illegal_alien51 Reviews

The Revenant (I) (2015)

Great acting, but not so good cinematography

[5/10 · 6 February 2016]

Reaction from someone who is both nutty about photography and survival techniques: (Or - Things I didn't like and which broke the movie for me) - Use of a fish eye lens in certain places. The distortions in the visuals broke the illusion.

• Repeatedly letting the lens get dirty or foggy, or wet, or snowy. Broke the illusion.

• Lens glare, lens flare and star flares, broke the illusion.

Those things were put in I guess to make the movie feel more artsy but it backfired for me.

Also, I know that the main character was a pretty tough guy, but I can't help but notice that many of the survival techniques were portrayed cheaply. At one point when a fire was made, you could see clearly that the fire wasn't sparked by the flint and steel (as hardly anything was coming off it), but smoke and ember came from outside the camera's viewpoint, and created that first flame. If you insist on showing survival in such detail, then at least get it right, or pretend you get it right and cut to where there is already a fire. But don't base what you show on something you've seen on Discovery in 3 episodes of Bear Grylls' survival fairytale and assume you know how to do it. There were a few such instances where survival scenes were shown in great detail. The scenes would have been awesome, if the director would have gone that extra little step to make it full out real-looking, not just mimicry of something on TV and then not actually getting the mechanics of it right. It would not really have been hard to make it good, if the director had really understood what he was doing, or what he was asking for. They would have spent maybe a few more hours on recording the movie in total, but made a big difference in how the survival stuff was portrayed.

Besides, since he would have died of hypothermia 5-7 times in the movie already the scene reminiscent of "The Empire Strikes Back", was unnecessary and too much. He could have just as well just curled up under that tree and been fine (since he had been so many times before already).

Lastly, when you have an axe and supposedly know how to use it... (or did he not? He missed the first hit when trying to cut that branch, I never miss like that myself and use an axe maybe twice a year.) ... then how can you be so silly as to not use the reach of it against a knife fighter? That broke it for me further.

All that gave the movie its 5 points for me was the acting of the main actors, actually all actors. The acting was superb and saved what was left for me in the movie, kept me watching. So all applause goes to the actors who did an awesome job, but I'm not impressed of the storytelling by the director, neither the cinematography.

An Idiot Abroad (2010–2012)

"Better off living in the hole..."

[8/10 · 5 May 2015]

I've never really cared about Ricky Gervais until this show. Now I really really dislike him! Creating a show for the pure purpose of insulting someone who he (Rick) perceives below him and to make fun of them... that's pretty despicable and is in the end going to cost Ricky dearly in his career, as he strikes me as someone who will continue stretching it until it breaks. The more fun to see that this show actually is incredibly enjoyable, but for completely different reasons that RG intended.

Ricky seems to see himself as someone who the rest of the world has to look up to, purely because of his fame (and because he thinks no end of himself) . And that's the reason why he thinks he can get away with trying to degrade someone for his own (yet public) amusement. Ricky is arrogantly assuming that he has the right to be teaching Karl something that Karl -should normally know-. Actually, in some way he is. Karl is experiencing all the memorable moments of travel that everybody in hindsight enjoys and tells their friends and relatives about when they get back home. It turns out, the bad intentions of Ricky, turn into a good thing for Karl. The stuff we tell people from our travels are not the things that went well, but the things that went wrong! So... great, I guess! Karl might seem not to have been around much, yet he is perceiving his surroundings with an incredible clarity, an astounding neutrality, and in a way, he's not passing judgment tainted by his culture's preconceived notions about the places he visits. In stead he judges his surroundings and the people on the basis of his own every day, here and now, way of life.

That gives an incredibly refreshing view of cultures and other people that you don't usually see in travel programs. Karl is able to quickly spot the core of the subject, peeling every issue like an onion and making a quick and witty commentary about it that is spot on! His views of people and culture are practical, straight forward, simplified (yet no way simple) and no nonsense. That's is the beauty of Karl's mind, who, in a moment of tension between him and Ricky actually subjects even Ricky to the hammer of his straight forward intellect when he clarifies something Ricky misunderstood about Karl.

Karl had mentioned that "You are better off living in the hole, looking at the palace, than living in the palace looking at the hole...". The meaning of this escaped Ricky and Ricky was quick to try to physically put Karl in the "hole" Ricky thought Karl wanted to be in. That Karl wasn't literally speaking escaped Ricky.

Not only did Karl really enjoy his night in said "hole" he was forced to sleep in, (back at ya Ricky!) but Karl actually in so few words did what he does best, as he probably unintentionally summed up their intended parasitic relationship in that profound comment: Ricky is living in the palace looking at the hole, while Karl is in the hole looking at the palace.

And yes, Karl is ways better off with that! By being aloof, Ricky can only look on in daft amusement as Karl is actually having the time of his life, something that will forever enrich him as a person.

