misha_kerogazov Reviews

Blockers (2018)

Fun Blockers

[3/10 · 15 March 2024]

I was looking forward to watch this movie expecting some real fun, but alas it didn't happen. The start was OK-ish, but the further it went, the worse it became. The actors are fine and I think they would do much better if they had a good screenplay, unfortunately, they had this one. The movie is trying to be hilarious very hard and hitting you right in the face with jokes, but most of them not funny. Had to make a pause here trying to remember if I laughed even once, but no, maximum a smile, but most of the time not even a smile as a lot of jokes were very cringe. Not recommended. Waste of time.

12 Strong (2018)

Boring

[5/10 · 2 March 2024]

As something that happened in real life, it's totally amazing and deserves all possible praises, but as a movie it's boring. They are trying, and trying very hard to convince us that it's entertaining, but really it's not. They are adding elements of drama and surprise and defiance and what-not, but at the end there are much more better war movies. Possible would be a very good movie if you are an American, then it will touch your patriotic feelings as well. Or a soldier, or even better an American soldier. Yep, that's it. It's a perfect movie for American soldiers. Other people will find it boring. If you are looking for entertainment, not recommended.

The Witcher: Blood Origin (2022)

Frankly, not that bad

[6/10 · 20 January 2024]

It's not even close to the actual Witcher series, but if we take it just as a fantasy-action item, it's not that bad.

The story is average and plenty of not very smart stuff you can criticize, but just to add to the Lore of the Witcher universe, it was OK and I would recommend to watch it probably to less-canonical Witcher fans.

I found it entertaining - the action sequences again, not that bad, not even close to great as in the Witcher, but definitely don't deserve 1 star rating. Everything about this mini-series was about average and I'm guess that most people, who gave it a very low rating, did it putting it on the same shelf with the Witcher... and you shouldn't - it's not the same shelf, not even the same house :D

My main beef with this series was though the fact that the only difference between humans and elves was their pointy ears. That's all. I didn't notice any significant cultural, behavioral, or any other characteristics that you could say, yep, that's elvish. And all this weird accents, oh boy.

But still - recommended :)

Two and a Half Men (2003–2015)

Was awesome at the beginning

[6/10 · 10 December 2023]

I'd give it 9 if not 10 for the first few seasons, but then...

They made Jake dumb as a cork, that's -1 Charlie dropped out, that's another -1 And all this business with fake gays, so cringe, another -1

The finale is full of fun (and not very fun) references, but overall, I wasn't very pleased as they hinted us about something, which never happened (no spoilers) :D

Would recommend to watch, especially while Charlie is there. I finished it all and don't regret it, but it was going slowly downhill since probably season 6-7, but that's the fate of almost all long-run TV shows. Well, except for Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond :D.

Fullmetal Alchemist (2017)

A Total Miss

[3/10 · 17 December 2022]

I'm not familiar with the works (anime, manga, etc.) that this movie is based on, but from other reviews, I can see that the ones who are, are actually much more unhappier than me :D For me, it's just didn't work - the story is meh, acting is frankly very bad, CGI is OK, but it's not something you can surprise someone in our time. The last point is related to my first statement - I felt lost through the whole movie (well at least the part I watched) as obviously there is a lot happened somewhere in the background, which I was totally not aware of. But I have to say, I watched movies before based on something that I was not familiar with and it was OK. This one wasn't. Couldn't even finish it, it was so unpleasant. Also, very unclear about suitable age. Whole premises and acting is like from a very young children's movie, but there is some totally gross stuff that is not suitable for children at all. Final word - not recommended.

The Blacklist: The Avenging Angel (No. 49) (2021) Season 9, Episode 4

Are they running out of ideas?

[4/10 · 23 November 2022]

I didn't like the ending and was expecting something smarter than what happened. The sub-plots with Cooper, Park and Ressler felt so artificial and pulled to create some drama that I wasn't really feeling for neither of them. Well, there is still a question about Cooper's mystery, but Park and Ressler, meh. Frankly, wasn't impressed with the whole season so far and reconsidering if I want to continue watching it.

And this requirements of 600 characters minimum is quite ridiculous. When I'm looking for reviews, short concise ones are my preferences, not into long-reads personally. So, note to website owners - please reduce it.

The Bad Batch (2016)

Defenitly a bad batch

[2/10 · 7 May 2021]

First things first, the movie is slow, boring and pretty much about nothing. I guess some people can see it as an art-house movie, but it's still too slow and too boring. I mean, there is a bunch of movie stars and they are not doing too much to show what they are capable of.

