Reviews

Actually, the IMDB community is quite hardened and knows every gag and every creepy secret. Strangely enough, lately there are reviews that are too good. Like the one for Smile. What, pray tell, is new, different or just good about this film? Everyone knows that if someone goes into a house with an open fire, it will burn down. Everyone knows that if the camera shows a dark room, that evil is already behind you. There are far too many scenes like this and after a half hour that starts out quite decent, the film gets worse and worse and more and more transparent. Even the lead actress has few ideas to add to this crude nonsense. In the end, we are left with another horror film that would have gone straight to the video market in the past.

I don´t really care if what the movie presents is fictitous or not. The movie itself is bad on many levels. First of all the appeal. It looks like a TV movie. Secondly, there is the acting. Many wrote it before but I say it again - Jesse Moss is a bad De Niro imitation, nothing more. And unfortunately William Forsythe is no Anthony Hopkins. The psychological level of the story is very poor and even though we are supposed to like and understand Jason and his motives it doesn´t really work well. What makes the whole movie almost unbearable are the constant homophobic remarks and slurs and not just by the Gacy character but basically by everybody.

I don't know where to begin to describe how bored I was with this movie. For me, nothing was right here at all, because if I already look at the clock after 10 minutes and wonder what these meaningful scenes at the beginning are supposed to do and whether they will pick me up at some point, then that's not a good sign. What also doesn't work are the actors in the film. No one interests me, for all I care they could be eaten by aliens after 3 minutes and the story would be over. First problem: Daniel Kaluuya. I have the feeling with him that he does nothing but traipse through a plot at a snail's pace. No facial expressions, no variations, for me his Oscar and his further nomination is more of a woke issue. I can't take either seriously. The other actors are no better, then comes the unbelievable: After the introductory images comes the alien moment, which I hoped would not happen. But unfortunately it determines the second half of the film, which doesn't get any better. The parallel story with the monkey? Doesn't bring any enlightenment. Yes, it deals with self-referential themes, but that's usually a sign that an author is trapped. And Jordan Peele, who wrote his own script, probably didn't let anyone tell him how misguided it was.

Some movies I'm ashamed to have seen. And probably that would have been the case with this film, too, if it had been a straight story. But it isn't. The incredible improbability of the son of the US President falling for the Prince of Cambridge - and vice versa - makes this a fairy tale from the start, which of course ends well and has at least one irresistibly charming and GOOD-looking leading man. That the chemistry between the two was not the best, I quickly overlooked and enjoyed more the dialogues and the fact that I just got a good mood. The world in this film is just too perfect, the backgrounds too CGI and that's exactly why I was just happy after 2 hours. I could also laugh several times at Sarah Shahi, who is an absolute asset to this production. More of her please, she has immense comic talent. Sure - the film is not a milestone in film history, but it makes life a little bit nicer in these bad times and hits exactly the right political notch, which threatens to divide a country like the USA, if a criminal should become president again.

Ridley Scott has not convinced me for a long time. His last films were mediocre and now comes "House of Gucci", one of his low points. Whatever he was thinking, to shoot this star-studded overlong drama of a family that couldn't be more unsympathetic, is not recognizable. The story is paper-thin and actually everything goes wrong. His actors don't find their way into their characters, a lot of powder is wasted without the dialogues sparking or a development of the respective characters being visible. What's with this idiotic accent that everyone speaks? Why is there hardly any film music, but a wild mixture of pop music and opera arias? It doesn't become harmonious in any sequence, but there is no synthesis of the respective scene and what the music tells us. And although I am an opera connoisseur, even I can't do anything with the excerpts from Verdi or Rossini operas. Is Scott perhaps telling us that this story is as cobbled together as an Italian opera? There's another way to do it, because then you could use humor and irony. Scott, on the other hand, opts for a very sluggish pace, leaving his actors little room for extended scenes and character personality. The result is devastating and finds an absolute low point in Jared Leto's (once again) exaggeration of his character.

Respect" also has the problems of many other films. It is too long, it does not care about clean characterisation. In addition, the director does not seem to trust her leading actress, who after all already has an Oscar to her name, and shows her in individual situations that are rarely put into contexts that allow for development. Jennifer Hudson does a good job, but she could have been even better. This actually applies to all the actors in the film, with Forest Whitaker once again playing his usual over-the-top game. And so this film, shot almost exclusively in studios, drags along, there are the one or other good scene, but all that is not at all enough for a great film.

