p-jonsson Reviews

Jurassic World Dominion (2022)

Mediocre at best.

[4/10 · 23 October 2022]

Well, the dinosaur special effects are quite decent. Unfortunately that is more or less the only reason to watch this movie.

I really do not understand how the Hollywood idiots can decide to spend loads of money on special effects but not bother to get a decent story/script writer? I mean come on, the story of this movie is just another thirteen on a dozen "big companies are bad" story with dinosaurs thrown in.

The story is convoluted to say the least and there is as much logic in it as you would expect from a Hollywood writer hack. Things more or less just happen and the "heroes" fight off one dinosaur attack after another on their way to the bad gay without ever tiring. And why the hell can Hollywood never produce a movie where the "heroes" doesn't just stare like idiots at something until they are screwed?

Idiotic nonsens like being able to train a dinosaur to home in on someone like a heat seeking missile and chase them forever after having pointed a laser marker on them for a couple of seconds is also the usual unintelligent Hollywood nonsense that just ruins a movie for anyone with anything like average intelligence.

They brough back some of the old characters but they do not really help. The mostly act like they cannot wait to get paid and get out of there. Jeff Goldblum is his usual climate cult procelyte. I did not really like him in the first movie and he is even worse in this one. The bad guy totally lacks charisma. The only character I really liked was DeWanda Wise as Kyle Watts.

It is really a shame to see another franchise destroyed by today's Hollywood morons. I've been a dinosaur fan since I was a kid and when the first Jurassic Parc came out with real, life like dinosaurs it was just wow. But now, not even the special effects can save this movie. It is not a good movie, plain and simple.

Ambulance (2022)

What idiot wrote that script?

[3/10 · 18 September 2022]

This is a Michael Bay movie. I could probably stop the review here because that says all about the movie. Lots of special effects and a mediocre story at best.

This Michael Bay movie is no different. The two stars I gave it is solely for the action and the special effects. The script is not even mediocre. It is rubbish.

I think what grated on me the most is that there are two characters in the whole movie that are somewhat likable. The rest are either a--holes or idiots. Mostly both.

The actions of almost everyone are just annoyingly stupid and illogical. The constant bickering and shouting is frustrating. This "criminal mastermind", Danny Sharp, is alternating between being a psychopath and just an idiot. His idiot comment towards the end that they were not the bad guys, they were just trying to get home was so braindead it was unbelievable. The police force is not really any better.

The entire chase part is just so ridiculous most of the time and the constant shouting and arguing drags it down further. The idea of doing an operation, over the phone, during a high speed chase while taking 90 degree turns every two minutes or so is laughable.

Then they had all this silly work up to where the baddies were going to assault the cops with their customized vehicles and the one time I expected Michael Bay to shine and even go a bit over the top it ended up being rather meh and mediocre.

Normally I do not really care that much if the script is not top notch in these kind of movies as long as it is good enough to drive the action but this script was too ludicrous and devoid of intelligence even for me.

Uncharted (2022)

Fun adventure/action rollercoaster.

[7/10 · 10 September 2022]

This movie was pretty much what I expected or rather hoped for. It was a fun adventure/action rollercoaster plain and simple. This is one of those, rare nowadays, movies that are meant to entertain plain and simple. Two hours of adventure, action and twists barely held together by a rudimentary story and no woke rubbish or bull.... preaching. The latter is probably what rendered it a 40% rotten "critics" score on woke tomatoes while the audience gave it a 90% fresh score. As almost always a rotten score on woke tomatoes is an indication that it is a movie worthwhile watching.

The story, as can be seen from the movie blurb, is a treasure hunt a la Indiana Jones. It starts off by introducing the main character, Nathan, in a few brief scenes where Nathan bungles up a heist being perpetrated by his brother after which they are involuntarily separated.

Quick forward to present time and the main story takes off with Nathan being persuaded by Sullivan to embark on a hunt for an immeasurable treasure. Not exactly the newest or freshest of stories but if it works don't fix it.

Pretty much everyone in this movie is a self-centered scoundrel with little to no care for anyone except themselves. Thus the action and treasure hunting is regularly interrupted by twists and betrayals. No one will claim that this movie has an elaborate and intelligent story. It does not have to. It is just meant to hold the action together.

I quite liked the main actors. Sullivan did a good job of being the blasé, self-centered scoundrel, Nathan of being the somewhat naive wannabe treasure hunter and Braddock was quite cool, and sexy (hey, I'm a guy), as the baddie. Antonio Banderas was Antonio Banderas although I was saddened by his premature exit from the hunt.

Overall the action was nice although the scenes in, and out of, the airplane was the usual unrealistic Hollywood action. Although that was overshadowed with the ship carrying helicopter scenes towards the end which was taking unrealism to new levels. But I didn't really care because it was fun silliness. The moment they started to carry those ships away I started to hope that the writer would go for the silly and obvious stunt involving black powder. Yes unrealistic but there is no denying the coolness factor.

