Reviews

I was expecting a "so bad its good" movie .. kind of like an amateur-ish attempt at horror with bad effects, poor acting and run-of-the-mill story. What i got was a movie that both confirmed the bias/expectation and also exceeded it.

The acting is below average .. there is little to no subtlety. It is a ride of extreme emotions and a bit of over-acting. There are non-essential characters that .. sadly are also treated as such (red shirts) - a stereotype that could have been averted without harming the plot.

There is good .. what i think .. practical effects. and absolutely TERRIBLE!!! CGI that looks like it comes straight from the Playstation 2 (and i really mean it). This is especially sad because some of the practical effects are really, really well done. Had the director (or whoever decides that stuff) decided to use the lights/darkness .. and use practical effects (in that case silhouettes rather than to show everything..) it would have improved the movie significantly.

There is good pacing .. in what is otherwise a predictable and simple story.

The conclusion .. is a bit surprising - for the movie does not follow the usual tropes for an ending of that sort of movie.

All in all, this movie is well worth watching

The movie itself is alright. Not the most innovative one .. but the claustrophobic environment supports the chronological scenes with raised stakes in terms of shock and terror. .. It is similar to walking through a labyrinth or one of those infinite mansions with too many rooms.

What did ruin it for me were the unrealistically stupid communication tropes of the protagonists. So the protagonists have a car .. which they can stand on. They enter the "field" because they want to assist someone to get out .. who seems confused - but appears to be close enough for clear communication. So why not stand on your car for a perfect overview and tell the person to jump to make their own way out?

Makes no sense for them to just walk onto what can only be assumed to be private property.

But then ... there would not be a story (in most suspense/horror movies) - if protagonists acted reasonable with a clear head. So despite the initial idiocy of their decision making and poor communication skills that sometimes hardly extend beyond "the pronoun game" (for a married couple, they really dont communicate well at all) - it is a run-of-the-mill average .. but watchable movie. Not a waste of time but certainly not a classic

The story is very predictable. There are no twists and turns that come as a surprise. What i really disliked was the characterization of the protagonist. It was very, very hard to feel for him - when he was portrait as a really insufferable person .. a person with no social skills at all. He is whiny and objectively ... does not make any sense to those that might or might not help him.

Something else i really did not like was the signaling of plot points as well as the very old fashioned camera angles, extreme close ups and lightning. It was as if the watcher of this movie needed every little hint about what was going on ... so it really did feel like the viewer was spoon fed - making the whole affair rather dull.

In terms of acting ... it was not outstanding or very much below average .. but it would not evoke much more than a bored acknowledgement that "acting had happened".

In short - i would characterize this movie as : quite a mess. - i still give it 6/10 ... because i am not so sure it is because i am not a native English speaker and i watched the movie in English.

From a strictly visual point of view .. there are some very good visuals with excellent angle, colours and lights ... and there are really bad ones (like the effects when supernatural things happen .. that can only be described as a basic photoshop stock effect)

The acting is sometimes good, sometimes quirky and funny and sometimes .. well, not very good - but rather over-acted.

The characters themselves - i have to admit .. i really, really did not get them. Why they were they, who they were and what it was all about. So the whole movie was more a collection of disjointed scenes with very little cohesion.

I am sure there is a deeper meaning - but i guess it was lost in translation.

I have to say that i do not know the base material (i was told it is based on some manga) - so i do not know how close the story is to the manga - or rather how much freedom in storytelling and dialogue they had.

The world that is built here looks nice - and i really like Steampunk/Dieselpunk styles - mixed with cyborgs ... why not. So from an asthetical point of view it works.

However - the below world feels very, VERY small - more like the "planet of the week on Star Trek" - with only very few and small detailed locations. We have the tavern thing where the bounty hunters hang out, the clinik and 2 or 3 generic streets. We also have the Arena where they do this inline-skating thing.

We never see the above city.

The doctor character is OK - but not really explained sufficiently. That means, i have no idea what he is all about. Mechanic? Junk yard guy? Medical doctor? Bounty hunter?!? or something other. We get Alita, who just does not fit in. No one else has such huge manga eyes, despite there being tons of robots.

Oh, and there is also this woman that seems to know the doctor ... that is never explained.

The "love-story" is about as idiotic and fleshed out as the love story in the Star Wars prequels .. maybe worse. The dialogues are cringe-worthy at times ... and the delivery on par with the quality of a never ending telenovela.

Visuals are sometimes amazing .. sometimes aweful. While Alita looks pretty good most of the time .. some flashback scenes look like they are straight out of a (fairly old) playstation 3 cut-scene. The wider city shots are awefully under-detailed.