Thanks Karl, you are (the only person) who makes this show truly enjoyable! Ricky is not the star here, nor is he in any way needed to make this thing enjoyable. I would gladly watch any travel show Karl is in, where as Ricky could be pulled off the air permanently, just to do the world a favor.

Go Karl, and don't let them get to ya!

The Fighter (I) (2010)

Most of all disrespectful?

[4/10 · 23 March 2011]

First the good point:

The actors did quite a nice acting job, remembering how little development there actually is.

The bad points: The original two Rocky movies where more engaging than this and far ahead of this. The latest Rocky movie is better than this. Cinderella Man is much better than this. But most of all, The Wrestler is light years better than this and much more engaging.

This being a 2 hour movie everything goes sort of stale. A third of the movie is about the crack head brother and his useless life. A third of the movie is about a redneck hen house. The last third of the movie is dedicated to the rest. And this being primarily being a boxing movie it's almost sad that the boxing is just about 10% of the total.

But what really angers me is this: The movie depicts real life events that are very recent. Everybody is still alive, everybody is there to tell their story, yet they make a feature movie out of this?! They could have shown all people involved a little more respect and made a documentary about it! THAT I would have LOVED watching! That would have been REAL! They even got the real people this is about at the back of the movie in a little clip! Why not be a bit more respectful and actually make a movie about them - WITH them?

Tron: Legacy (2010)

The first movie ever that you can actually reiterate by ONLY recounting its mistakes and flaws:

[1/10 · 21 March 2011]

Worst movie EVER! These things are why: Why such a huge blast door if anyone with a magic cellphone can open it? Why did the blast door only open wide enough to let one person through? Why did he think tapping the split screen with he coffee mug would make the camera image reappear? Why only one guard for the entire building? Why didn't he call for backup or lock it down? Why did he know exactly behind what computer tower to look for Sam? Why does he bother walking onto the crane? How did he dare to? Why did Sam stop when the helicopter shun a light at him? How did they find the operating system on the Internet 30s(!) later? Why was it "missing"? Did Sam delete the original? Why would such a legendary company NOT be represented on the Japanese stock market already? Why did Sam and step dad talk like they hadn't met in 20 years? Why use a 20 year old pager? If CLU had access to contact it, couldn't he just have taken over the world without all the charades? Don't old arcade games have a boot up time? Why a secret room behind the arcade? Would Kevin enter his lab through the secret door that was in a busy video arcade? Wouldn't any kid playing the game have dislodged the console from the wall that was the secret door? Why would Sam conveniently have a flash light? How would Sam know all the commands used on the 20 year old computer? Why would he conveniently start the laser without seemingly knowing about it? Need programs entertaining? Did Sam have god-like powers in Disk Wars? How do the bikes hold together if all you need to do is tug at one (non existing) mechanical part to break them? Since Kevin programmed CLU, wouldn't he know about the possibility of a malfunction? How do you comfortably lay in a bed with a disk on your back? How can programs have intuition and how did Gem find Sam outside the club at the right moment? Did she have god-like powers? Why is the grid so anthropomorphic? Why would programs have spare time? Why didn't CLU go to Kevin's place earlier, he obviously knew where it was? Why would there be a bar that serves drinks? Doesn't liquid short circuit electronic devices? Did Castor plant the idea of Zuse in Quorra's brain in order to lure Sam and ultimately Kevin into his bar only to have one of his allies getting a hold of the disk by sheer luck then Castor killing his ally to get the disk only to finally turn out to be an ally of CLUs? Can a chain of plot devices actually get more congested? Why does Kevin address his son as "man", is he really "The Dude" from Big Lebowski? Why would he have a "Zen thing"? "Do you remember the night you didn't come home?" what if Kevin had said "No. Why? What happened?" Or: "Hey, remember your old Ducati?" "You kiddin' me? There isn't a day that goes by where I don't think of that old bike!" Wouldn't it have been more likely he would have used that line when being asked about the night where he didn't come home? If Kevin's disk is the master key to any and all secrets of the grid, how then did CLU even manage to become more powerful than Kevin? How, after having been off-line, would Quorra know that CLU had the disk? Does Quorra have god-like powers? Why doesn't Sam seem to react to what she says? What exactly is "Knocking on the sky?" and why does Kevin need to do it right that moment? Why would CLU refer to Quorra as a "rare bird"? Are there birds on the grid? Why did the Flynns walk around where the vast army was, of all places? Why does Sam have to remind Kevin of the "Same team" rule? Isn't blood thicker than water? Why is Sam taking over and deciding what is to be done, yet in the next sentence he proclaims that he's going to improvise? Wouldn't Kevin know much better what to do? Why would the guards act so puzzled when the elevator arrives with no passenger on it? Is investigating it more important than guarding the door? If Kevin can reprogram people by hitting their helmets, then what is the friggin' point of the movie? Why did Sam only encounter four guards in total on his way to Kevin's disk? Why does Jarvis give up without being threatened, then Sam still grabbing Jarvis' throat in order to acquire about the "girl"? Why would Sam throw the *all important* disk at Tron? Why does Quorra ask Sam what he is doing there yet she knows that CLU would be "here any minute"? Does Quorra have god-like powers or doesn't she? Why is Jarvis' unreliability a surprise to CLU? Sam had never been in a grid plane before, yet knew what to do to "take the turret". Why does he have to turn his head to talk to the people in the front? An ultra modern plane but no communications system? How can electronics be jammed? Would there be oceans? Why doesn't Kevin hit CLU in the head to reprogram him? Why would CLU look away when Quorra threatened him with a "sword"? Why didn't she kill CLU right there? How can Sam connect his magic mobile phone to the computer in dad's basement? Would they after 20 years of development even be able to interface, even be able to run common software needed to copy the software? Why is Quorra outside the arcade and what did his step dad do inside all of a sudden? Why was the Tron character ultimately inconsequential after having been part of the entire movie up until the end? A horrible experience! (And much more stuff reported to the goofs page, to make the word count).