As far as I am concerned this was two hours well spent. The ending scene clearly suggested that the producers hoped to make a sequel. I would definitely watch it but with all the people lamenting the fact that someone dared to make a movie simply for entertainment with a profound (and boring) story or bulll.... preaching in it that might not happen. It did make about four times its budget at the box office though so maybe.

I Am Greta (2020)

Disgusting.

[1/10 · 17 August 2022]

Woke rubbish exploiting a already overexploited poor sick kid. A testament to how low the green far left fanatics stoop in order to push their agenda.

Morbius (2022)

I quite liked this one actually.

[8/10 · 16 August 2022]

I have to say that I quite liked this movie. A bit surprised since it is a new Marvel movie after all. It is even free of woke bull manure which made me even more surprised.

The "scientific" part of Morbius changing his DNA, overnight no less, by means of some serum that he derived from vampire bats is of course utter nonsense but one cannot really complain too much about that since it is straight from the original comic book character.

The story is really simple and not much to write home about but it works in its simplicity. After all, in this kind of movie we really do not need something fancy as long as it is not downright stupid. It only needs to be a vehicle for the action and special effects and for that purpose the story works fine.

I like Morbius. He is intelligent and he doesn't just sink down in some self pity or whining sessions when he finds out that things did not go exactly as planned. Sure, he is not happy about it but at least he does research into his condition and he actually takes the effort to learn what he can do with his new powers.

I also do like the special effects and the action in general. The bad guy was rather predictable and not really very charismatic but he worked fairly okay. I think that most of the actors made a good enough job actually.

If I should complain about anything it was that scene in the beginning where they claimed that vampire bats could "finish off" big animals in minutes or something. That not what vampire bats do or how they feed. It is of course utter ignorant bull manure by some idiot script writer and it was really totally unnecessary to soil the movie with such nonsense already in the first scenes. I had hoped that ignorant script writers like that died out together with the last flying rubber Piranha in the early 80's.

Anyway, I quite liked the movie. A lot of movies that I've watched lately have felt bloated and too long for the material. This one I actually felt was too short.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)

That was two fun hours.

[8/10 · 14 August 2022]

The third time is the charm or, after having been less than thrilled about the last two movies I have watched this one was finally one that I quite enjoyed.

When I watched the first Sonic movie with the kids I was quite amused by it. This one I also watched with the kids and I have to say it was some fun two hours.

These movies are pure comedies with an aspect of adventure. Make no mistake about, they are silly movies. Then, with Jim Carrey in one of the lead roles that is what anyone that has not lived under a rock in Coyote land would expect.

Jim Carrey more often than not grates on me with his overacting and ridiculous behavior but in this movie he is the perfect fit.

The movie sets the tone right away when it starts at the mushroom planet, or as Jim Carrey (Dr Robotnik) calls it, the piece of shitake planet, with Dr Robotnik's coffee making machinery.

What follows is one long ride of, mostly, slapstick jokes but still following the red thread of the story. A story which is not really bad and which adds a nice adventure aspect to the movie.

The movie even adds some realism, although they probably did not realize that during production, in that the federal agents are just as big a-holes as they have proven themselves to be in real life lately.

The grand finale with Dr Robotnik's huge robot was quite hilarious. I really do not want to spoil things but watch out for that moustache. I'm happy that they refrained from following up that snot laser with a fart laser though.

Bottom line, a really fun family adventure movie.

The Batman (2022)

Good movie but not a good Batman movie.

[4/10 · 14 August 2022]

To be honest, this is a really good movie. Hang on? So why did I only give it 2 out of 5 stars? Well, this is really personal but, to me, it is not a good Batman movie. I really had problems writing this review because it is a very good movie. I just did not like it as a Batman movie.

The movie is really dark, gritty and noir. Not really a problem. It works for some movies. But it is also quite slow at the beginning and the first quarter of the movie was actually boring. Remember, this is a three hour movie so a quarter is more than half an hour of "boringness".

The "boringess" was broken up by a pretty cool car chase. Some people seem to not really like the batmobile and I have to say that it was not very inspired but it was not all bad either. Unfortunately the movie turned rather boring for a while again after that.

The movie tries to bring out more of the detective part of Batman than the previous movies, which is fine, but there is just too much moping around with Batman / Bruce Wayne walking around oozing sadness all around him.

Actually, this brings us to my main gripe with this movie. The choice of actor for the Batman is just wrong for me. He is more like a sad puppy than the Batman. The script that makes him mope around, have emotional outbreaks and, occasionally, being downright stupid like just staring dumbfounded when explosives go off in his face does not really help of course.

To me the Selina Kyle character had more charisma than the Batman, especially when the Batman was in his Bruce Wayne alter ego.

And I really, really dislike that twist about Bruce's parents. That was such a lazy Hollywood writer hack thing to do just to create (unwanted) drama.

Then we have the Riddler. Compared to the charismatic villains that we have come to expect he is just a sad little psychopath with a bunch of equally sad fanatical internet followers.