Now in a bit more detail. For the slowness - there is a lot of slow waking, slow talking, intense staring, intense standing and it's dragging on and on through the whole movie. About it's been boring. There is a plot of course, but it's very thin and even though there is some extreme brutality at the beginning to hook us up that you may think to lead to some excitement later, in fact it really doesn't. There is no message in the movie, nothing is explained, nothing exciting happens at the end. All dialogs are very boring and very slow, so you sort of waiting oh, now they are going to reveal some interesting plot twist or cool idea, but nope, just nothing, just space fillers.

If I had to compare the style of this movie to something, I'd say it reminds me some old Russian art-house movies, Tarkovsky and etc. Where nothing is happening for 2 hours and ends with nothing and everybody stands and claps and say that there is some hidden genius message to show that they are really the ones who got it. Well, if there was a hidden message, I failed to reveal it.

Verdict: Not Recommended.

The 5th Wave (2016)

...And then aliens caught the virus of stupidity

[5/10 · 6 May 2021]

The movie might be good for someone very young and who's not trying to think why aliens did what they did, but if you try to think then you will find no answer...

The idea is that the aliens want/need to get rid the Earth of humans without damaging Earth too much. So, first they shut down all power by sending EMP disabling "power" on the Earth (that would damage all turned on devices, but all turned off devices would be just fine, wouldn't they?). Then they arrange huge floods around the world, set up birds against us with avian flu, and do some earthquaky things.

If they are capable of doing that kind of stuff remotely, wouldn't it be much easier to deploy some poisonous chemical into our atmosphere that would kill all humans (and animals if they don't need them) and then if necessary, deploy another chemical that would neutralise the poisonous one?

But wait! There is more, to get rid of the rest of the humans, the aliens brain-wash human children and trick them to think that they are hunting and killing aliens when they are killing humans =palm-face=. Moreover, besides of occasional space-patrol ships, there is no alien technology whatsoever... They use human weapons, human military vehicles, human communication devices, which makes absolutely no sense.

I'm not going to go into a teen-romance-drama things, if the main plot was good, I wouldn't mind it too much, but it is there as well, teenage boys washing in the lake, teenage accidently peeping on them, old to-boy-friend, new want-to-be-boy-friend, all this kind of nonsense.

Verdict: Not Recommended.

The Accountant (2016)

Much better than expeted

[9/10 · 20 April 2021]

I like Ben Affleck, so I hoped it would be a good movie, but I watched quite a lot of movies with Ben Affleck, so was a bit afraid it may not be. To my great satisfaction the movie was actually not just good, but great. You can compare it to Beautiful Mind, but without deep sadness crossed with Bourne Identity, but without that annoying shaking camera. Everything in the movie makes sense, no nonsense, everybody played their parts very well, there were some appreciated (but not totally unpredicted) plot-twists and it all ended very logically and satisfying.

Highly Recommended.

Zoo (2015–2017)

Started very promising, but alas...

[6/10 · 5 March 2021]

The first season was very promising, 8-9 stars. Starting from the second season, unfortunately it went down. One of the issues that was bothering me is that the whole idea of the series was that the animals rebel against humans, but this issue was resolved at the end of the first season and then it was just good guys who are looking for ways to overcome all mischief that bad guys controlling monsters created (I put it generically to avoid spoilers) and pretty much nothing about animals. Another one is that in the first season, all main characters were sort of talented, but still normal guys, but starting from the second season, everybody out of sudden can hack computer system, can do martial arts and other things that normal people don't do and that was over the top. Lastly, the explanation that they gave why this all happened... ooh, that was just not good. On the positive side, I did like most of the characters and even if some of them were a bit cheesy, it didn't put me too much off. All in all, I would recommend watching it, but be ready for what I said above and also it's not finished. They obviously planned another season and it was canned, so no finale.

Wu Assassins (2019)

They Need Better Writers

[5/10 · 30 January 2021]

It was solid 7 out of 10 until the last episode when the ending didn't make sense to me. If Alec just wanted to get into his past or alternative past or wherever he finally got after all this trouble, wouldn't it be easier just to get all Wu carriers next to the gates and viola? He didn't share with them anyway that they are all going to lose their tablets and powers, so with the same luck, he could just invite them for some Wu-conference or picknick and finish his quest. Killing of Uncle Six was totally meaningless, I understand that they are creating some bridge for the next season, but why did Kai asked him to get his Triad gangsters when he went off to take on Alec without even waiting for him to come back? And that's knowing that he (Uncle Six) didn't have powers anymore and most of the Triads are with Zan. Nonsense. And killing Alec when he finally got back to his wife and kid. Eh, that was horrible and even almost killing his wife. And then going back to his party laughing and making jokes after slowly sticking a knife into somebody's chest. Ah, this last appearance of Ying-Ying, oh man, that was bad, she is a bad actress and that didn't help at all.