After the first season, I expected that the questions I had would be increasingly answered. None of that happened, on the contrary. Nevertheless, I was not dissatisfied because I knew there would be a third season. I was pleased with the cast and found it quite appropriate that Justin Theroux was seen naked several times to my delight, but I digress. So there's nothing to complain about in terms of acting, and visually everything was fine up to that point. I did notice that some of the dialogue was too long, but I didn't know what was coming in season 3. So here it is, the supposed solution to the mystery, which drags on like chewing gum that has been chewed for hours. Why don't producers realise when enough is enough? Why does everything have to be so agonisingly prolonged, literally treading water, in order to fill the 8 episodes? Unfortunately, the first impressions were no longer confirmed and for season 3 alone I give 4 points, so that the total of 6 only comes from the first half of the series.

Actually, the plot of this series is not bad at all. Unfortunately, however, it fails at a lot of essential things. On the one hand, there is the logic, which is not very far off. The structure of the individual episodes is rather chaotic and after only three episodes you have the feeling that you are witnessing an impenetrable mess, even though you still have almost three seasons to go. And then I come to the main problem I have, because apart from a good leading lady, there is no one else in the cast that I like, let alone find acceptable as an actor. There are talking faces being filmed who seem almost uncomfortable to be in front of the camera. Pompous posturing is always a sign of bad acting, the use of one's own voice (Ralph Ineson as a bad example of this) should correspond to the character of the figure portrayed and not a grotesque idea of it. I gave up because I couldn't stand this mishmash any longer and I didn't really care who was responsible for what and who was a bad boy - or a bad girl.

If this series is rated here as a drama or thriller, then that is unfortunately not correct, because it is clearly a mystery, that only in advance for all those who expect a plot that does not defy logic. Whereby I would like to emphasise that everything that happens here actually has a strict inner logic, this is clarified by the last episode, which you might have to let sink in a bit before you understand exactly what the story had to offer you in the episodes before. In any case, I felt very well entertained, but above all, there was a good ensemble at work here, of which Benjamin Chivers as Isaac particularly thrilled me. The kid has an incredible amount of talent and I was creeped out by him the whole time. My conclusion: Exciting, well told and just the right number of episodes.

For me, the first alarm signal in a film or series is when the scriptwriter and director are the same person. The worst is when the director is also in the film, because then I already know where the journey is going. Unfortunately, it's no different with Patriot. Even the first episode fails for me on several levels. The pacing is extremely lame, at the beginning you don't understand what is actually the reason for all that we see, then later it clears up quickly, but not necessarily in favour of the humour, which here consists almost without exception of cynicism or the now usual incoherent scraps of words, because no one can write really funny dialogue any more. The main character is an unsympathetic bore who has his lighter moments but otherwise tries to cure his depression with the help of horrible folk songs. Everything else emerges in the course of the plot, which is not really a plot at all, but just a more or less random sequence of events. The attempt to be convulsively original unfortunately failed for me.

I was already sceptical beforehand when I read about this film, because the story didn't really make sense to me. I did it anyway and can only say that I am still puzzling over what the director actually wanted to tell us and why he had such a mediocre leading actress at his disposal in Thomasin McKenzie. I won't even attempt to explain what is happening here and where all the logic holes are, but concentrate briefly on other things. The film is infused with music from the 60s. It fits the theme, but sometimes it seems too incidental and doesn't exactly create an arc of suspense. Stylistically, an expert is definitely at work here, but some scenes are too long, the horror doesn't really set in for a shrewd professional. Incidentally, I feel sorry for Diana Rigg that she didn't realise in time what kind of nonsense this film is, the end of which was already clear to me after Ms. Collins' (Rigg) first appearance. Not a big hit, unfortunately.

So much happens in the four episodes of the first season that you could fill 30 episodes with it. However, nothing is new, so it is not original, but the umpteenth copy of an agent's tale that everyone knows. In addition, there are countless obligatory head shots and, to tone things down, a bit of bitchy chatter that is neither purposeful nor well-written in any way. Citadel is an example of a probably computer-generated script and dialogue, for which you need more or less sexy actors who then rush around athletically, recite their lines and dive more and more into the vortex of such a constructed story until they probably can't find their way out themselves. Lesley Manville as the chief villain is the caricature of a female Bond villain, Richard Madden the Ken of the agents and Chopra Jones the tough Barbie. Am I interested in the next episodes? Absolutely not.