Now, all of this would have worked great if it had been a movie about some, unspecified, vigilante. The movie is really well done. The detective story, the action (especially towards the end) and the noir setting would have worked great. Even at its three hour bloated length it would have been great although cut down to two hours or a bit more would have been even better. If it had not been a Batman movie!

The King's Man (2021)

Somewhat of a disappointment.

[4/10 · 27 June 2022]

This movie ended up being quite unique and not in a good way. The uniqueness comes from the fact that I actually agree with the critics rating at that abysmally woke, leftist and useless site Rotten Tomatoes that this movie is not very good. That I agree with that rubbish site is rare indeed.

As a standalone movie I probably would have rated it higher but as a movie in the Kingsman franchise I have to say that it was a disappointment.

The movie sets a quite different tone than the other Kingsman movies. This movie is quite gloomy. The story, which takes the history of the first world war and the Russian revolution and rewrites everything behind those events, is pretty ridiculous. The stories in the two previous Kingsman movies was no masterpieces but this historical rewrite is just wrong. Especially when playing with historical events that has caused more suffering than more or less anything else in modern history.

The coolness of the two previous movies is more or less gone. I cannot figure out if this movie tried to be serious or humorous but it fails on both accounts.

The Duke of Oxford's overprotection of his son and his pacifism during most of the movie was just tiresome. What eventually happened to his son was rather predictable but the way they did it was like they where just trying to piss the audience off. Incredibly frustrating.

Then we have Rasputin. The entire Rasputin part was mostly alternating between silly and disgusting.

The Duke's maid/nurse was a nice part though although the actor was not really very good in the role. Also, I am not sure that this "network of domestic servants" felt very plausible.

There were some outbursts of action that was not too bad. Especially towards the end when the Duke finally seemed to get his act together and drop this pacifist rubbish. I do however exclude most the world war scenes from the good action. They were just gloomy, sad and, at times, unrealistic and silly.

Overall this movie was just so unlike the other two movies, and not in a good way, that I really did not like it. It was not really fun to watch. As I wrote it was gloomy most of the time. As it used the events leading to world war one and the Russian revolution it was just one disastrous setback after each other. The only positive event in the movie was really at the end when the Duke of Oxford, founded the Kingsman agency.

Reading the synopsis one might get the idea about the Kingsman agency being created and I hoped more of the movie would have been about the actual creation but the movie is really two hours of long winded often gloomy, sometimes silly, drama and then there are less than two minutes where the Duke of Oxford proclaims the agency created. Not what I expected to be honest.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Another Spider Man for kids.

[5/10 · 26 June 2022]

This is another Spider Man for kids which for me is a wee bit unfortunate. I would very much have liked a Peter Parker / Spider Man that behaved like a real superhero instead of this naïve kid who constantly thinks he knows better than the grown ups and, of course, constantly bungles things up.

In addition I was not too thrilled about the story itself where Spider Man right at the beginning is framed as the bad guy. I know, I know, it is rather consistent with the original comics but Hollywood do not hesitate so change things if they feel like it so why not make a good change for once?

The good thing about this movie is the special effects. They are quite cool. Especially the parts in this weird space where Doctor Strange and Spider Man dukes it out. Unfortunately that is pretty much it.

The rest of the movie is really dragged down by the childish and stupid behavior of Peter Parker. Him being a real idiot and constantly trying to change the spell was just cringe worthy. Then he continues screwing things up because he do not want notorious criminals to go back to their real place because they will actually die there. Typical Hollywood sob story. Despite what that dumb b... said towards the end, yes Peter Parker you did something wrong, you screwed up big time and the wrong people died because of it.

Another thing that was really annoying throughout the movie was listening to that moron Jonah Jameson from The Daily Bugle. He was spewing almost as much fake news as CNN and it just pissed me off every time he was on screen.

It is a shame really. One would have thought that, given that they already did the young and immature Spider Man in Spider Man: Far From Home, they could have made him more experienced and mature in this one. You know, character advancement.

Instead they just piled on the childish, naïve and immature behavior with a good dose of juvenile jokes making what, with some actual intelligent script writing, could have been a great movie with all those cool special effects (and I really do like Doctor Strange) to be one just barely watchable.

Death on the Nile (2022)

Another poor and unnecessary remake

[4/10 · 19 June 2022]

I honestly did not expect much out of this movie given how Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express turned out.

Now, Hercule Poirot together with Sherlock Holmes are my two favourite fictional detectives and I'm obviously having strong opinions about the subject. If you liked the movie then fine but this is my personal opinions so... here we go.

Just as with Murder on the Orient Express it could have been a decent mystery/crime movie if it had not pretended to be a Hercule Poirot movie but again this was a miserable attempt to make a Americanized version of Hercule Poirot.

The movie starts off with black and white scenes from World War I trying to make him out to be some war hero. There was no reason for that and it is not Hercule Poirot.

One good thing I can write about the movie is that there are some lovely scenery, especially at the beginning. Unfortunately that is about it as far as the good parts go from my point of view.

