xenomorph_uk Reviews

The Beekeeper (2024)

Wolf of Wall Street / John Wick Wannabe...

[4/10 · 2 February 2024]

... but falls considerably short of the mark.

The movie follows our hero Adam Clay, a man who has spent a lifetime carrying out questionable acts, but is on the path to reflection and redemption. Then something awful happens to his puppy, I mean elderly friend, and so Clay comes out of retirement and seeks revenge.

Our evil capitalists villans are caricatures of the WoWS cast, and so of course they deserve everything that comes their way.

We're then treated to an hour or so of genetic action sequences and bland humour delivered via a plot, which is quite ridiculous.

Of course, the movie suffers badly from the current Hollywood DEI trend, which undermines the plot, such as it is, making it even more predictable;

White person = evil baddie Minority person = angelic goodie

This applies to almost every character, so we know as soon as we meet the character, which side they'll be on.

Overall, this was a tremendously boring and predictable movie, which in hindsight I wish I'd avoided.

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Great balls of fire!

[10/10 · 25 May 2022]

Now this is movie making! Good old fashioned (80s), movie making.

There's so much focus on character building, absolutely fantastic photography, wonderful fast paced action sequences, just the right amount of humour at the right times, and no political correctness nonsense.

Sure, some of the action is a little silly at times, but that's just fine.

I think I smiled through this entire movie.

Thank you so much for taking me back to my childhood!

I Care a Lot (2020)

Immoral and Repugnant

[3/10 · 18 October 2021]

Rosamund Pike plays the part of a Guardian, a person assigned by the court to care for elderly people. Pike's character targets easy victims who are wealthy and who are unable to fight back. She takes control of their finances and assets through a network of equally corrupt associates such as doctors, care home staff, police etc, most of whom are portrayed by females.

On the other side of this story is Pike's latest victim, a wealthy elderly lady who they falsely detain under a mental health act. Unbeknownst to them, their latest victim is well connected as her son, the amazingly talented Peter Dinklage, is a former mafia boss with a propensity to violence.

The movie is framed in such a way that the viewer is expected to feel pity and sympathy for Pike's side of the story by providing an even more evil and depraved character and utterly fails in this regard. In reality, any sane viewer would desire an equally horrible ending for all parties involved.

Modern Hollywood type movies are by default, woke. The obsession being outright attacks on traditional western values, and this movie is no exception to the rule. It's no coincidence that almost everyone on Pike's side of the story is female whilst everyone on Dinklage's side are males.

The message here is that women are better and more powerful than men in every way, yet this movie portrays the female characters as evil and deeply immoral. Hardly a standard anyone should aspire to.

It's a shame really. The movie had potential and I can't help but feel that if this movie had been made ten years ago, prior to the age of wokeness that pollutes every form of modern media, then it would have been a better movie.

The Blackout (2019)

Alt-Hollywood

[9/10 · 2 April 2021]

Set some time in our near future, a wave of mysterious strategic alien attacks wipe out the majority of the human race. Only a relatively small region of Russia remains intact. Now begins the fight for survival as the remaining humans attempt to understand what has occurred and how to save the small percentage of humans left alive.

The story is fairly basic, but does exhibit some traits of originality and it keeps the viewer interested. The special effects are excellent considering the clearly limited budget. There are plenty of fun and exciting actions sequences, that are well designed and engaging.

The reason I've titled this Alt-Hollywood is mainly due to the following; There's absolutely no virtue signaling involved. There is no gender or race bashing. There are no annoying preaching teenagers or kids. Each camera shot typically lasts for more than 1 second (no MTV style rapid camera changes). No invincible Mary Sue characters. It reminds me a little of the older 80s/90s action flicks, but with better effects.

Overall, I was just delighted to enjoy a relatively solid sci-fi movie without the compulsory Hollywood progressive ethics.

If you want to escape the incessant politicking of the world and you enjoy a solid sci-fi movie, then I reckon you'll have a fun couple of hours with this one.

Black Sea (2014)

An enjoyable and solid thriller.

[7/10 · 7 December 2014]

If you enjoyed movies like U571, The Hunt for Red October & Crimson tide, then this movie is for you. In my personal opinion, it's not quite as good as the aforementioned titles, but it's certainly in the same league.

Black Sea has most of the right ingredients for a tense underwater thriller. It ticks pretty much every box in the genre from extremely intense survival scenes to flawed human characters. There are several thoroughly enjoyable claustrophobic scenes, which are only intensified by the clearly terrified crew.

There were only two weak points. They should've spent some time developing the characters a little more and perhaps making them a bit more likable so that you would care about their fates. The other minor point is the character's accents. Being British I was able to follow the various accents well enough, but I imagine it may be a little difficult to follow for viewers that aren't used to the inflections.