And at no point it becomes clear under what "rules" the world works. Who dies? Who is just "damaged" and quickly repaired? Why do people complain that the below city is so bad when they seem to have everything... food, shelter and bodypart replacements as they wish.

I did watch a trailer for this movie and was quickly interested. When i watched it lately - i was quite satisfied with the story.

This is a very condensed story .. with "only" 3 protagonists. There is .. at least in my opinion .. no good or bad - just interpretations of it. - Something that makes the movie work for me. The subject of the story is an old one. The greater good vs. the personal good; the vanishing of ethical lines and morality - when it really counts, not as a thought experiment.

Each protagonists position is well build, is traceable and .. does make sense.

The conclusion is - about as unexpected as expected - "for the greater good" - or is it?

Acting was good .. although not too subtle. With extreme emotions replacing what could have been a more subtle approach, more nuanced and philosophical one ... the movie misses out a little.

It would have been nice to see more of the shaping of the one protagonist - to understand more of her decisions (which seemed out of place, considering her entire life experience and focus points)

All in all .. i give this a 8/10 ... although, more objectively it may be a 7/10 .. because more time with the character would have been helpful - then again it is a harsh thing to say, considering she has around 99% of the screentime.

To me, this movie was following the typical tropes. Disbeliever of an admittedly primitive urben legend. There is not enough background about this urban legend to care about it. So MAYBE ... if it is a real urban legend ... the emotional suspense is much better than in countries where this entire culture (like Latin American culture) is just non existent.

Because of that .. the "evil thing" that was haunting the characters was just that .. some generic "evil thing". Character reactions, decisions and motivations were also fully predictable and never surprised.

I would rate this movie 5/10 because it is not particularly "bad". It is competent in what it shows .. but never surprises. All characters, the good and evil .. are 100% replaceable by other movies characters.

I did not know this movie or had heard anything, not even the name. No trailer, no poster, no review. It was total coincidence to watch it.

And it did start slooooow .. soo slooow... But it became more and more engaging with a steady rise in tension and conclusion. By the end, i was totally blown away by it.

AMAZING characters, great, great acting .. great storytelling.

There is little real "action" - special effects are .. subtle. They are there when necessary, - but mostly absent. It felt like a very realistic take on aliens - hard to know who is who, who to root for and who to dislike really.

I can fully recommend that movie - but urge you to stick to it. It is fairly long drawn out, but comes to a satisfactory conclusion.

The movie is quite singular in its story. I would not call it horror - but rather drama or a tragic drama. Although bloody and violent, neither is remotely the focus of it all.

There are many questions that are left ununswered - and tons of plot-holes. But as a more fantastical story - it does work, kind of.

I was never bored watching it - but also never really fully immersed. However .. concluding on what it was and stands for .. i say it is very much recommended.

Such a great movie about coping, hardship and friendship - but on a very mature level.

Great narration, acting and general storytelling ... with one exception. To me .. the bully story could have been skipped. The core of the conflict had always been internal and not external .. so adding a bully felt out of place.

I would highly recommend this movie!

I do like the setting and the atmosphere in general. Suspenseful, chilling and rather tranquil in the first act an 2nd.

There is a lot to like in the movie .. with only a few cheap scares. What ruins the it for me though (up to a point..) is the typical horror movie trope of "NOT PROPERLY COMMUNICATING!" I find that just so infuriating .. granted, the whole story would be ruined if the protagonists would talk like normal people to each other.

Despite the few disappointments, i really did enjoy it. A suspense movie that does not culminate in some fantastical showdown .. but in a much more rational conclusion .. making it so much more terrifying.

I can fully recommend this movie - but it is a slow burner. and will put people to sleep if not in the right mood for it.

Right from the get go ... the entire idea of the movie falls apart for me. So, there are those particular people that are incarcerated. While i can get it for the "beast" that is split .. as he clearly poses a threat AND signs of severe mental disorder. It is much, much harder to justify for the other two. There simply is not enough evidence to suggest they would be picked out to join this trio.

We as spectators know .. but the people "in the world" would not. You do not "see" superior intellect. You do not "see" someone that is unbreakable. Sure there would be doctors and reports about some irregularities - but NOTHING to suggest such actions being taken.

Apart from this (and the unrealistic amount of measures taken against each of those .. ) the idea is that we want to prove that they are not super-human.

Alright .. but that falls flat, when the entire location is decked out in anti-super-human-measures.