Apart from the good scenery the film goes overboard trying to get fancy with the camera. Like the ridiculous revolving scenes on the boat, bizarre perspectives and quite a few too dark and gloomy scenes.

The worst part of the movie is that it is totally disrespectful of the Hercule Poirot that Agatha Christie created. Poirot does NOT run after criminals while shots are being fired, Poirot may scream but with dignity, not soap opera like outbursts. He was not the only one having unbecoming outbursts by the way. And do not get me started about how the movie ruined the famous end scene where Poirot traditionally exposes the criminal by having Poirot waving a gun and appearing totally dishevelled. Even the hideously large moustache is just all wrong.

Death on the Nile is a British mystery novel by one of the most famous mystery writers ever, not some pulp fiction that you can put your own spin on but Kenneth Branagh does not seem to realize this.

Red Notice (2021)

Silly but fun.

[7/10 · 20 April 2022]

This movie is one of those ridiculously silly but quite fun movies. It is a movie that makes no pretense other than to be entertaining.

The movie is a mixture of art heist thriller, Indiana Jones inspired treasure hunts and fast and furious chase action. All served with a large dose of humor.

I have to confess one thing right away. Ryan Reynolds grated on me. I guess he was chosen to provide most of the comic relief and, to me, he is over the top silly not to mention dishonest (most of the time) in a way that was not really my cup of tea.

Luckily Dwayne Johnson largely compensated for that. I have not yet seen a movie with Dwayne Johnson in that I felt was really bad. Also, sorry to all the Gal Gadot haters out there, I did like her in this movie but then, as guy, maybe I am a wee bit biased on that, you know what I mean.

The story is bordering on the ludicrous with, mostly predictable, twists around every corner but then it is just there to tie the action sequences and jokes together so it is good enough.

This is a movie that you watch for the silly action, even sillier jokes and, for me at least, because Dwayne Johnson is in it. It has a single purpose and that is to entertain. No bullsh.. preaching, no finger pointing and no pretense to provide food for your brain.

I liked it. It allowed me to spend two hours together with my oldest son just being entertained.

Oh, one more proof that it is a movie worthwhile to watch is of course the woke crappy tomatoes score. Note the discrepancy between their far left woke "critics" and the actual audience. Even that bullsh.. of separating the audience in "verified" and others couldn't hide the fact that their "critics" are totally out of sync with the audience.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Pretty good and almost woke free.

[8/10 · 17 April 2022]

This is a film that I was on one hand looking forward to watch and on another hand feared to watch. I was really hoping that this movie would be able to reboot the franchise after that abysmal piece of woke sh.. Ghostbusters (2016) had totally ruined it.

Looking back at my review of that movie I am actually surprised that I gave it any stars at all but in 2016 the lefts wokeness had not yet reached the psychopath levels that is has today so I guess it didn't strike me as hard. Anyway, when it was announced that this new movie would ignore previously mentioned atrocity and be a sequel to the original(s) it, of course, became a must watch for me.

So, what about this new instalment then? Well, it is almost woke free which is a relief of course. Is it a great movie? No not really but it is good and it is a quite entertaining family movie and, frankly, it gets an added star just for burying the 2016 feminist trash. I think that one will be relegated to the same status as the famous The Scottish Play and, from now on, be referred to as The Woke Trash, if referred to at all.

I have to agree with some reviews that think it was a poor choice to make the main protagonists in this movie kids. It might have worked if they had more support from some charismatic adult characters but sadly the two main adult characters are not up to that task. The teacher is somewhat fun but really quite stupid. He is also the subject of the only woke nonsense in the movie. Apparently some green fanatic had to take a stab at America's energy independence. Now we see how well that worked out. The science hating mother is really just grating on me almost every scene she is in.

The three kids are not really bad though. Their different personalities complement them nicely. My favorite character was definitely the science geek. The fourth kid, Lucky, was not really adding much apart from giving Trevor a change to drool all over the place.

I would have liked to see more ghosts and stuff though. The special effects were fairly nice when they occurred but a few more ghost rampaging around town would have been cool. The metal munching ghost was rather funny though.

The story was working but rather thin and full of stupid plot holes. Given the ease by which the kids got down to that temple or prison or whatever you would want to call it, it is just not reasonable that they would be the first to discover it. If that science hating mother would really have been married to Spengler I doubt that she would really have been as ignorant as she is. Also, when, finally, some supernatural activities happen that stupid teacher is the only one in the entire Walmart store. Seriously? Ran out of money for extras or what?

Still, overall I enjoyed the movie. It had a fairly nice mix of mystery, adventure and comedy. It also tied nicely into the original with quite a few throwbacks. It was nice to see the original actors doing a last mission. Especially Bill Murray. I still cannot believe that he accepted to play that bulls..., and short lived, character in The Woke Trash.

I cannot really make up my mind if I liked the mini marshmallow men though but then I thought that part was rather silly in the original movie as well. I guess it satisfied quite a few of the original fan base though.