Black Sea is a solid and professional production and a must-see for anyone that enjoys movies with this sort of theme.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014)

Unimaginative, basic and sterile

[3/10 · 22 November 2014]

Do you remember when you were a kid and your parents were constantly on you to wash the dishes. So you'd spend the next hour using every excuse in the arsenal to avoid it. Eventually, you'd relent and grudgingly do your duty. Of course, you'd ensure that you made a complete mess of the entire thing. You'd deliberately leave some dishes a little dirty, splash water and soap everywhere and perhaps even go as far as chipping a dish or two, all in the hope that if you did a bad enough job, you'd never be asked to do the dishes ever again...

... well, I'm pretty sure that's what they were going for when they made Mocking Jay.

The movie grinds its way slowly from one over-analysed scene to the next with very little in the way of exciting set-pieces in-between. I believe the running time is perhaps this movie's biggest enemy as most scenes were heavily drawn out and padded with needless and dull dialogue. There were a number of scenes that were clearly supposed to be tense and gripping, but failed miserably.

The entire movie is just so underwhelming and should have been better!

I love sci-fi. It's without a doubt my favourite genre. It doesn't take much to satisfy my sci-fi needs. However, in my humble opinion, The Hunger Game : Mocking Jay is perhaps one of the worst big budget sci-fi movies made in recent years.

The Frozen Ground (2013)

Cage : The King of Straight to DVD

[5/10 · 22 July 2013]

In a nutshell, a movie that's not quite worthy of a big screen spectacle.

The Frozen Ground is a fairly competent serial killer thriller with very few twists or surprises. It's nothing new and all done before, but still reasonably entertaining.

Cage sleepwalks his way through the script. Hudgens is so-so and gains little sympathy as a character. Cussack is the star and the best thing about the movie.

The camera work is extremely frustrating. It's the done thing now to have shaky camera work to add to the tension and feeling the story is trying to convey, but sometimes they just take it too far. Even simple indoor scenes between two people just having a chat results in jerky and unsteady camera movements. It's quite nauseating at times.

It's not an awful movie, far from it. It's just not worth the price of a cinema ticket. Better that you spend just a few bucks on a rental or wait for it to appear on TV eventually.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)

A Lovely Story.

[7/10 · 15 July 2012]

A story about how Earth's orbit happens to coincide with that of a seventy-mile wide comet, leaving Steve Carell with only a few weeks to ponder the remainder of his existence while the people around him react in completely different ways. He inadvertently teams up with Keira Knightly and the pair embark on what would've been an otherwise straightforward journey had it not been for society coming apart around them.

Seeking a Friend is a lovely and uncomplicated story that explores the best and worst nature of humanity as it tries to deal with impending doom. Much of what occurs is downright hilarious while other happenings are mildly disturbing. For me, this was one of the most entertaining aspects of the movie. Many people react exactly as you would expect while others leave you wondering. The movie is set at a relatively slow pace and gives you time enough to consider each scene and imagine just what you'd do yourself in the same situation.

Carell gave a solid and believable performance and while perhaps not his best work, he was more than good enough to carry the movie. In my opinion, Keira Knightly whom I've never been a fan gave her best and most emotional performance on the big screen to date. Her quirky character was very likable and I believe she stole the show.

There have been many movies during the last decade or so that take the apocalypse theme, but very few bother to explore the emotional depth of humanity as well as Seeking A Friend. It deliberately skips over specifics of the comet and there are no CGI fireworks and frankly, that's what makes this movie a great one. I've read people compare this movie to Melancholia and Another Earth however, this is best of the bunch.

Falling Skies (2011–2015)

Weak, but had potential

[5/10 · 10 July 2012]

I'm now partway into the second season and remain unimpressed.

The bad stuff first;

So we're in a post-apocalyptic world where most of humanity has been wiped out by an invading alien race. We're given the impression that billions are dead and our military is obliterated (although you don't see any of this of course... not in the budget). For whatever reason there are perhaps a few million civilian survivors scattered around the world and are interspersed with a scattering of military personnel. Apparently, the alien race that wiped out all of the above appear incapable of finishing off the remaining pesky few and have instead stepped back militarily and are giving subterfuge a try for now. Okay, so it's sci-fi and you have to suspend belief on certain things, which is absolutely fine so I'm willing to forgive and move on.

The main thing that bugged the hell out of me in the first season was the preaching religious messages. Thankfully they've dialled back a bit on that with the second season, but it was really in your face throughout the first ten episodes. One of the minor characters whose entire family and friends were wiped out yet was constantly cheerful and happy throughout kept bleating on about God and his plans etc... and seemed determined to convert everyone else. It was just so out of place and clearly one of the writers attempting to force his or hers own point of view on the audience or was perhaps just one of those things they felt the need to tick off to appeal to a wider public? Who knows?