Sanctum (2011)

A lot of shouting and screaming does not a movie make.

[3/10 · 1 March 2011]

and neither does it make leadership, even though the movie wants to make you believe so.

No real plot. No real characters. No realism. No suspense.

A lot of shouting and screaming. A lot of the good old "let some idiot rookie want to stay in the danger zone longer than necessary to create drama" while "everybody shouting at idiot to get out of the way" is going on.

Oh, and as soon as you realize that this is a "kill off one character after the other" movie you'll realize who's not going to make it. Half of the ending is just about justifying the last deaths, which finally not even make any sense OR feel justified.

Don't waste your time watching this.

Let Me In (I) (2010)

I don't understand...

[2/10 · 1 March 2011]

It's probably me, but there are several things I don't understand.

The original was crap. Utter rubbish without direction, without logic, without character development. Maybe it was an emo's dream but that's quite a small demographic for giving the original a top 250 IMDb rating.

But stranger things have happened and I know myself well enough to know that pretty much anything the original had, wasn't really good enough to make it in my book. I rather watch someone in a jammed wheel chair trying to win a marathon.

But enough about the original. I was hoping that in this case the international remake would actually be better than the original. And actually it is! The original got a 1 rating from me, this here got a 2 rating. But why? Not because it's more logical, or has better character development, or because the story is somehow more gripping? No it's entirely the same tripe as it was before, which is surprising. Because until I saw this I could honestly not believe that someone could make a carbon copy of something truly horrible without by accident making it better. But there is one tiny detail that made me give this movie a two point rating. The original has a paedophilic moment where the original director shows the crotch of the little girl. And in this remake it's cut out. And if it's not cut out then I missed it and I'm just as glad about that! Actually, maybe I should give this movie a 5 for not showing that shot but that would be pushing it.

The Girl Next Door (2004)

Appearantly only for a certain audience...

[1/10 · 29 December 2010]

...namely those featured in "Jaywalking" (in the Jay Leno show, you know??) How cave-man do you have to be to enjoy this tripe? "A teenager's dreams come true when a former porn star moves in next door and they fall in love." Is this really what teenagers dream about nowadays? Hooting at hooters, isn't that just a tad too low? Maybe this is somehow fulfilling for those who suffer from sexual repression, but then I think if they had that sort of problem they wouldn't watch this movie in the first place.

Or maybe I'm just too old for this. If this is trying to send a message that "Pretty Woman" tried to convey, then it surely fails amongst all the breasts, porn references and the mention of the F-word. It has no class, and thus clearly fails to make a serious point, even at the end. Truly, a movie for young people who can not yet see or understand depth in human relationships.

The Witches Hammer (2006)

This is by far the worst piece of crap I've ever lied my eyes on.

[1/10 · 28 December 2010]

How anyone can give this anything over a 1 without invoking the power of the almighty "unintentional laugh" is beyond my understanding.

Acting and character script: absolutely cringeworthy. Everything is stale, unemotional and wrong. "Oh I just died and can neither be with my husband nor child any more! What's more is that some strange people who are experimenting with me want me to be their new super duper killer! ...But... that's totally okay, because I'm a Vampire now *moronic smile*.

"Oscar is a master acrobat and a trained fighter" the guys says, apparently someone really to be fearful off. Yet he stops him by putting a fork through his hand, ramming it into the table. WHAT??

Theme inconsistencies - A story is told of how the Witches Hammer came to being, somewhere before 1100AD, the movie of that story is in colour. Yet when another story is told about something that happened in the 1800s we get it in black and white and with silent film talk boxes. WHY? In the Witches Hammer story the people were dressed in 17th century, maybe 18th century clothing even though it's supposed to be around 1000AD, at the latest.

Why do we need to know the French pronunciation of the word cardinal if it both sounds pretty much the same as the English pronunciation, and if that knowledge does absolutely nothing to further the story? WHY?