A director who has 1 1/2 hits and a lot of rubbish to his credit just doesn't get any better, but seems to keep getting money for new projects. "Old" is bad because the story doesn't work because it lacks any logic. And even if you are prepared to swallow that, you can't get around the bad actors who recite their stupid lines as if they had no idea what they were doing. Or they are simply not good actors, which I suspect is the case with some of them, especially Vicky Krieps. But even the otherwise reliable Rufus Sewell merely gives the caricature of a disturbed man and in the end you don't care at all about the fate of the people on the beach. Shyamalan also manages to play himself in this film and is once again a stiff unsympathetic character. The idea is basically not bad for a trash movie, but then you should do it right.

The genre of horror film is often characterized by a lot of blood and little brain. Of course, part of the genre is that the plot usually comes from the supernatural realm, monsters, mummies and mutations rule the world and a few desperate people must try to put a stop to them. "The Fog" is probably one of the masterpieces of this genre, because John Carpenter managed to transport a free adoption of the Flying Dutchman into the here and now and rather with atmospheric images, a pounding sound and a lot of imagination in the viewer to create a merciless suspense short, which can almost completely do without blood. Carpenter's appearance as the sexton wouldn't have been necessary (cringe), but that ultimately doesn't detract from the film. I'm still creeped out after the 10th viewing, which is a very good sign.

Sometimes it's so delightfully relaxing to know at the outset of a series that it won't last too long, and to resist the temptation to stretch out a thin plot as much as possible over several seasons. The Spy focuses on Eli Cohen, who made it to the highest levels of the Syrian government as an Israeli agent. Whatever is accurately or less accurately reflected here is rather irrelevant. Sacha Baron Cohen gives this Eli just the right touch of cluelessness, sympathetic impact and stoic zeal. I can't stand Noah Emmerich and his put-on "tics," but that doesn't detract from the point here, because the focus is clearly on an exciting story whose failure is almost foreseeable at the very end. And even if Israeli series tend to present their own perspective rather uncritically, there are enough arguments in the historical view of an eternal conflict to develop sympathy for the clearly clever side here. No wild shootouts, no heroic deeds are at the center, but a man whose motives we understand and whose character becomes extremely vivid and sympathetic through Sacha Cohen's clever and restrained acting.

Some might want to check their testosterone levels when writing reviews and then go over their words again. AKA is a bad movie in every way, with the quality of a video game with Blood Patches in the shootouts. There is shooting for all it's worth, the bad guys drop like flies, and the hero is only minimally injured. And even if you swallow this toad, it shows once again that French action movies often fail because of two things. First, they have no humor at all, and second, the actors are worse than bad. Taciturn cynics with their hearts in the right place might save a small child, but not an entire film that is too long, too cheap and miserably acted.

What would we do if a dear person who supposedly died years ago in the distance seemed to be alive after all? That is the initial situation of this miniseries, which is quite interesting, because the change of location from Israel to Colombia breaks with the usual viewing habits, as far as filming locations are concerned, and in addition to the necessary exotic flair, has a supposedly exciting story to offer. This also works in the first episodes, because the mystery surrounding the missing Yaeli keeps us guessing. However, when everything is revealed and there are still four episodes due, the whole house of cards collapses, because now more important characters are introduced and the story goes more and more in the direction of thriller, which, however, is told very lamely, as well as the inevitable shootouts are simply sloppily staged. As with "Fauda", the actors are mostly attractive, but sometimes only moderately talented. And in the end, I struggled through the last 3 episodes just to not drop out.