The survivors who spend most of the first and second season moving from place to place in an attempt to avoid their alien conquerors are very poorly characterised. They have shown to be obsessed with trivial things that just wouldn't be of consequence in a real situation. They are portrayed in a very poor light as nothing more than bleating sheep hopelessly following the militia around with no real purpose other than to survive. Given the preachy nature of other aspects of the show, I'd expect a little more grit and determination.

For some unknown reason, the supreme alien race who have the technology to travel between star systems with what must've been a massive fleet and conquered the entire planet apparently don't have the ability to build things themselves once they got here. So they've decided to enslave the surviving child population to stroll around ruined cities and are forced to gather up scrap metal. I'm sure the incredible depth of this plot will be revealed before the show is cancelled.

The surviving militia are a joke and must've survived where billions of others perished, not through skill or cunning, but by sheer dumb luck. They posses no military abilities and are guilty of just about every cheesy Hollywood error you can imagine. They seem especially fond of talking at a loud conversational level when only a few feet away from deadly aliens. They don't seem to have grasped the concept of cover and concealment as entire heads, limbs and weapon parts are blissfully exposed from behind hedges, rubble and wrecks as they hide from the nasty aliens. They also have no idea how to move around stealthily on foot or wheel. They happily drive around on loud motorbikes and full-beam headlights. They have however, figured out which end of the gun is the dangerous part, but are still working on their aim.

Now the good stuff;

Erm...

It's sci-fi and there just isn't that much of it around at the moment, so I'll take what I can get. I just wish they'd get some serious writers involved. The show really needs some direction and purpose as it's just meandering around pointlessly just now.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

The Amazing Sony-Man!

[7/10 · 10 July 2012]

Yes, it was abundantly clear throughout the movie which company bankrolled much of the production ;)

Anyway, smashing movie and considerably better than I was expecting! When I saw the trailer for this about a month ago, my first thought was "They're remaking it already?" Having now seen the movie, it's not really a remake... more of a great reboot.

In my personal opinion, Garfield is a far better, really likable and downright more fun Peter Parker (not that Maguire wasn't any good). His goofy character was entertaining and certainly added a few stars to the rating. The casting crew did a great job when they selected him and did themselves proud with the rest of the cast as well.

I was also delighted that the writers focused more on the character development and did not rely exclusively on neat CGI tricks (something that many movies of late cannot claim to have achieved). The plot was fairly basic and was guilty of the odd Hollywood cliché, but was enjoyable enough, easy to follow and complimented the characters well.

Emma Stone was an ideal love interest. She was delightful and had just the right amount of screen time (as did most of the cast), as not to detract from Garfield's story. The chemistry was believable and appeared genuine.

The CGI was really solid and they tried some new techniques to differentiate the movie from the 2002 original. There are some great sequences where we see the world from Spider-man's point of view, as he swings around mid-town. It gives you an appreciation of his incredible abilities and how just how fast he moves.

It really doesn't matter if you're a comic book fan or not, this is a great wee film and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone.

Now... I'm off to buy a Sony Xperia. ;)

Prometheus (I) (2012)

Please let there be a director's cut...

[6/10 · 2 June 2012]

I'm pretty sure there's at least 30-60 minutes worth of missing footage. It's the only explanation I have for Scott making such an average sci-fi. Look, I know there's debate, is it a prequel or not. That doesn't matter, what does is the quality of this movie versus the rest of the Alien genre.

I remember the sheer thrill of Alien 1979 version. The highly original Xenomorph stalking its human prey throughout the dark confines of the Nostromo. The incredible sequence as Ripley sets the vessel on self-destruct only to find her path to the escape boat blocked by the vicious alien. Then the mad terrifying scramble to deactivate the fusion plant followed by an even more intense attempt to reach the lifeboat for a second time. Then after all that, the Xenomorph had sneaked on-board anyway! Weaver's utterly convincing terror as she slips into the spacesuit and blows the airlock. Just incredible! Horror/Sci-fi at its very finest and best. True "On the edge of your seat", stuff.

My point... Prometheus had none of this... not a shred! Sure, Prometheus was beautifully shot and visually stunning, but the movie was full of poor editing, plot holes and flawed acting. I just can't imagine Scott allowing the film to be created this way and I'm convinced the Editing Room and writers are responsible for the disjointed nature of the movie. I won't delve into the many plot holes or describe the childish nature of the script/plot devices as you've no doubt read many other reviews by now.

Despite its flaws it's still a worthwhile sci-fi and deserves the price of a cinema ticket. You'll be blown away by Fassbender's performance and also Raprace's to a point. The CGI really is beautiful and there's some pretty neat ideas about how the Xenomorph evolved. It's definitely a movie that'll find its way into my blu-ray collection in a few months time.

Terra Nova (I) (2011)

About as deep as a puddle...

[3/10 · 24 November 2011]

I'm now about 6-7 episodes in and my disappointment deepens with each passing week. The whole thing is just so... weak. It's even more annoying as the show has so much potential, but instead it pulls more punches than a fixed boxing match.