And what's up with him being that absolutely incredibly strong and evil foe and when you get to meet him he's this whimpering little lump of ridiculous? If you're building up suspense and tension leading up to meeting a super villain, why then suddenly make a 180 degree turn and turn him into a soggy lump of nothing?

Okay, not everybody can do super fight scenes - BUT IF YOU DON'T, THEN DON'T TRY!

Why is the dead fat lady laughing while she's taking revenge on her father for poisoning her? Wouldn't she rather be full of rage, or sad or disappointed? No she butchers him with a happy smile. Why in all the world would she go out on a revenge spree if she's in such a good mood?

That's it, I could go on for hours but what for? What remains is that I have another name of a director to stay away from. Sad that learning that name had to be such a painful experience.

Hammer House of Horror (1980)

A true horror, though not for the right reasons.

[3/10 · 21 December 2010]

I can sympathize with those who saw this when they were young and were quite thrilled by it. But this has no value past the unintentionally funny campness or nostalgia.

The true horror of this series sadly lies with the scripts, the acting, the dialogues, the stories themselves. There is not one episode that doesn't make you cringe. The logic and story mechanics are rather hair raising, in a way that makes the Friday the 13th series look like a masterpiece.

I watched this with very high hopes, since, of about 70 Hammer Productions full length movies I've seen, only about three were truly bad, the remainders, even though also camp to some degree, were full of heart and meaning, even unexpected depth. This series however is the absolute opposite and a very big let down if you expect typical Hammer Horror quality.

If you haven't seen this when you were little, I'd only recommend you see it for its historic value, but not really with the hopes of getting entertained.

Sauna (2008)

Perfectly executed Finnish atmosphere

[9/10 · 18 September 2010]

As mentioned by many reviewers, this is not so much a pure horror film. In stead it has the feeling of a dark historical tale with some bits of horror added. If you want gore, zombies, or other very graphical action, then you will not be served well here. In stead you will find a drama that talks about guilt, to some degree madness. Non the less, it is still very brutal and raw.

If you are used to Hollywood then this is likely not your kind of movie. It paces differently and if you are not from Scandinavia yourself, then you do well watching with an open mind. You will find an honest straight forwardness and human depth in this that is just common for the region. It permeates this movie, makes it go in its own pace, and either you know and recognize it, or you will have to take its word for it. If you can neither, you will not enjoy this.

The Book of Eli (2010)

Oh Lord, deliver us from Eli!

[1/10 · 25 August 2010]

Unbelievably stupid scenes added together make for quite a time waster of a movie. I too would want the world to adapt so that I can always be in danger, but in what ever situation fate has in store for me somehow come out the winner! Had this been real, Eli would have died probably 10-15 times within those two hours, which would have actually made for a lot more entertainment than the actual movie.

The only person getting anything right here is Oldman's character. He tells us viewers in no uncertain terms that it's the Bible that has created all this devastation ("That's why they burned them all after the war!") and that if only he got a hold of it and started preaching, everybody would start mindlessly gathering around him and do as he says. I have to ask... who is the bad guy here again? It certainly doesn't seem to be Oldman's character, as that guy lives in a town with rules, shops, bars and so on and seems to be an overall relatively easy guy to get along with as long as you're not acting up too much. He's even very honest, and a guy who has got the truth pretty much nailed down. And in the red corner we have Eli, a misanthropic loner who in most cases seems to be the one instigating the violence. He could have just dropped that bag as that actually pretty nice robber asked him to (to be honest, had I been the robber I would have just shot Eli as soon as he came around the corner, no need to make things more dangerous or complicated than necessary). But no, he seems to want to let Eli live, so he only asks for the bag. Eli chops the guy's hand off and kills his mates. Good job Eli! Acting like a true Christian. Besides... people with bibles are bullet proof. We all know that! But if you really take your time analysing what happens, thinking about the dialogues, you realize soon enough that the movie isn't really about the book but it's about keeping Eli alive as long as possible, saving him for the "grand" finale.

One final thought: Does this movie make sense? The bibles were burnt after the war, for good reason. If it's such a commodity after 30 years, if it's something virtually unique, there must have been good reason to destroy all the billions bibles, and as Oldman's character practically says straight out - the war was because of the message, because of the book. So why would the ending of the movie come down to the saving of the book, the reprinting of the book if it is what destroyed the world in the first place? Does this mean that Eli in reality represents Satan, working to destroy even the remainder of civilisation? A reasonable conclusion, if I may say so myself.

Right... Next!

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

Jackass the movie, part 2

[1/10 · 24 August 2010]

Seriously, "Where the wild things are" is without any competition the most dark, depressing, sad and disturbing children's movie I've ever seen. Actually, it's more disturbing than any of the 100 or so horror movies I've seen in the last year! Because it's real horror! The real horror being that you probably have crying kids after this who'll be as gloomy as the movie is grey and dusty. You'll have kids who wonder why everybody in the movie is so mean all the time and who'll wonder why you let them see it. No normal kid will find this to be in any way uplifting, positive or fun. In stead it's going to be a traumatic experience that will just suck the life right out of their little hearts!