So, bottom line, if you liked the original, I think you will probably like this one. It's not wow great but it was fun and entertaining and, in my opinion, it is good enough to dig the franchise out of the grave that The Woke Trash put it in.

Dune (2021)

Great movie!

[10/10 · 30 January 2022]

I was really eager to watch this movie and at the same time a wee bit concerned because I knew that I would be hugely disappointed if it turned out to be another movie massacring a classic source material.

I have to admit that it was a very long time since I read the Dune books but I have to say that the movie was mostly true to the books, as I remember them, and also reasonably free of agenda driven rubbish apart from the odd replacement of some characters with "gender correct" ones for no real good reason.

There is really not much point in me saying much about the story. It should be well known for any science fiction fan and it is a great story and really good material for a big screen movie despite some "critics" at Rotten Tomatoes moaning about it and calling it unwieldly etc. Probably too big a book with too many words for the small, agenda driven, brains of Rotten Tomatoes "critics". No surprise there.

The movie as a whole is wonderful to watch, the scenery is oftentimes very beautiful and the décor, the buildings, the machinery is very well done. I was surprised that the world of Caladan was portrayed as a rather austere Scottish looking landscape but after getting over the initial surprise it worked very well actually.

I also like that the Harkonnen, especially the Baron, are not turned into some exaggerated comical figures but, although disgusting and despicable, they are actual humans.

Overall the casting was quite good and everyone played their roles well. At the beginning I felt that Paul was a bit too wimpy, from what I remember of the book he was quite well trained and skilled already from the start, but he picked up as the movie went along.

It is a science fiction, borderline fantasy, movie so there should be some special effects, right? This is a difficult movie to make special effects for since this universe is a weird mix between futuristic science fiction, fantasy elements and old-fashioned traditions.

I have to say that they succeeded quite well though. The atmosphere felt just right, ships, spice harvesters, buildings looked cool and fitting the story. The way they implemented the personal shields was very nice. They didn't go overboard on special effects and weird designs. The ornithopter was of course totally ridiculous from a scientific point of view but at least it looked pretty cool.

If I should complain about something, although that is not the fault of the movie but of the source material, I have never understood how, in a universe which is obviously driven by hidden agendas, machinations and assassinations, the Atreides could just pick up everything, leave their home and put all their important eggs in one basket at Arrakis.

One more small thing that I could complain about would of course be that we now have to wait two years, from what I have read, until we get to watch the next movie to get to the part were the really cool stuff happens.

Bottom line, this was movie is definitely in there vying for the title "best movie that I have watched this year".

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

Surprisingly good.

[9/10 · 16 January 2022]

I have to say that this was a surprisingly good movie. I say surprisingly because Marvel (or DC for that matter) have not exactly excelled in making even decent movies for quite some time. That the woke "critics" on Rotten Tomatoes gave it high ratings was a bit of a red flag as well but not only was the movie rather free from woke ramblings and preaching but it was a very fun and entertaining movie to watch.

The movie starts off in a somewhat bizarre way with Shang-Chi and his girlfriend swiping a car from a valet parking and going for a joy ride. It turns out that they are telling their story to a couple of friends and that is pretty much how this movie is told.

It begins more or less right away with some nice action and it continues that away with plenty of action sequences intermixed with story telling. The action and martial arts is really good in my opinion. They are in stark contrast to the mediocre rubbish we were treated to in Snake Eyes. The latter which was quite a disappointment.

This movie relies heavily on fantasy elements with tie ins to Doctor Strange, especially towards the end. Another movie that I liked a lot by the way. Thus there are of course plenty of special effects and CGI. Most of them good or very good. I really liked the beautiful world of Ta Lo. The combat scenes, especially when the rings are in action are both cool and beautiful.

There are quite a lot of comical relief in the movie as well and, for once, it is not to silly, outrageous or plain stupid. It contributes well to the enjoyment factor of the movie. The washed out actor is a bit on the limit but otherwise it works well with the rest of the movie. That guy on the bus starting to film and make commentaries was quite hilarious for instance.

The story? Well it is a Marvel special effects movie so one should not expect too much but the story is not bad. It mostly holds together and works well enough to tie all the action together. The acting is pretty much the same thing. One should not expect too much but it is good enough. It was nice to see Michelle Yeoh as Ying Nan though. She was one of the few cool characters in Discovery and she does know how to act.

Overall I very much enjoyed this movie. It is a simple super hero and fantasy adventure story with lots of action and special effects and with the single purpose of entertaining the audience that doesn't fall in the trap of trying to "educate" said audience.

Wrath of Man (2021)

Great action thriller.

[9/10 · 31 December 2021]

I am quite a fan of Jason Statham so I am perhaps a bit biased when it comes to movies he is in but, to me, this was a great action thriller. I very much like Statham playing the silent, mysterious tough guy role. He is perfect in this role.