The motivations of the doctor are weak, too. Plot-holes in movies are a common thing .. and often unavoidable. But when they are too big .. the whole structure falls apart. The doctor acts so unprofessional (like confirmation bias) that it totally breaks immersion. And that is very sad for a movie like that.

All in all .. sadly an underwhelming movie .. but with good acting indeed. Its the writing that fails it big time

Its a movie by numbers....

• get a diverse group of stereotypes
• put them in an isolated maze
• allow emotions and ideologies clash at the most inappropriate times
• have a few "easy to spot red-shirts"
• allow a great epiphany/deus ex machina reveal/idea to save the day

I had hoped for such a very standard movie to "do things differently" .. but it did not. It played out exactly like the countless other similar movies (like people put in a cabin in the woods, people put in a ghost house, people put in actual mazes, etc. )

There is nothing new .. not even the effects. The acting was .. well, its hard to say because it seemed not very challenging (considering that they all play stereotypes with little to no depth)

I cannot recommend that movie.

Yes, this is one of those movies that seem very philosophical. Horror is just one tiny aspect of it - hardly a key feature - but as "supporting actor".

The story is - well, maybe it is the language barrier (i watch movies in English, because they are not being translated to Icelandic most of the time) - and this story is anything but exposed. The narrative is visual and contextual - narrated in a calm and slow pace. I greatly enjoyed it but have to admit that i only really "got it" when i read a synopsis afterwards.

Acting is excellent, visuals are stunning and storytelling is flawless.

its a 10/10 for me, because i just loved the atmosphere of the movie, its look and feel, the approach to its context and how it would not consider the audience to be idiots but make up their own minds.

Now it is debatable if storytelling is good when you kind of "have to" read up a synopsis to understand it - but to me, it means that it is a challenge.

One more suggestion .. take your time to watch it and think about it. It is also one of those movies that totally work watching alone.

Gory, trippy, insane... It is ... a Nicolas Cage movie through and through. And i mean that in the best of ways. Cage is a great actor ... that has stared in many, many terrible movies.

Here it is a great movie. .. But it is not a movie that is great by default. It is one of those movies you "have to be in a mood for". While the story is pretty conservatively straight forward .. its execution is as vivid as its colours - bathed in crimson and 80s technocolour saturation (or how i imagine it, since i was not born yet in the 80s...)

I love the performances - i love the tone of the movie ... and i was with friends having a good time.

Watching this movie alone, not "pushed up" by circumstance may not have worked - it may even have been boring.

But as it stands, i found this movie to be very memorable, even re-watchable... not "scary" but about as fascinating as a fresh and bloody car accident (not that i have ever seen one) - highly recommendable ... for a very certain type of moods.

It is always kind of stupid to start with such a caption as it sounds a lot more negative than it is meant to be. My expectations were quite high. Three coherent short stories, an interesting backstory and what seemed to be more suspense than cheap scares....

Well, it was NOT cheap. There were scares but they were rather subtle .. sort of. Very good acting! and likable characters/actors. - but the conclusion was a let down for me.

Maybe it was just me .. but the special effects (rubber mask..) were HIGHLY inconsistent. Some looked very good (most of them) .. but at the conclusion ... the costume was just bad. It was .. a costume - not remotely scary under any circumstance.

All in all, i consider this above average .. and well worth your time to watch. But certainly not horrific or scary.

"In the mouth of madness" is more Lovecraft - "Annihilation" is more strange. - "The Endless" is not bad .. but it fails to be memorable (for me). While the protagonists are to root for - and even the side characters are good (enough) - the story feels all over the place.

I never felt the presence of "something bigger, more powerful.." - all what happened felt rather random and underwhelming.

I would have loved to know more about the people and their stories. The actual story of the movie was so straight forward that it was predictable and boring.

However - i learned that it was actually something like a part 2 of "the Resolution" or something. So maybe thats why i did not get into this one.

Then there was the hype of friends that described it as "an amazing horror movie" .. but horror - it was not.

No, i know .. it is more in the vein of Star Trek .. but it actually reminds me more on Galaxy Quest (the movie) - The characters are cheesy ... bordering on cheap. Not cheap-bad .. but cheap-80s/low budget ... B-movie

The aliens look very, very rubber/halloween like .. not bad per se.. but not convincing. The ship is a good deal less impressive than the Star Trek .. but the episodes themselves are written quite well indeed.

What i did not quite like was the mixture of serious storytelling and very much out of place humor. I hate to say it .. but "Family Guy" humor just does not mix well - not even with Family Guy.