If you want your kids to enjoy this story, stick with the book. I remember that to be a lot more fun and interesting plus that you can spend some quality time reading it to them.

But this is not all... I have to add that a lot of scenes in the movie started to make sense once I saw who had directed/written it. If you're someone who enjoys or enjoyed "Jackass" then you'll probably love this movie. You will even "understand" it. It *IS* 50% Jackass, the same stupid, lobotomised violent games and attitude some call fun. That director has with this title ended up on my permanent ban list, since he seems not to know where to draw the line, where to maybe not go with his particular brand of "fun". But I guess to come up with something like Jackass you have to be somewhat disturbed in the first place, so how this movie turned out doesn't really surprise me. I only wonder, if he makes a romantic film, are the protagonists going to clobber each other in the heads with giant dildos, squirt random people with whipped cream and expose themselves to children, for cheap laughs?

More than likely...

Ca$h (2010)

So awful it made me cringe

[1/10 · 19 August 2010]

Having Sean Bean in it is somewhat of a surprise. Right off the bat the script reveals that its writer doesn't have much experience in writing. Even Sean Bean seems to be a bit uneasy in his role.

Just a few snippets from before I turned it off (and this is so far only the fourth movie ever that I've turned off)

Guy comes into room where his girlfriend has spent the last 5 min (on screen) talking to her banker about the loan they have and his first words are "Mr. (what ever), our banker!" as if the banker now needed introducing to the viewer. Because he sure didn't need introducing to a) the banker himself b) his wife who had been talking to the banker the last five minutes about bank stuff c) the guy who came in to meet his wife and banker, because that's what he wanted and expected to find in front of him. So why the introduction?

Bean's character goes down some stairs behind a bar (cliché) to meet some sort of criminal mastermind. However, said mastermind has at least a full facial/head tattoo. Somebody like that would never get that far in the criminal world other than being a collector or other low level foot soldier to someone else. Next that mastermind pops out a key chain that God himself must have dropped somewhere, because it has half the city's keys on it. Somebody with that many keys to places in Chicago would not need to play criminal mastermind. He could simply retire on some tropical island. For my taste this was a bit too Gandalfish, a little too much fairy tale and I wonder if the script was written by a child.

Guy finds a suitcase of money, a day goes by, he reveals it to his girlfriend and he asks her excitedly if they should count it. Uuuhh, dude... that's the first thing any sane male would have done! He should have counted that money within the first five minutes after finding it!

A black guy, in what doesn't seem to be the richest part of town, gets confronted by Bean's character over his new car. The black guy gets enraged and challenges Bean's character whereupon it is Bean's character's Irish accent in the following monologue (which by the way was really over the top cringe-worthy) that scares the black guy to such a degree that he literally looks like he both peed his pants and is about to start bawling like a little boy. That is what it actually looks like! I didn't know if to laugh or cry when I saw that so I decided to end it there. That was it for me. No more Ca$h.

It's all these things that makes the script appear amateurish and I'm sure there is a lot more where that's coming from. It is probably that, which makes Bean's performance seem lacklustre and bleak. It's not Bean's fault. We know what he is capable of.

Is It Real?: Ancient Astronauts (2006) Season 3, Episode 6

A plain horrible experience for anyone with a working brain

[1/10 · 20 April 2010]

I make this short as I can sum it up very easily:

I quote: "The evidence that aliens colonized us, interbred with us and shared all their knowledge can seem overwhelming."

Wh...at ...evidence ...exactly? When someone says "evidence" I humbly expect them to go about their business scientifically. But apparently some think it's enough to mention the word "evidence" for what ever they want, to be suddenly be true.

No. In this show there is no evidence, no reasonable approach to this idea, no nothing. All we get are wild speculations from people with no higher education and no form of scientific thinking. The speculations are along the lines of preschool child level of reasoning, exemplified here: There is light in my aquarium every morning at a certain point. Light, in the aquarium, in the morning = That's "evidence" that the sun is inside my aquarium!

That the light is turned on by a timer every morning never occurs to me, the... space-alien-wannabe-scientist-super-dork.

To imagine that this has been shown on National Geographic... How low have we come? Give us the apocalypse now please, space aliens!!

Taken (2002)

Is it Spielberg or is it his expectations?

[4/10 · 24 June 2009]

This is quite a good series if you have 10h of hoovering to do while watching it. Other than that I'm not sure.

The more Spielberg I watch the more do I start to wonder if he's skipped school a lot or if it is his expectations of the viewers low intelligence that have him make such near tripe. As typical in Hollywood nowadays, the series has to rely heavily on both the viewer's and the character's lack of said intelligence, in order to make ends meet. Add that the only type of suspense you'll find is the typical sudden shock scare that at times is repeated over and over.