Columbo (1971–2003)

Gets boring quickly

[5/10 · 18 October 2020]

I remember watching some random episodes on TV when I was younger and since it's got such a high rating on IMDB, I decided to give it a "proper go" and watch it from beginning to the end, all episodes and all seasons.

I do like Peter Falk and find him charming, but this innovative approach introduced at that time of "inverted detective story" when they show you who did what at the very start gets quite a bit boring very quickly. There is no intrigue, only Columbo trying to catch rich and spoiled culprits. It's fine for a while and it could keep my interest only for the first 5 or 6 episodes. I was wondering all the episodes of this show are going to in the same style and when I found online that they are indeed pretty much the same story, I pulled the plug on it.

I gave it 5 stars as it's not that bad, but just not good enough to keep me entertained. Can't recommended it and in my opinion, it's not worth the time.

Iron Fist (2017–2018)

Not enough action for an action series

[6/10 · 5 October 2020]

I don't know or better say didn't know any background of the Iron Fist as in the comics before I started watching this series on Netflix so I don't have any complaints about it not following canons, but just in general, the story is not that engaging to give a slip on the lack of good fights and the fights are quite mediocre to ignore the weak story. It's not bad and If it was the only available show, I'd probably watch it all, but as there are many others, frankly I don't see any reason for anyone to waste their time on this one. Not recommended.

A Monster Calls (2016)

A Bit Pointless?

[5/10 · 31 August 2020]

I read non-spoiler reviews before watching the movie and there was so much praising that probably I had a bit to high expectations. We could see where it's going and how it's going to end in about maybe 5 minutes of the movie and I kept watching expecting some plot twist, some intrigue, something that would make we go "wooooow", but allas, nothing happened. It's ended as anyone would expect it to end. There were some words of wisdom, but not to extent to be awesome or something you never heard. I'm giving it 5 out of 10 because actors did a good job, but besides of the actors you need to have a good story and this one wasn't it, just a very sad and depressing story.

Verdict: Not recommended unless, out of sudden, you want to get sad or dpressed

Vacation (I) (2015)

Not enough fun to compensate for stupidity

[3/10 · 21 August 2020]

As title says, there is much more stupidity in this movie than fun. I was about to turn it off after 5 minutes of watching, but then something funny happened and I thought, ok, I'll give it a chance, and then again and again and finally the level of stupidity exceeded any possible limits and I turned it off. I generally liked Ed Helms, but in this movie he's horrible. All the other main actors are reasonable fine.

Not recommended

The Big Short (2015)

Confusing at the best

[6/10 · 31 July 2020]

I have very mixed feelings about this movie. I sort of liked it and liked how everybody played (even though Christian Bale overdid it a bit), but on the other hand, I feel completely stupid as almost everything what was happening in the movie was totally over my head... even after all explanations. The only thing I have actually got is how synthetic CDO's work, but still in a complete darkness about not-synthetic ones.

So, to fully enjoy this movie, you need to be preferably an American (to feel this frustration of the system) and have to know all terminology that they used and there is a lot of it.

All in all, still recommended, but be prepared, it may be over your head.

Hitman: Agent 47 (2015)

Not that bad

[7/10 · 31 July 2020]

Hitman: Agent 47 is a pretty decent thriller/action movie. It was probably not as cool as I expected after watching the trailer, but I still enjoyed it.

The story of course has wholes, inconsistencies and illogical moments, but if you just want to see some action and let it flow, then you will enjoy it as well. The main characters deliver and my rather small complaint would that neither of them are actual martial artists and as there are a lot of hand-to-hand combat, sometimes it was not as smooth as it was supposed to be, but still very watchable.

Recommended for action movie nights.

Dragon Blade (2015)

Only for Jackie's Hard-Core Fans

[6/10 · 31 July 2020]

The story in the movie is a complete mess. I'm not going to go into details, but if you are considering watching this movie, you must have already accepted that legions of Romans in China is OK. It would be more plausible if they shifted the accent a bit more into fantasy (e.g. different kingdoms, one is more like Roman Empire and another like China, but not actual countries), so there are not so many complaints about historical inaccuracies, but it is what is and according to them, it's based on historical facts. There are also a bit too many secondary undeveloped characters.

So, as the title says, you would enjoy it if you just watch it for Jackie. The sword fights are pretty good; other fights, well some are not bad, some are meh. I watched it to the end, skipped only a few times, overall not his worst movie, but far from his best one.

Summary: Recommended only for true Jackie Chan's fans.

Swelter (2014)

Oh, no, not Jean-Claude

[3/10 · 20 November 2019]

It's a bit of a paradox. I watched this movie only because of Jean-Claude. If not for him, I wouldn't even bother watching it, but if somehow it happened that I did watch it, I would give it maybe 5 stars as it's pretty average, not completely horrible, but rather bland and boring. But, since there is Jean Claude, but no fights - he's doing absolutely nothing during the whole movie and even worse, he's getting killed in a totally unspectacular manner, I'm giving it maximum 3 stars.