The movie builds up somewhat slowly but it does not take very long before Statham shows that he is not an ordinary security guy when he takes down some wannabe robbers with nothing less than extreme efficiency. A very cool scene.

On one side I like that the movie takes some time to build up the suspense and reveal the plot. In articular why Statham is there in the first place. On the other side the way the movie does it irks me somewhat. There just to much flashbacks for my taste and some events we are forced to watch from no less than three different perspectives. Felt a bit like a filler to me. Still, Statham's passed and presents weaves together in a story that, to me, is quite good and not the everyday, run of the mill, revenge story. Quite well done actually.

Not entirely surprising the movie builds up to a big showdown in the end. I very much liked it. Lots of action although I would have liked that they let a few more of the good guys actually survive. The death count on both sides was somewhat excessive.

The ending was satisfactory although from a point in the showdown, about twenty or minutes from the end, it was rather predictable.

The reason this movie gets four and a half (or 9 out of 10) stars instead of the full five out of five is only because of the flash backs which. Some of them contributed to the movie but some of them actually bored me a bit.

Nobody (I) (2021)

Cool and entertaining.

[8/10 · 28 December 2021]

I have to confess that I like you-f...-with-the-wrong-guy type of revenge movies so I guess it is not very surprising that I liked this movie.

People have compared it to John Wick but I do disagree with that. Sure the basic premise of the story is quite similar but that's it. To me these are quite different movies albeit in the same genre or even sub-genre.

John Wick is much more classy both in John Wick's style and the entire setting of the movie with it's entire secret society. John Wick is also much more over the top in the action parts. Nobody is more gritty and he is slightly closer to a normal person than John Wick.

The movie starts of a bit slow actually. Well, at least in my opinion. Nobody is mostly walking around moping and looking sad. He also more or less gets beaten up right away which made me get a bit concerned as to whether this was going to be a movie I liked or not. I got really concerned when he managed to get himself tasered of all things. What the f...?

Luckily he picks up on the bad-assery and it gets better as the movie progresses. Towards the end it gets really good actually, first when he frees the bad guy from the burden of all that ill gotten cash and then the showdown at the little work shop where Nobody barricaded himself together with... nah, that would be a spoiler, you have to watch the movie.

The bad guy is actually quite a good bad guy. Hollywood has been really lousy at creating good bad guys lately but this one, a real far out psychopath as well as a Russian mobster, fits the role perfectly.

Just to be a bit picky, a 4.9 litre 72 Challenger? Now I may of course be wrong but to my knowledge there is no such thing as a 72 Challenger with a 4.9 litre engine (also a 4.9 litre engine is really not very impressive). Did some lazy writer just pick a number?

Anyway, this was definitely a good movie. Quite enjoyable.

The Boss Baby: Family Business (2021)

Quite disappointing.

[3/10 · 28 December 2021]

I found the original Boss Baby really good. Great actually. Unfortunately this one was quite a disappointing.

Yes, there are a fair number of funny scenes and gags splattered around the movie. The chase sequences in the beginning of the movie are quite hilarious actually.

The story however is pretty lame. The original had a decent story. Yes it was a bit outlandish but at least it was a nice family story. This one is nothing of the kind. The basic premise of the story is just silly and the way it is done has pretty much turned it into a education-and-competition-is-bad piece.

This father which is one of the main characters are generally behaving like a moron and when, in the middle of the action, he just wanders of like a bloody zombie to watch his daughter instead of pulling the bloody switch that would have saved everything then I lost whatever hope I might have had of liking this movie.

Also, after that there was a repeated splattering of woke rubbish about how bad adults are, global warming nonsense and so on and so forth. Sure, those images came from the so called bad guy but any one with common sense knows that they were really there to push the message. I find it really despicable when woke story writers cannot keep their agenda out of children and family movies.

As I wrote at the beginning, quite a disappointment.

F9: The Fast Saga (2021)

Over the top, silly, unrealistic but really entertaining action romp.

[8/10 · 23 December 2021]

The Fast and Furious franchise has, since quite a few movies back, abandoned all pretense of being anything but silly, unrealistic, action extravaganzas. That means that these movies are not to everyone's taste (which no movies really are for that matter) but it seems a lot of those people have watched this movie anyway and then pretends to be surprised.

Those who give this movie one star ratings have obviously never seen a real one star movie and those that start their review with "I left after xx minutes" are just... well, never mind. If you have not watched the movie, all of it, don't write a bloody "review".

To me this movie was pretty much what I expected. Perhaps even a bit more silly and over the top than the previous ones, not that this was much of a surprise, but still more or less what I expected.

It has a half decent, quite predictable, story that's just good enough to tie the action sequences together. I do whish stupid Hollywood writers would stop write stories with their favorite "device yyy which can take over all electronics" bull feces in them. Apart from being total scientific nonsense it is really, really overused.

Vin Diesel is Vin Diesel. I cannot remember many, if any, movies where I have not liked his character. His team is pretty likable as well although some of their silly shenanigans and ramblings was indeed a bit tiresome from time to time.