Things that destroy the magic, like ferns growing in a dark cave, or the occasional other mistake, like a clearly visible ambiance spotlight and its beam lighting up the dark woods, make for just another point of annoyance.

The characters are textbook stereotypes, including the narrator (trying to avoid any spoilers here) which at the time of acting is the six year old Dakota Fanning. That her lines contain wisdom of life that would even baffle Gandalf seems to have escaped the realism department.

OK, this isn't supposed to be 100% realistic, it's Sci-Fi. But at least I think they should have tried to keep the illusion up a little harder rather than working like everybody was expecting to go on holiday in 6 hours.

Sadly my place is very small. Hoovering took me only 30 minutes.

Ape-Man (2000– )

One point for awful and awkward.

[1/10 · 7 January 2009]

If this series is trying to be scientific then somebody should tell those people who made it that regression through hypnosis (in order to connect to stone-age people's minds) is not science.

What ever else this series is showing, or trying to do, it is completely shot down by the hypnosis bit, that totally nullifies any scientific credibility. However scientific you try and make hypnosis sound, especially in regard to this past life/regression/*blank space* kind of approach, it is still just bogus! Great way of wasting money.

Looking at how many people voted so far it looks like the series has never really been shown on TV, and if it has nobody cared about it. I hope it stays that way. This is riffraff not worth any TV screen.

Children of Men (2006)

Don't expect much!

[1/10 · 17 December 2006]

This movie is a bore. It drags on and on and on aimlessly, without focus, with way too many scenes that are way too long and don't bring anything. It never really establishes itself. The characters seem to be cheap cut-outs and never develop. Whenever there IS something that seems interesting, the movie seems to turn away, into a different direction, instead of plunging head on into the possible drama. After 45min I was starting to wonder when this movie was ever gonna really start and had to actually check if it wasn't another of Night Shyamalan pieces of garbage - I got really convinced that HE WAS the director, thank god he wasn't. I wouldn't have been able to forgive myself for not steering clear in the first place! Don't bother with this one. Watch "On the beach" instead if you like this kind of apocalyptic scenario.

The Manhattan Project (1986)

Not even funny...

[1/10 · 7 December 2006]

I don't even wanna talk about it, I just wanna cut it down and leave it for dead. Or with other words, don't watch it unless you wanna make fun of it later! It's a half lame movie for little kids who haven't had a physics class yet and who's parents are willing to explain that something like that is never possible in real life. Here are some examples why (to get you started)

• The material being so highly concentrated I would imagine when he opens the hatch to get the jar out he'd immediately lose consciousness and die within minutes. No yellow rubber gloves are gonna protect him from the radiation.

• It looks like he's going for an implosion design with his bomb (like the Nagasaki bomb). That's really "smart". Especially since the gun design (Hiroshima bomb) is far easier to build, but maybe he is aware that the implosion design will have a far greater efficiency so he can incinerate far more people with it, if that's what he wants? (That's where another thought occurs: Why is he complaining about the morality of the lab when he builds a bomb of his own?)

• Then there is more unprotected working with the material. Even if the material was only slightly radioactive for some reason, his nice fluffy hair would have fallen out halfway through building his device. At the least we would have seen lots of vomiting!

To sum it up, tired of writing this as I am, it's just all horrible anyway! I can't understand why a movie with that name couldn't have been a bit more interesting, realistic and possibly talk about the real Manhattan Project instead!

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Really?

[1/10 · 23 May 2004]

Bram Stoker's Dracula??? Is the book really this terrible? I will get the book at the next convenient time and READ it. Because I just can't believe it can be this bad!

Obviously there must have been some artistic freedom involved when the book was adapted for the screen and my feeling tells me that all that turned out so very bad has to do with only that: the adaptation. Other things obviously not being in the book were also really bad: Reeves performance and terrible wannabe English accent, Watts looks (because he looked like himself, not like a mad servant of Dracula's), lots of inconsistent and pointless details in the rest of the movie. To be honest - I had seen it shortly after it came out and it left a mixed feeling. Now I wanted to see it again to get a second chance of building an opinion... but... I didn't make it. I couldn't stand watching this movie all the way through. Normally I don't comment movies I haven't seen all the way through, but this time I felt I had to say what I think anyway.

I couldn't connect to the movie at all. The performances in general sucked big time, there was no real feeling - it felt more like a circus with a several hour long and chaotic number with 399 overly colourful, completely (raving mad) shrieking, crying and shouting clowns! This film left me dizzy and my brain was spinning out of control.

TERRIBLE! YUK!!!! 1/10

The Hunted (2003)

Makes your hair fall out...

[4/10 · 14 May 2004]

That's how bad it is at times. Johnny Cash was best, the fighting scenes were a bit extreme but nice to watch... hm... other than that: The movie started out quite promising but in the last half hour it completly sunk to the bottom because then it started to get a bit too silly.

