Jim-Eadon Reviews

Late Night with the Devil (2023)

Tries something new but self-sabotatged

[5/10 · 6 May 2024]

This movie could have been fantastic. They could have expanded the Producer's story, he was an under-used character.

The whole movie was terrific, and, the climax, where the side-kicks head was twisted, that was the logical end of the movie.

After that, well, it's exposition, trying to "explain" the movie. It was totally unnecessary. The result was, a massive anticlimax. This was poor writing, and I'm amazed this wasn't fixed. Maybe they went over-budget, who knows.

It's a real shame as the movie was pretty good, especially by Netflix's movie-by-committee soulless standards.

The Exorcist is compared the most, but this movie, I think, copies the Omen more, especially Omen II, which has the TV scene. The Omen series of movies did the possessed infant MUCH better however.

They can't make movies like they used to!

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

Unsatisfying

[3/10 · 10 January 2024]

I found myself disliking this movie.

The good was the impressive CGI. But, even here, the characters in the foreground often fail to react to threats presented by the CGI monsters. (They stand there, inertly, as if, you know, standing in front of a green screen). I still enjoyed the artistic side of the CGI.

However, the humans were annoying, especially the weird passive-aggressive villain, who seemed rather pathetic.

When Rocket was out of the story the movie was flat. He was the heart of the show.

The backstory rocket-origin story felt forced. And the tragic nausiating soppiness of it contradicts the happy-go-lucky fun of the first movie.

Even worse, the schtick between Chris Platt and the women fell flat. If he had just been old-school sexist, it could have been really funny, but the producers couldn't bring themselves to be funny, lest they offend snowflakes. Big mistake. And the actresses were no commediennes.

Another problem: no sense of danger or peril was present. Characters survived impossible beatings. There was zero stress.

They should have stuck to being fun. The first movie was fun. This movie was melodrama, and unlikeable characters.

The 2nd movie of the trilogy was somewhere between the great first movie, and this failure of a movie.

Hollywood has forgotten how to make entertaining movies, or refuses to do so, because woke.

Dune (2021)

Boredom, as dull as a Desert.

[3/10 · 7 December 2023]

A dire movie, filled with inconsequential drivel.

No one to root for, no one likeable. Just cliches, people trying to be cool. But they're not, they're just boring nobodies.

A fat villain with lame lackeys... This is just so badly written.

The effects were dull, only so much you can do with a desert planet.

And, where's the fun, where's the heart? As with just about every blockbuster, there is none. It's accountants, all the way down.

The 10/10 reviews are the usual paid-for reviews, by PR types, Gig-workers, staff who worked on the movie, and computers.

Hollywood cannot make a good movie, it's making nonsense that ticks boxes, not entertainment.

Oh, and the worms were a total anticlimax too.

Totally Killer (2023)

No Comedy. No Horror. Unlikeable Cast

[3/10 · 3 December 2023]

The lead actress has no charisma, she can't carry the movie. She has no chemistry with the other actresses, who are as uninteresting, and annoying, as she is.

When she tries to be funny/kookie, it falls flat. She's no comedienne.

Then there is the mystery. Predictable.

The kills? Unimaginative Scream-wannabe stuff. Talking of Scream, the meta-horror jokes here are tiresome.

Then, worst of all, the in-your-face lectures telling us how racist and homophobic the 1980s were.

Just horrible, preachy wokism that makes me despise this movie even more.

It's Scream-meets-Back-To-The-Future with none of the fun or originality.

Minority Report (2002)

Ending Is Not What You Think

[9/10 · 12 October 2023]

Ah Those Final Years Hollywood was Sometimes Creative.

Remember the scene when the hero was "Haloed"?

Everything after that was just his Halo-induced hallucinations. The overly-neat "happy" ending... It wasn't real.

Indeed, so many implausible things happened in this film. Like rescuing the PreCog girl down a giant plug hole! Conveniently escaping in a surveillance-intensive world in a literally brand new car. Crashing through a window from a plummetting car... (Wouldn't he just bounce off?)... And so on... At least most of the stuff, if not all of it, could have been a "Halo" hallucination too. Because it was implausible, to say the least.

Someone said a Hitchcock collaborator worked on the film, and the suspense was certainly Hitchcockian!

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Political Correctness Ruins the Movie

[3/10 · 28 July 2023]

This movie beats us over the head with it's white-guys-bad, ethnic-guys-good agenda/narrative. How very tiresomely wokist...