The core of the movie is of course the action and special effects. Sure, they are incredibly over the top and for the most of the time you have to put your brain in idle when watching them but if you, like me, like special effects this is a movie for you. The silly scene where the bad guys "tank train" flipped over was a bit too much for me as well but on the whole I enjoyed the action.

I was not too thrilled with all the flashbacks but then I almost never like flashbacks and there was plenty of them in this movie.

I would have liked Chipher to have a bigger role in the movie. She is cool as well as intelligent which is not something that really could be said about Dom's brother. The main bad guy was just a jerk and not very charismatic. Hollywood really seems to have a problem writing good bad guys lately.

Overall, this was some well spent almost two and a half hours (I watched the directors cut). I quite enjoyed this movie.

OSS 117: From Africa with Love (2021)

Woke nonsense.

[1/10 · 21 December 2021]

This movie should never have been done. It's woke nonsense. It's a "hate the French" movie. Almost everyone are morons and OSS himself is the pinnacle of stupidity. This movie is the death of the franchise.

Snake Eyes (2021)

Mediocre disappointment

[4/10 · 5 December 2021]

I actually liked the two first G. I. Joe movies, G. I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and G. I. Joe: Retaliation. This one... not so much.

It could have been a really good movie but it ended up as a huge disappointment. The story should have been a cool revenge story but it ended up being a convoluted mess making Snake Eyes one of the bad guys for most of the movie. It is also hugely predictable after the first 20 minutes of the movie. Did the writers really think that the "twists" would come as a surprise for anyone? They probably did since Hollywod writers usually reside on the low end of the intelligence scale nowadays. Putting three of those hacks together to write a movie doesn't help of course.

I could have accepted all of that if the rest would have been cool with lots of fights and special effects. Sadly the movie is mediocre, at best, in these areas as well.

Snake Eyes is not only a bad guy but he is rather stupid as well as devoid of any charisma. His acting is quite poor which can be said for most of the actors actually. Apart from the mediocre acting there's really no one in the movie that you feel like rooting for. No one stands out, everyone just excels in mediocrity. The only person in the entire movie that has any coolness factor worth talking about is Scarlett but she is not in the movie for more than a few scenes.

There are a few scenes with some special effects, cars flipping over, huge snakes etc. But not really that much for this kind of movie. That could have been fine since this movie should be a lot about martial arts. Amazingly enough, not even here does it deliver. Most of the martial arts scenes involve a lot of flipping around with arms and swords but they mostly look like they have been written for a PG rated TV show for teens and pre-teens. They are simply poor. Tommy looks like he needs to take a dump before every fight with that ridiculous pose of his.

This is not a 1-star movie as some rate it. That's just ridiculous. It has some entertainment value. However, it could have been so much better. Unfortunately I suspect this movie has done the G. I. Joe franchise a disservice for some time to come.

Skylines (2020)

Not as bad as many reviews say.

[7/10 · 5 August 2021]

Maybe you have to be a bit more of a science fiction fan than most to like this movie but, personally, I do not really understand why its ratings seems to be so poor? Sure it is not great but I rather enjoyed it.

The movie takes place a few years after the second movie, Beyond Skyline, in the franchise. A bit sad that they chose to have a rather apocalyptic setting where humanity really didn't seem to have benefited from their new "allies" nor from the technology they actually acquired in the previous movie.

Unfortunately the writers also decided to go with a really standard Hollywood villain in the psychopathic, out of control, kill everything General Radford. Hollywood's choices of bad guys are unfortunately rather limited in these agenda driven days.

If we overlook the poor bad guy and the poor plot that resulted from that choice (not sure which came first, the silly plot or the poor bad guy though) then what remains is really a very decent action movie with a fair amount of cool special effects.

There's a fair amount of action. Both martial arts ones and the more trigger happy variety. The space scenes are also not bad at all and the monsters, well of course the old "baddies" are back and they added a few more varieties.

On the whole, I quite enjoyed the movie. Sure, it doesn't really put too much load on the viewers' brains but still, it is a quite decent movie. The one thing that annoyed me though, apart from the dumbass General, was Rose's powers always shorting out at critical moments, even after she had supposedly overcome the interference of the "queen".

Monsters of Man (2020)

B-movie kind of decent.

[5/10 · 3 August 2021]

Make no mistake about it. This is a B-movie and should really be judged as such. As a B-movie it is a decent enough movie. It ticks off quite a few of the WTF points that B-movies tend to, well, just do for no good reason. It does tick off one or two good points as well and on the whole I cannot say that I regretted spending a bit more than two hours on this movie.

The story is not really bad but rather overused and predictable. The science, especially the computer science, is written by someone rather clueless when it comes to informatics.

On the other hand the robots are not really bad at all. The look sufficiently menacing but at the same time they look like a concept that could actually work. My two biggest gripes with the robots are that they shoot worse than imperial stormtroopers and their sensor suite sucks. I mean, come on, they do not seem to have anything else than normal visuals and audio. No radar, lidar. Not even thermal imaging for Christ sake!