When (*spoiler warning*) both main actors started producing their own weapons within 3 minutes pre the last stand off... eventho if making those weapons would have taken half the day... but who cares - this movie is for the normal stupid-audience anyway, isn't it? Well, next: the hunter almost gets squashed in a trap that wouldn't also just have grown in the trees but would have to be painstakingly planned and built... but again, why care? Hardly anybody in the normal stupid-audience would notice! And then we see the typical "pull out the weapon that is stuck in your body so that the wound really has a chance to bleed like hell" kinda thing (eventho we saw quite a good scene in the sewers where the knife was LEFT in the mans throat to prevent further damage)... but why care about that either? And to cut it short, in the face off the opponents half-mutilate eachother but still fight on bravely without twitching. Yeah well... can't really go on talking about this movie because my interest in it carries me only this far.

With all respect to that great actor, but not even Tommy Lee Jones very impressive in this movie, he mainly looked and behaved like an old dog with an experimental nerve disorder.

Skip this one if you want movies to be at least somewhat realistic. 3/10

Eight Legged Freaks (2002)

Just use the most beaten to death monster movie storyline and replace the monsters with spiders - voilá: you got "Eight legged freaks"

[3/10 · 11 May 2004]

Why aren't all those spiders eating each other? Why are the spiders chit-chatting all the time? Can jumping spiders only jump?

Watch Arachnophobia or instead... or Spiderman... or Spy Kids 2. No really, don't watch this movie unless you'r an eight legged freak or if your under 12 years of age.

I liked the look of the spiders when they weren't moving and I liked the scene where the girl zaps the guys groin. The only scene that made me smile was the one with the spider and the pepper spray. That's it, now I've told you everything good in the movie.

The movie would actually have had a chance at being creepy if the spiders hadn't constantly made all those... stupid noises. And funny? Only if you ask a friend to stand behind you to tell you jokes throughout the movie.

That little nerd boy was also going on my nerves like hell. This is really not a movie for grown ups!

The score sounded like from any Disney movie. Is this a Disney movie?

Skip this one.

3/10

We Were Soldiers (2002)

One of among the best

[9/10 · 8 May 2004]

I'd put this movie right in the middle between Deer Hunter and Black Hawk Down. That's because it includes a view of the social side back home, like seen in Deer Hunter and it shows the utter carnage of war, like in Black Hawk Down. This movie ties well together those two different sides, it shows the suffering at home and on the battlefield. It shows also at least a little bit the side of the enemy, which is something you don't really see often. This movie doesn't make war look cool, like sadly some other American Vietnam movies do, nor does it take away from the "real" feeling. While watching you'll see soldiers die left and right, getting hit by bullets, burnt by fire and it all seems very real and horrifying and you can feel the loss. To follow the structure and progress of the battle is not all too easy, but I believe that it isn't either when you are there, in fact if I'd been fighting in such a place I'd been surprised if I'd been able to make any much sense of it!

A true war drama! 9/10

Unbreakable (2000)

Wow what a bummer!

[1/10 · 8 May 2004]

*Spoilers?* Just another of Mr. Shyamalan's motion pictures full with illogical presumptions and other stuff you don't actually want to see in good movies!

I think Shyamalan hasn't really understood the essence of good movie making, he doesn't see the depth of it, but he admires a lot of great movie makers and is good at copying other directors and ideas, but he isn't capable of making this one a good movie by himself and by these means, maybe because he seems to do everything himself.

There are so many things which don't really do any good for the story:

How could that Elijah character come up with specifically David Dunn being a superhero? I guess there are a few people like Dunn who had lucky escapes, how could he be so sure it would be Dunn? Shyamalan worked on the presumption of WANTING to have Dunn be a superhero, so he went to great lengths to MAKE him one through presenting circumstantial evidence. Everybody knows that circumstantial evidence isn't normally enough to prove anything, but after enough circumstantial evidence is presented Shyamalan presumes he has PROVEN enough and just goes on with the story. That just leaves a big hole!

How at all did Elijah come to the assumption of there being real superheroes? Well I don't really got that at all! What stuck though was a very a very stupid explanation or whatever it was meant to be that ancient Egyptian writing was somehow connected to today's comic books. Silly in a sad way!

How in hell could a normal person like Dunn never have noticed that he wasn't ever sick or ill or damaged in any way? How would he need somebody who had never met him before to tell him that, with the result of Dunn finding out that that was the truth? Absolutely ridiculous!

Water! Again! Water seems to play a big roll in Shyamalan's movies… or at least slightly because it felt like if water would have some climax role in this movie, but instead it became a very unnecessary and pointless swimming pool scene with absolutely no connection to anything important before or after!