As is so often the case, less would have been more. 17 episodes of just under an hour each are a long time to make exciting and we realize, as so often, that a maximum of 12 episodes would have been enough for this series as well, but the 3rd season becomes an endless torture. What makes it even more difficult for me is the fact that I don't really like any of the characters. Gillian Anderson gives her Stella little to no nuance. She looks the same in almost every scene, mumbling and whispering her meaningful dialogues that are all too often monologues, all of which becomes unnecessarily pretentious while everyone around her is more active. Concept? Probably possible, but tiring. Jamie Dornan is a cute little guy who probably wouldn't have just wrapped me around his finger effortlessly, his acting skills are a bit questionable at times, but I was still fascinated by him - not his character, before anyone misunderstands me. The rest of the cast is good to very good, especially Aisling Franciosi. The logic of the story seems more plausible at the beginning than it does at the end, though no gross errors are apparent. In between, however, some things are left too much to chance and the roast smells a bit too much of clichés (abuse in the Catholic Church, etc.), but in the end that doesn't detract from the overall impression of the story telling. My conclusion: Too long, good concept, too much monologuing and occasionally too little pace.

This series is a wonderful example of how to drain the blood out of a story that, while not new, is nevertheless exciting. The answer is usually the same - drag out the story too much and fill in the rest with banter beyond the sidelines. Whether or not a commissioner is once again living in divorce and the daughter is the victim of a messed-up relationship is of no interest to me. I have seen all this more than 100 times and it is the same old clichés that this series, which starts well, unfortunately presents us with again. In addition, everything in this part of Belgium near Brussels is really terribly grey, not only the houses but also the people radiate a dreariness, which you can actually find in many places in Belgium, but which doesn't really make me identify with anyone. The perpetrator increasingly becomes a minor matter, because it seems to be mainly about something completely different. If you have lasted until the 9th episode, you can also watch the rest, but unfortunately the potential was completely wasted here. A pity.

As an atheist, I find it difficult to deal with people who think they are doing the right thing for religious reasons and to whom I cannot gain access. In the case of this series it is no different, the fate of the young girls who are seduced into joining ISIS in the Syrian caliphate ultimately leaves me rather cold. What made this series exciting for me was the question of how to stay as close to reality as possible and still develop interesting plot threads. I have to say that this was done absolutely well and I never had the impression that too much action was used at the expense of credibility. Only one or two of the actors I would have liked to see a bit more depth, but I could put up with that. I watched the 8 episodes in two days and am very satisfied with the overall result.

I had feared that this series would not be much good, and so I was confirmed. The story is a rehash of parts that have been seen many times, nothing is surprising, there are no twists, there are no credible characters or plot elements, everything is in the realm of hysterical conspiracy theories that are not fundamentally revealed. The viewer is not left in the dark about the characters themselves, but rather about their motives. But that doesn't matter in the end, as one is more concerned with the acting inadequacies of Gabriel Basso as agent Peter Sutherland or the atrocious Hong Chau as the shady Diane Farr. Fola Evans-Akingbola fits seamlessly into these poor performances. It is to be feared that there will be a 2nd season, which I will definitely not watch, because it can only get worse.

When Netflix produces series that focus on students, they usually look the same, no matter what country they come from. It's usually about filthy rich snobs who are unsympathetic, and among them there's usually a character we can sympathise with because they either don't really fit in with the cliques of disgusting capitalists or they have to go through an experience that forces them to think. Unfortunately, it's no different with Quicksand, and so everything degenerates into a cliché after the first episode. Why Maja doesn't end her toxic relationship with Sebastian right away remains completely unclear, as does the behaviour of the other students, who don't try to help her open her eyes. What the shooting of Amanda is all about is unclear at the end, most of the characters remain drawing-board drafts and have little or no character. The adults end up being responsible for their children turning to alcohol and drugs, a somewhat very simple strategy to engage a younger audience, but most importantly it again takes away their responsibility to make something of their lives themselves. Pedagogically dubious, only partially exciting and partly woodenly acted, Quicksand is not a positive example of the good Scandinavian series that are always good when they are not produced by Netflix.

38 episodes, four seasons and several storylines that never get boring. You first have to manage that. Even in the stories that take place on the fringes, there is room to breathe, and at the same time the viewer is kept entertained. We learn just enough to create characters in our heads and I gladly overlook the one or other inconsistency when I see how well it has been done here, how little distracting the settings are, but how subtle the individual characters are. And here it is above all Sofia Helin as the autistic investigator Saga, who is probably one of the most unusual characters in the thriller genre, but who at the same time comes across as so sincere and credible that one has to be grateful to Helin that she doesn't even overdraw here or try to usurp scenes. A great series that remains exciting until the last episode.