Over and over and over this narrative beats us up. >Rolls eyes<...

The problem with that is, it's so selfrighteous, so preachy... One starts to sympathise with the baddies, and, before long, I just wanted the bad guys to prevail. At least that would be a surprise. These movies are infinitely predictable, and, so, there's no tension.

The other issue is, it's far too long, and one has to grind through it. The CGI was fantastic, mind you, and the alien fauna was much more interesting than the humans. Yet the monsters were both too few, and not as interesting as they could have been.

I'm also not a fan of plot holes, like people being able to stay underwater, performing vigorous exercise, without drowning.

Other plot holes are more bothersome. The humans have spaceships and futuristic technology (presumably equipped with deadly AI), yet can't track and beat up a tribe armed with bows and arrows! Or blow up a whale creature with a missile / torpedo?

And, how come this tribe knows how to handle futuristic technological weapons, exposives, etc? And manages to blow up a ship without killing the infants on the deck? Etc.

The Menu (2022)

Miscast Actress, Unsatisfying Ending.

[4/10 · 23 March 2023]

The two lead male actors were great.

The two lead actresses, by contrast, well, for starters, they couldn't act. Seemed to be there for PC reasons.

As for the ending with the burger, that was lame. Just horrible.

There were some great lines in this movie.

However the plot was implausible. They even lampshaded a plot hole. Why don't you just overwhelm us?

The actions of the guests seldom made sense. Why did they just sit there, and let the nutjob set them alight? I guess because plot required it.

The problem here was, this fails to satisfy.

And, to make it far worse, my least favourite character was alowed to escape.

Great first half, then downhill after that.

M3GAN (2022)

Miscast movie. Badly acted.

[3/10 · 14 March 2023]

First the good. The apperance and animation of the AI doll was done well. It was the ONLY consistently good thing about this movie. Also the movie did have a few good moments, all featuring the doll.

The stuff that was bad: Woke casting, woke narrative (women strong, men weak cliche, mixed-race couple cliche, etc. Etc.), which sap all the fun from the movie.

How the doll managed to become so smart, and override its own programming, was unconvincingly explained. And the batteries in this thing are incredible! But, I can forgive such "mistakes" in a movie, if it is good.

The lead actress was terrible. She couldn't act (and was annoying) in Dexter, and she couldn't act (and was annoying) in this. Why on earth was she cast?

The ending was the worst part of the movie. No need to explain why.

When the doll is the best actress, you know you have a stinker of a movie on your hands.

The original Childs Play movie did it best. Remember when movies were fun, not wokist?

The Platform (2019)

Fantastic first 40%, then tedious.

[4/10 · 5 November 2022]

This movie was fantastic, and then it wasn't.

It went from horror with a reasonably subtle subtext about society. But, then it blugeoned us to death with preaching PC morality. Pretentious and tiresome, the second 60% of the movie was shockingly disappointing.

Sure, there are allegories, but these are not as clever as the movie makers like to think. What they should have done was stick to what made the first 40% of the movie fantastic.

Sadly, they went off in a different direction, and, well, what a pity. It's hard to remember such a contrast between fantastic and dreadful.

Sadly, relentless political correctness is the scurge of movies.

Extinction (2018)

Dull. Could have been good

[3/10 · 16 October 2022]

This movie had no heart. It has an interesting twist, but then the twist is contrived. And it makes the movie even worse.

So, spoilers: The twist is that the family are machines. But, in that case, why are we supposed to cheer them on? They're machines, running computer code, like a PC playing chess. Even AI's are mindless algorithims.

So, these machines, who have no humanity, just mindless computers on legs, are killing humans. Whose side are we on here?

And the plot holes of all this are huge? Why make these things so humanoid, even down to blood? Don't they notice the kids are not aging and will never age. It's weird, and these plot holes are not addressed.

Given the massive technology weilded by humans, why are we to assume they're safe and live happily ever after. Not that they can, they're machines. They'll break down and crash anyway.

But, worse, the cast don't carry the movie. Better actors could have made me feel something, but I did not care about these wooden characters.

The movie seems more about being woke than telling a good story.

And, we have shaky-cam, and mumbled dialogue. Horrible.

House of the Dragon (2022– )

Kinda GoT minus fun.

[4/10 · 6 October 2022]

As usual, excessive political correctness bedevils shows made since around 2000+.

I was hoping this show might be an exception but it isn't. No good shows are being made any more.