The scene with the boy and the gun! What a waste of true drama! But where do such ideas come from, what events lead up to such dramatically enormous and powerful moments and what happens with those in the aftermath? Answer: The boy just had the gun and just had to point it at his father because he had to prove a point! What a completely chopped off way of putting drama into the movie! The boy could have been shown during the time he came up with the idea. His idea could have been explained and put into perspective! The boy should have been going through some kind of struggle with his conscience before doing that extreme thing, but no! He just gets the gun and points it at his father! The next freaked out thing was that the father shouted at the boy with the gun AFTER having tried a calm approach. A little more intelligent person would have known not to agitate or stress that boy any further in an aggressive way so that the boy wouldn't switch over into an aggressive-defence mode and in the process shoot the father by accident! Next: All just break down and sigh a little, instead of springing into action! The father should have gotten very angry at the boy, maybe even slapped him – just out of stress and relief at the same time! I'm not saying that that would have been cool or nice, but it would have been a bit more realistic, but what we instead see next time all of them are together is a scene that would actually make us believe nothing of that had ever happened and that it was forgotten and never spoken about. The wife didn't even tell Dunn to not leave the gun in the house anymore! Outrageously bad!

The list just goes on and on and on… such things just pile up to a big mountain of nasty smelly stuff! Shyamalan seems to work in such a way that he knows that he wants certain elements in the movie, lets say… an interesting idea and then some drama and here and there filmed from certain angles and such. Then he comes up with the interesting idea, then he tries extremely hard to explain his (in the end rather ridiculous) interesting idea by means of circumstantial evidence (because he himself can grasp the depth which would be needed to make his idea credible) and tries again and again. In the end he throws all scenes together, knitting those together with lose pieces of drama and that's it. So what you end up with is not a natural building of social storytelling structure, but some kind of chopped up salad in which you as the viewer must piece everything together yourself. And you are very lucky (or in fact unlucky, and I don't envy you if you do) if you manage to do so without compromising the viewing experience!

To visualize what I mean a bit more: Whenever the family is together or whenever Dunn and his wife meet there seems to be one topic on the table which doesn't really fully connect to anything they have recently been going on about, but it still advances the story because it is something new. The problem is that these advances are too big! Shyamalan tells you mostly about the waypoints in the story, NOT about the interesting and deep things: exactly HOW a character came up with his ideas, assumptions and reasons. And that is something utterly too easy, a cheap way out and it is not real story telling. It is like reading the back of the book. It kills the characters giving the idea of the movie all the space.

Bummer!

3/10

The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course (2002)

Take a look at this, will ya? Swettin' bullets!

[8/10 · 6 May 2004]

Don't read on or watch this movie if you dislike Steve Irvin or his documentaries.

*Some spoiling possible*

If you in fact like them and his style then this is kinda heaven! The movie starts off a bit slow but still interesting. At first it is a bit hard to understand what kind of a film it will be, but it is basically split into two different styles of storytelling. The "bad" guys are shown in the normal movie kind of way which you are used to from almost every movie.... but then: everything with Steve and Terry in it is in a documentary kind of way. The movie really starts peaking when those two styles start colliding! Then you will for example have a fighting scene between Steve and another guy during which Steve will occasionally look into the camera and comment on the situation - hilarious!!! The movie only gets better and never drops off. In the end (when all the names come up) the rest of the story is told and if you havn't understood how lightly this movie should be taken you'll most likely do now. This is comedy, maybe even satire in a way, it is most certainly a lot of fun, and as a bonus you get just another documentary by Steve and Terry (in case you can't watch enough with them!)

Great work and in a way a unique picture because of the way the story is told!

8/10

Galaxy Quest (1999)

I didn't know at first if to cry or laugh, but I ended up laughing

[7/10 · 5 May 2004]

I am one of those people who follow every Star Trek series... I even put my real Klingon suite on before engaging this evil movie. Being that hardcore about Star Trek I didn't know if to not even touch this movie... because it had the potential to hurt my feelings bad and destroy my illusions about Star Trek being real and the government denying all knowledge about that!! So to make a movie that makes fun of Star Trek was basically blasphemy and I immediately wrote a letter to Captain Jainway... oh Christ! I blew my cover! I don't even know if I spelt her name right! (Btw. I didn't mean to step on anyone's toes. Any person or persons depicted above, either living or dead... something something and any resemblance is coincidental anyway!)

Well ok. I just watched the movie without any expectations to be honest and didn't really know what to expect, so I was really rather expectationless, to be totally clear about what I expected from it! But just some minute into the movie my face became wider and wider for some reason and suddenly there were strange alien gurgly noises emitted from my throat as I spat out in laughter!

The movie makes fun of a lot of Star Trek and other sci-fi clichés that even real hardcore Trekers must admit are there! But it does so in a rather neutral way, it is not pushing the big momma in the dirt, but is just exploiting things that are obviously there in the original anyway!

The humour, eventho it was at times a bit far between, was really... well... funny! I mean, the jokes were in a way rather unexpected ones, so they had a great effect on my viewing pleasure.

A really sweet and funny movie for everybody... even for Klingons dressed like humans...errmm?

7/10