So i think it is quite a fun show to watch - but one cannot take it serious. It really is .. Galaxy Quest more than Star Trek.

I should start saying that i was "forced" to watch those episodes, cause a friend loves Star Wars so much

I do not care for it too much...

So from a hopefully mostly objective pov:

I miss relevant characters - like Ahsoka (or however she is spelled) or even Anikin from Clone Wars. The entire story seems to be very small scale, located on one single station with only a handful of characters - and even those few characters are partly only comedic relief or fillers (like the brute guy .. or some old lady type that seems to pop up in every mass scene)

The protagonist is almost as annoying and bumbling as the guy with the big ears from the movies and i cannot see how everyone sees the "potential" in him.

All in all - Clone Wars seemed to tackle some mature topics like death, defeat, treason and clashing of the grey area of ideologies.

Resistance feels flat - boring. There are no Jedi, very little space ships and the main character is an idiot.

I was bored .. plain and simple. The story is beautiful, the emotions are there, the acting is great .. and the cinematography is spot on.

There are no surprises in the story, no twists. It is straight forward at a brisk pace towards the conclusion.

But you kind of have to be in the mood for a story about existence, questions of meaning, value of life and the human psyche - or you will likely be - bored.

That does not mean that the story was flawless. I couldnt stand the protatonists as well as most of the side characters. They were all terrible - as in terrible people. Lacking communication skills as well as coping mechanisms.

I also did not like the cult like setting .. with its somber mood and kind of "numbing filter" over everything. (kind of muted sounds, slow movement and all) and also poor world building. You do not see enough people that are not "protagonists" of this resort but that keep it running .. people that would be the polar opposite of the residents, people with meaning and purpose .. a side effect that should affect the entire "life" there.

Anyway, i could write up plenty of problems i had with the movie as a story .. but as i said, mainly because i was not in the mood for it.

The movie feels very much like a low budget movie. There is limited scenery, a very limited cast and the effects are simple. While i did not hate the acting, i also did not consider it noteworthy much. There was a little bit (translates to quite a bit...) overacting on the "evil" person .. and very little character development or character altogether on the other people. In fact, none of the characters is fleshed out at all .. . So after watching the movie, they are all quite forgettable.

The story itself is alright i guess. In terms of complexity i rank it slightly below a "X-files" episode with the monster of the week.

For me, it was OK. I kept (half) watching till the end ... was it scary? Not at all.. Was it gross? No, not that either.

Oh and about the special effects. Pretty much a bald-cap and a bucket full of slime is what was used 80% of the movie it feels.

It feels like it wants to be a bit like "the ring" with fancy black and white flashbacks or flashes anyway .. a somewhat non linear storytelling and very little exposition.

There are efforts to make it "disturbing" .. that result only in mild confusion .. while the story itself remains unsatisfactory.

Acting is OK .. although not much seems to be asked of the actors ... brooding, indifferent and surprised are the emotions that are required.

While i did not hate the movie, i also did not like it. It was "mehh" .. solid enough not to be "bad" ... but unremarkable. The kind of movie that you look up on google during the runtime to re-check what the title was .. and a movie that you forget entierly 10 minutes after having watched it.

Firstly .. this is torture porn! Its not revernge horror/gore, its about the torture..

Now, the movie itself has its ups and downs .. more downs though. The main story is simple .. but obscured by a totally unnecessary sideplot and relationship drama that adds little to nothing.

With that said, in my opinion .. this movie could have benefitted TREMENDOULY from removing this sideplot entirely .. and cutting runtime to a brief 1 hour .. cause i venture to say that the "joy" of the movie comes from the mainplot alone and not some overcoming of an abusive relationship.

So .. the main plot; taking revenge on students that .. by all means .. seem to "deserve it" .. students with no redeeming quality. So far, so good. The problem i had with this movie is that the teacher just wasnt a very good teacher. (speaking from the perspective of being a teacher myself) He certainly came across as idealistic and enthusiastic .. but not a good teacher.

The students on the other hand came across as just a bit "too rude" .. considering the portrait demographic, such behaviour is VERY hard to imagine .. (although i am not familiar with the english demographic that well, but when i compare it to the nordic education, such student behaviour is simply in the realm of fantasy)

There was a lot of blood .. but not that much gore as most scenes that would "show" gore tended to obscure the actual wounding. So you are left with the acting (not too bad). Actually, i liked the performance of all the main cast .. although not too demanding, i would think .. it was still well done.

I cannot quite recommend this movie, because of the utterly boring sideplot that creates long periods of boredom in the movie .. and the rather unsatisfactory ending.