I've seen the first episode only, and the show doesn't have the heart and soul of the first four seasons GoT. (The last 4 seasons of GoT were less successful, with the final season... The final season of GoT was absolutely terrible.

The entertainment industry is broken. It fails to entertain these days.

I wish I had more to say about this show, but it's so empty, noting much stands out. GoT seasons 1 to 4 were so great, nothing else compares.

Dead Silence (2007)

Too many plot holes

[5/10 · 14 September 2022]

The movie was so implausible I couldn't get into it. I don't mind horror being about the impossible. But stuff like the police investigation, the lack of correct interrogation procedure, leaving key evidence at the crime scene, the unrealistic detective, etc. But... OK, it's a horror movie... But what really did annoy me was the relentlessly dark, and almost colourless cinematography. People wandering around in the dark without reaching for the light switch. Sure the movie is trying to be dark so it can be more spooky, but I was just craving for relief from the dark grey of it all.

Somehow, though, the direction didn't hold me. The scenery reminded me of Tim Burton's, but it was 10% as satisfying as what Tim Burton would make it.

I kind of fast forwarded through the 2nd half, having given up on the movie, somewhat. However, I slowed down at the end. The twist ending was really satisfying. Sure, it was as implausible as hell, and assumes the son would not try to do what he would probably do. But I loved the twist, it was fun!

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

Daft horror

[6/10 · 4 August 2022]

The street lamposts are 1990s, not 1970s. Curious that the movie makers did not notice this, given they parked 70's motors all over the place. Maybe they intended to fix that with CGI post-prod, but ran out of time/budget.

This movie is flawed but watchable enough, if you don't mind the silliness of it all. As others pointed out, this has nothing on the brilliant The Exorcist movie. Or classic English horror movies such as Omen, come to that. Those movies have a heart that these Hollywood movies always seem to lack.

Seance (I) (2021)

Too woke to be fun

[3/10 · 17 June 2022]

I can kinda understand modern hollywood horror movies being burdened with cliche's, as new horror tropes are hard to come by. However, that doesn't mean a movie can't be fun. Here, though, we have the usual (nowadays) woke casting (of actresses who are, in addition, way too old for their parts). And, in my case, the wokeness factor actually gave away the solution to the mystery. Sad.

Here, the actresses were plain and dreary, and could not hold the movie at all. Avoid. In addition to this, the deaths were oddly lame, or otherwise unsatisfying.

The Batman (2022)

Batman? More like Batperson

[3/10 · 13 June 2022]

A woke version of Batman. Dreadful in every way. Tries to be cool, but woke is not cool. It's lame.

Here we have a dreary bunch of characters trying to be cool. There is no fun, no style, no substance. It's empty empty empty. Tedious, pious, PC manure. Makes one realise, by contrast, how good, on a relative scale, the old batman movies actually were. We didn't know how lucky we were when movies were still good.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

Horrible casting - no soul

[3/10 · 28 April 2022]

This is woke take on Godzilla. Like everything woke, the result has no heart, no soul. It's an exercise in box-ticking and taking as few creative risks as possible.

And when they copied the famous meme of the daughter grinning at a disaster... Ugh! She thought she was about to be burned to a crisp, and now she's not even breathing heavily, not shocked, just copying a meme?

This detail is typical of the film. None of it makes any sense. It's just about trying to achieve this image, or that SFX animation.

The SFX were pretty decent, but it looked computer-gamey, with 3D models seeming fairly weightless, like the hollow polygon surfaces they actually are.

And, besides, the effects are not so interesting when one is disengaged from the action. I disliked virtually all the characters in this nonsense, and was rooting for the dragon to slay all the cast.

This movie is junk. Avoid.

Zoe (I) (2018)

Ending is misunderstood, the twist is clever.

[6/10 · 3 April 2022]

The ending is NOT what it seems on the surface.

Apparent ending: the original Zoe was rescued, and it was a happy ending. But, I don't think that happened. The rescue did not happen, those memories were false.

When our hero goes into the hotel room, and meets a new Zoe, the new Zoe was weird, and he forms no attachment. But, her acting weird was just to fool him.

Our hero is then is seemingly reunited with the "original" Zoe. But, the original Zoe was destroyed. He was actually meeting a *another* new Zoe, but this one was acting the same as the original Zoe did. He fell for the trick, because the first new Zoe was acting so fake. So, he though the 2nd New Zoe was the original Zoe.