Summary: not recommended - for JCVD fan's it will be frustrating, for other people, it will be just plain boring.

The Congress (2013)

Could have been so much better

[5/10 · 25 August 2019]

I really liked how the movie started and that Robin Wright was playing the actual Robin Wright and all references to real life and real movies. The idea of scanning actors, the speech during the scan, it was all good and I was enjoying it until the animation part started... I do like animations in general, but I wasn't that excited about this particular one and the plot, oh my, it's got so convoluted and confusing and boring at the same time that instead of enjoying the movie, I was waiting when it was finally over. The ending didn't impress or surprised me either. Could have been so much better, can recommend it only if you are Robin's fan.

Snowpiercer (2013)

What Happened to Repair Shops?

[6/10 · 26 July 2019]

I have to say that I enjoyed the movie almost to the end. It's an apocalyptic thriller action and if you overlook ridiculousness of the apocalypses itself and accept the fact that all humanity managed to fit on a train, then you can enjoy. Chris Evans was good, Ed Harris was good as a villain, action was good, I liked the twist when Ed tried to seduce Chris into being another Chief Machinist, BUT as soon as they showed that they need children to run the train, everything just collapsed. It is a self-sustain piece of machinery that is supposed run around the globe. The rebels were marching from wagon to wagon and there was classrooms for children, orchards, fish tanks, sushi bar, whatever you can imagine BUT there was not a single repair shop. Even if they didn't have it at the begin, they were riding in this train for 18 years, couldn't they find or train some mechanics and engineers who could maintain and repair the train? Some parts have worn out, so instead of this worn out parts, they stuck little children who were sticking their hands into some hole, pulling some goo out and dropping down. COMMON, they guy who designed this train (Ed Harris) was a genius and the best solution to replace worn out part was to stick some tiny children there, really? An ordinary person can figure out something with an empty tin, couple of rods and a roll of an insulation tape to reproduce what these poor children were doing. I understand the reason for the story to put little children in a horrible situation, as otherwise Chris would very likely fall into the trap, but they could have come up with something better than replacing worn out parts with children. I 'd say it's worth watching for entertainment, especially if you like apocalyptic movies, but be ready for ridiculous twist.

Snitch (I) (2013)

Why is "The Rock" in this Movie?

[6/10 · 26 July 2019]

The story on its own is not that interesting, but since it's somehow based on true facts and events, it's sort of acceptable. My big question is what was "The Rock" doing in this movie? I think it was a total miscast. He played alright for himself, but he is not a man for this kind of roles, it's a drama, thriller, whatever, but we do not expect him to be a dramatic actor and with his stature and his face he doesn't fit into these shoes... like at all. The only action we see is from some other guy, the most Dwayne gets is to be bitten by some thugs and then shot in the leg. No, I didn't like it and can't recommend it.

Parker (2013)

Wasted Opportunity

[7/10 · 6 July 2019]

This movie could've been a very good one and I still give it 7 out of 10 because I love Jason Statham, but boy, there are so many holes in the script and it's so inconsistent that it almost ruined it...

The start was very promising, if you overlook the fact that the bad guys really didn't have to turn against Statham and reminded me good old Mel Gibson in Pay Back. I even thought it was a remake, but it was slightly different.

But then they put J-Lo in the play and everything went awry. Trying to make any sense of her appearance in the movie they had to reduce Statham competence and professionalism, so she could help him, but it looked so... out of place and at the end she didn't help him anyway.

All in all, not a bad movie to watch and much better than some other post-Transporter Statham's works, but could've been even better.

Recommended

Only God Forgives (2013)

Sooooo Slooooow

[1/10 · 24 June 2019]

I started watching this movie, in about 15 minutes, I turned on subtitles and speed it up by two... and then by three and at the moment it was still slow.

Absolutely meaningless plot, no value, no entertainment, nothing.

Not recommended.

The Grandmaster (2013)

A bit boring

[6/10 · 22 June 2019]

I watched 4 movies about Ip Man before watching this one and there is no way, but not to compare. My understanding was that this movie was supposed to be more of a story telling than about fighting and it was, but the story was a bit muddled and at the end even boring.

The fighting scenes are pretty good, but in my view not better than Donnie Yen's performance and for the plot... The story was supposed to be about Ip Man, but the focus constantly shifts and jumps between Ip Man and Gong Er, to their fictitious romance, to some "Razor" character, whose presence wasn't clear to me, except for his affection to Gong Er.

The last twenty minutes I was sort of waiting for a final fight (not sure who with who) and when it ended without any final fight at all, I felt quite disappointed. It's worth watching, but could be much better.