aunt May, he records a final video message. He explains that he used his own DNA and that the spiders therefore work their intended magic only with himself as the key. No, he says: "with my bloodline", thus throwing young Peter to the wolves. If one of the baddies would have gotten wind of this, he would have made Peter his lab rat.

It is implied that any other one, bitten by the spider would have died a horrible death. Fortunately they only bite Peter Parkers.

When Harry Osborn learns that he has inherited the same disease his father is dying of he acts like there's no tomorrow. But he's got more than 30 years, an eternity - just compare a Commodore 64 from 1984 to a normal smart phone.

Harry and Peter are supposed to be best friends. Here they are just childhood buddies, who haven't seen each other for 8 years. The news announce that Harry inherited the Osborn fortune - and Peter pops up at his door. "I know exactly what you are going through right now. You were so there for me when my parents ... That's why I'm here for you." Kindergarten friends are forever. Is the author of this super awkward dialogue from outer space?

Peter and Gwen are supposed to be deeply in love. But during the whole movie they are on the brink of a break up. There's not the tiniest bit of chemistry between them. Gwen is pushy and annoying. When Spidey fights the deadly Electro, she gets herself into the front-line, because she thinks she has to tell Peter some very basic facts about electricity. Peter is a science whiz himself, didn't the authors know that?

Jamie Foxx plays a half-wit that no company in the world would let get close to their high-end electric devices. An annoying stereotype from the fifties, when Jerry Lewis was considered to be funny.

Gwen (Emma Stone) looks terribly pedestrian, Harry (Dane DeHaan) like a young madman, and the "teenaged" Andrew Garfield (born 1983) is dull & unsympathetic. Kudos to the casting department and the director.

The Rhino scene with a little boy in a Spider-Man costume throwing himself into the line of fire is super annoying in oh so many ways. It's like showing a boy getting rescued by Superman after jumping off a high building, because he thought his Superman costume would turn him into the man himself. Criminally insane. Rhino's suit/tank looks quite impressive, but when the action starts the movie ends, leaving the audience with an unpleasant sense of frustration.

I know there is a law against talking about internal logic with regard to QT-movies. But I'm quite a bit fed up with sloppy, dyslexic screen writing and I'm feeling kind of outlawish, so here I go: Initially Schultz (Christoph Waltz) asks for Django's help, because Django is an acquaintance of three fugitives, the bounty hunter Schultz is after. A "Dead or Alive"-handbill with its sketchy description and drawing is not very reliable and shooting the wrong guy can easily happen and it will just as easily get yourself hanged. Therefore the recruiting of Django does make perfect sense. Looking for another wanted man Schultz enters the next town, where he's never been, meets him, who is now the sheriff of this town and whom he's never seen, and kills him after a few seconds, without even talking to him. This is the moment "Django Unchained" stops making sense.

Schultz is a cold blooded serial killer who murders people because some sheet of paper tells him that he's got the right to do so. He is a hypocrite, he gets mad at someone who also executes his state approved right to kill, but with sadistic pleasure. Murder is fine as long as the state tells you so and you do it for business, not for fun. In the original Spaghetti Western a guy like that would have always been the villain, many of the heroes were "Wanted Men" themselves. In "Django Unchained" he is the only human and sympathetic figure and without any doubt the main character. In many ways the spirit of "Django Unchained" is the exact opposite of that found in the movies Tarantino tried to emulate.

The story of the bland eponymous Django's development from slave in chains and rags to sharp dressed gunslinger with sunglasses is above all ridiculous and boring. So after Schultz's exit this excessively overlong movie becomes even more of an ordeal, although you get to see the explosion of a queer, ugly old geezer, who really deserved to die. He is played by QT himself and that's only something to look forward to and no spoiler, because naturally it has little plot relevance.

"Django Unchained" is about hating a whole ethnic group, just like "Inglourious Basterds", where Tarantino made sure to avoid the impression that there could be a German (a "Nazi") who wasn't devilishly evil. The nice young Zoller turns out to be a wannabe rapist and the clever detective Landa (Waltz) turns into a monster, strangling a helpless woman to death. After all Tarantino wanted his viewers to enjoy the butchering of hundreds of Germans in a cinema hall. In "Django Unchained" the murderous Schultz is the only decent white guy. All the others are preoccupied with torturing and humiliating blacks, so there is no need to dehumanize them any further. Will some savior please rise and rid the world of this evil?

"Django Unchained" tells the sentimental education of this savior, Django, that ends with the exit of his teacher. Now the Hate is strong with this one. He uses it for the righteous cause, to kill white people. All of them. The murders of the self-righteous are always cool and justified, right? Hypocrisy is the new religion. Tarantino is one of its high priests, "Django Unchained" is a High Mass. Enjoy!

"Once Upon a Time in the West", "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid" - those are masterworks. "Django Unchained" is the work of a slave, designed to debase its audience.

This is basically the well-known story of the three wishes granted by a mystic power that always come with a catch. It has been told countless times, from "The Monkey's Paw", the classic short story by W. W. Jacobs, to the X-Files episode "Je Souhaite" that is only mildly entertaining, but vastly superior to "Ruby Sparks". You make your first wish, realize that it didn't turn out as you had expected it and use your second wish to undo the unwanted consequences of the first. Now you try to phrase the third wish in a way that makes it absolutely impossible to backfire. The most common cheat is to wish for more wishes. If you can try long enough, something will finally turn out right.

This is actually the convenient starting situation for the "genius novelist" Calvin Weir-Fields, who with the help of his magic typewriter wrote his dream girl Ruby Sparks into existence. With regard to her he's got an endless supply of wishes. He writes down that Ruby speaks in fluent French and she does. If he wants to understand what she's saying, he just turns her back to English.

But Calvin has three big problems. He doesn't really know what he wants. He doesn't know what to do with a woman who is around all the time. And his descriptive powers are regrettably scrubby. He probably authored the first SMS-novel.

After a while, Ruby gets bored, wants some personal space and moves "back" into "her apartment" - that by a strange magical twist or just because of lazy screen writing really exists. Afraid of losing Ruby, Calvin writes down one sentence: "Ruby was miserable without Calvin." Yeah, right. This is going to solve all the problems. Predictably Ruby gets too clingy and gloomy, so Calvin writes down the next remedy: "Ruby was filled with the most effervescent joy." If he were just 8 years old, he could still be called a literary whizkid, because this is at least more eloquent and meaningful than "Ruby happy". But in the long tradition of wish-fulfillment fantasies he is one of the most inept disciples. In the end he goes all power mad, forcing Ruby to shout the praise "You're a genius!" over and over again, thus embarrassing everyone still watching. And there are another 12 annoying minutes to come.

In the beginning some scenes are a bit amusing. The short appearance of Antonio Banderas and Annette Bening is enjoyable. For most of the time Ruby is quite nice to look at, even though Calvin obviously made some mistakes while describing/creating her chin. But all things considered this is just another example of the old "rich kid with Hollywood connections wants to write and star in a movie"-genre. Zoe Kazan's wish was granted - but it went all wrong.