The clue was the tears. The movie made a big deal about tears. Our hero even said that it was *physically impossible* for the original Zoe to cry. Only a new Zoe could cry. So, when Zoe cried, at the end, that proves she was actually the new Zoe. Not the original.

Why the two-new-Zoes' trick? Well, the Zoe's are designed to make men happy. And, with this trick to fool him, he could now be happy.

The plot hole here is, he would surely figure this out. But, maybe he already did, but, this time, he decided to go with it. He had a second chance to do that.

Replicas (2018)

First half was good

[5/10 · 10 February 2022]

The first half of the movie was interesting. Gripping even. But then but the second half fell flat, with a stream of even-more implausible scenes. It was a pity they couldn't sustain the suspense and creativity. That was probably down to studio meddling, if I had to guess.

Inheritance (I) (2020)

Terrible casting, lousy plot

[3/10 · 8 February 2022]

The actress did not seem at all plausible as the lead, and I did not feel any sympathy for her whatsoever. Ditto for any of the other characters, who all make glaring mistakes, because, plot.

I saw the twist a mile off, and the entire plot was implausible. Including a massive coincidence needed to justify the premise. And, even then, it doesn't.

The movie wasn't even entertaining, like some bad movies can be.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

An empty movie with CGI-looking CGI

[3/10 · 3 February 2022]

The problem with this movie is, it has no heart. It's formula, amped up with effects. A movie designed by committee, hoping fireworks and "metaverse" (ugh!) characters will print money. How souless it all is.

Willy's Wonderland (2021)

Apart from casting of teens, pretty good

[4/10 · 2 February 2022]

The teenagers were just horrible, unwatchable. This was dreadful casting. Hence the 4 rating, not a 9 rating, if the teenagers were good.

Also I hated the the ridiculous "product placement" mention of a burger-maker, whom I boycott. Glorifying energy drinks, which are extremely fattening, is also bad. Producers, please don't do ads-in-movies! It destroys the film for me.

Apart from the unwatchable teens, this was a great movie. I loved the animatronics, and their sinister songs were surreal and wonderful.

What a missed opportunity.

Dexter: New Blood: Unfair Game (2021) Season 1, Episode 8

Shot in leg usually means death

[3/10 · 31 January 2022]

There is no place to shoot the body safely. The leg is extremely vulnerable: bones shatter, arteries & veins are cut, you name it. No way can a man shot like that outrun a fit male. No way could he even limp on that leg... Yet, inexplicably, the guy with two good legs cannot keep up with this superman... This series is unplausible in a thousand ways, this is only one plot-hole. But, it's an annoying cliche nontheless.

I wouldn't mind, but, apart from Dexter and the bad guy, the cast are just horrible...

Dexter: New Blood (2021–2022)

Terrible casting

[4/10 · 31 January 2022]

His girlfriend is annoying. Deb is ultra-annoying. His son and the teens are annoying. The blogger is ultra-annoying. The cops in general are dull.

The makers of Dexter went woke. The problem with going woke is, it kills the show, just to tick boxes.

Dexter himself is the only reason to watch the show, though Clancy Brown is also pretty good.

The way to watch this show is to fast-forward through most of the girlfriend scenes, unless it's police work with some plot. Fast-forward through all the teenagers scenes. Fast-forward through the screeching-harpy, sweary ghost-Deb scenes. Then it's actually quite good. The scenes with the charismatic Dexter himself in it are the only watchable scenes. I really miss the original Dexter. Especially the early seasons.

To repeat: shows are so woke now, they're absolutley dreadful. It's extremely sad, knowing 99.9% of the good stuff was made in the past.

No Time to Die (2021)

Where's the fun?

[4/10 · 26 November 2021]

The first third of the movie is entertaining. After that, this movie is dreary. As others pointed out, there are no good one-liners, no humour. The cast were generally bad, especially the actresses and villain. Compare the tedium of this modern, lifeless, PC movie with the fun, un-PC Connery and Moore movies, which are great fun to watch, charming, and often very funny.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (2019)

Woke Wars Rise of Mary Sue

[3/10 · 6 July 2021]

What a depressing load of garbage this movie is. Truly it's a diaster that Hollywood went woke. Modern movies typically have no entertainment. They're just trying to tick virtue-signalling boxes.

This movie is truly awful. Avoid!

Oh, and they (badly) ripped off a great scene in Antz too.

Bad acting by unlikeable characters. Terrible dialogue. It's just awful.