The characters and in particular their acting sucks as one would expect from a B-movie but it is tolerable. What is less tolerable is perhaps that they have chosen to include another classical B-movie trait. Most of the characters are useless and dysfunctional, screaming and arguing all the time. The two groups of people in the story are totally dysfunctional as groups and the only difference between the good guys and the bad guys is that the latter have a bunch of bona fide psychopaths among them.

As I wrote, the story is decent for a B-movie but overused and very, very predictable. Unfortunately the ending is really crappy. It is like the writer run out of steam and just wanted to get it over with. It is a bit of a shame because the rest of the movie could easily be shortened 20 or so minutes. There's some rather unnecessary fillers. With that time spent on a better ending this might have gotten a 3 out of 5 stars rating instead.

Verdict, if you are a sci-fi, and to a lesser extent horror, movie fan it is worth watching as a popcorn flick when you have nothing better to do but that's about it.

Coma (I) (2019)

Not bad actually.

[7/10 · 22 July 2021]

This is a science fiction movie made in Russia that I got as a birthday present from my second son. It is probably not a movie I would just have picked up myself, which is really stupid actually, so I am rather happy that my son did it for me.

It is not at all a bad movie. It is quite surrealistic and it does indeed take some time to figure out what is really going on. The landscape in which the main protagonist finds himself is weird, depressing and beautiful at the same time. I have to say that I found the special effects quite well done. If you consider that budget was a measly 4 million dollars the special effects become downright impressive. But then, in Russia you probably get quite a bit more for your money than in Hollywood.

I do like the general theme of the landscape where bits and pieces of reality is thrown around on a backdrop of filaments that looks like synapse network of a big brain. Actually this is not far from the truth and fits well with the story.

The story is perhaps a wee bit predictable just from the name of the movie but it is still not at all bad and it actually hangs together fairly reasonable. Okay it is science fiction after all but it is still a good story.

I've seen a few people complain about the movie. For instance that the story was a rip of Matrix and other movies. That is BS to me. I think this movie have a story of its own. Some people also complained about how bad the acting was. Well, if you watched a dubbed version of it maybe. If you cannot watch a movie in its original language then don't bother commenting about the acting. The most pathetic comment I saw was one saying "Not too bad for not being a Hollywood movie". Seriously? Considering the amount of woke and unintelligent crap Hollywood spews out nowadays that is a laughable statement.

The one thing I would have liked to be better with the movie was the ending. It kind of fizzled out without any real climax, neither good not bad.

Apart from that this movie is well worth watching for any science fiction fan.

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)

I actually enjoyed this one.

[8/10 · 19 July 2021]

I have to admit that I expected not to like this movie. When Hollywood decides to pitch two characters, whether it's superheroes or monsters, that are essentially good against each other it usually turns into crap. Take the absolutely abysmal Batman vs Superman for instance. Then we have Kong Skull Island which, while still being watchable, had a really lousy script.

But to my surprise I quite liked this movie. I really got worried when the movie started off with some nutcase activist that Hollywood likes to glorify. Then they had to kiss up to Communist News Network as well by giving them some product placement. Don't use a real world news network in fiction movies please. Especially not a well known fake news and far left propaganda machine.

However, in the end it all turned out nicely. The nutcase activist was really a nutcase and really really annoying but he still turned out to be on the side of the good guys.

The story was not altogether bad and although this story of the hollow earth is really far out fantasy more than anything else, even more than the idea of Kong and Godzilla themselves, I liked it. It was quite cool actually and it allowed for some nice special effects other than just Godzilla and Kong beating each other up and wrecking a few cities in the process.

Speaking of special effects. They are really why you watch these kind of movies. Sure a half decent story and passable acting helps but the special effects are the bulk of the enjoyment. For me the movie didn't disappoint in this area.

They were overall very good and actually quite balanced. Well balanced considering the kind of movie. You cannot have a Godzilla movie without at least a couple of city blocks getting demolished after all. Having an actual wet navy battleship showing up I do ascribe to the usual Hollywood writer stupidity of course but for the rest it was really cool. I especially liked the hollow earth scenes and the strange landscape with all the weird creatures.

Warning, slight spoiler ahead: The thing I really liked with the movie was that the writers didn't go down the route of killing either Godzilla or Kong. Something I really feared and which would have reduced the movie to a rubbish rating as far as I am concerned. Instead they threw in Mechagodzilla which was quite cool albeit predictable at this point in the movie and one which united Godzilla and Kong. Also this weird, completely devoid of any (even fictional) science, link to Gidorah was quite a bit of a stretch.

Overall, watching this movie was two hours well spent as far as I am concerned.

The Boys (2019– )

Psychopatic trash.

[1/10 · 14 May 2021]

Psychopatic trash written by a utterly depraved mind. No wonder the planet is going down the drain when people can even contemplate giving this anything more than one star. It's a true testament to how sick Hollywood has become.