There's almost no plot. There's a very weak subplot of sorts that's very uninteresting and only briefly referred to each episode. The characters are incredibly hollow and I feel absolutely no attachment to any of them.

Beyond the pilot episode, the character and plot development has been a joke. I wonder if perhaps it's intended as an episodic show so that you can pretty much tune into it at any point in the series and not have to worry about a storyline (like Law & Order for example). I can't think of any other explanation for such an abandonment at any attempt to keep you coming back for the next episode.

There's so many other annoying things. For example, it's a world full of man-eating dinosaurs and armed rebels yet the colonists (and especially the teenagers), continually stroll out beyond the gates with no weapons or comm' gear then wonder why they constantly get into trouble. The whole colony is also just too pretty and clean. For a frontier world struggling to survive, the accommodations that are set up for families in advance of them arriving in Terra Nova are astonishing well adorned and full of all sorts of luxury.

Seriously, the people who are writing the whole thing really don't have a clue what they're doing at all. The script sucks, the realism sucks, the acting is poor, the plot is almost non-existent. It's such a shame as there's clearly some cash behind the show and some hidden potential.

In its current form, if this somehow survives into a second season, I'd be stunned.

Super 8 (2011)

UK Revolt!

[1/10 · 13 June 2011]

This is a personal protest against the fact that the UK will not be able to see this movie for a full two months after the rest of the world. Why are we being made to wait so long while pretty much every other country gets to enjoy it first? It's dumb ideas such as this one that leads to piracy. Anyone here who was considering buying a cinema ticket will now most likely be downloading it illegally... rather than waiting two months.

I can understand this sort of studio reasoning with minor titles, but this is a major release. What are they thinking! Is this some kind of insult aimed at the UK cinema audience?

When it is eventually released here, I will not be going to see it nor will I be buying any other JJ Abram bluray titles or cinema tickets. This is just unacceptable.

Sucker Punch (2011)

I thought it was fantastic

[9/10 · 19 April 2011]

This is certainly one of my favourite action movies in recent years.

It's pretty clear from the commercials that they're targeting a largely male audience and from that standpoint, it doesn't fail to please. There have been many recent movies that are clearly targeted at the female audience such as the Twilight series, Red Riding Hood etc... so we've earned this one ;)

First of all, I was thoroughly impressed by the sets and attention to detail. The level of originality is extremely high with lots of mixed technologies and eras.

The sound track was absolutely spot on. It's rare to find a score that fits and actually intensifies the various scenes.

Sure, the acting was pretty poor to average, but was frankly just about what I expected. Despite that I found that I cared about some of the main characters and found them quite interesting.

The story is pretty open-ended and leaves you to make your own mind up about much of what transpired. The transition scene from asylum to brothel is a little abrupt though and leaves you somewhat displaced for a while.

Overall, I got exactly what I expected and more from this film. Fun action, original scenes and some seriously hot eye-candy ;) Most guys around my age will definitely enjoy this title.

Story : 6 Acting : 5 Visual Effect : 9 Sound Track : 10 Originality : 9

War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave (2008 Video)

Skwblemo

[1/10 · 17 November 2010]

That's a new word I've invented. It's similar in meaning to garbage, rubbish, trash, awful, terrible etc... but, I was concerned that I would devalue those words much like debasing a currency, should I use them to describe this movie. Honestly, such words are inadequate in describing this abomination. There is absolutely nothing positive that can be said about this movie. Geez, even associating it with the word "Movie", makes me cringe.

The acting? It was utterly disgraceful. I am genuinely shocked that anyone involved in this production believed that such poor acting was at all acceptable. I have never in my life witnessed such an absence of talent.

The score? If by some awful act of cruelty, you are held against your will, your eyelids forced open and held in place by some diabolical device, leaving you with no choice but to watch this production, then I recommend that you chew off your own tongue and spit it in general direction of the mute button thereby sparing your ears the constant assault of meaningless noise.

The effects? Awful, just awful. The sets were cheap and tacky with an even lower production value of that you would expect from school theatre work.

The plot? Really, I don't think there was one. Something about… bah, I can't be bothered.

Really, I made it to the 35th minute (including commercials), before I changed channels. I honestly believe that the CIA should consider the viewing of this movie as a viable alternative to water-boarding.

Shrek Forever After (2010)

The second best one... so far.

[6/10 · 15 July 2010]

In a nutshell, better than the second and third movies, but not as good as the first.

It wasn't nearly as funny as I expected. At first I figured this was due to a fairly empty auditorium (you know how infectious laughter can be). Then I began wondering if perhaps I was just becoming too old and long in the tooth for that particular brand of humour. Finally it dawned on me that much of my own amusement was diluted by the fact that I'd seen most of the funny bits already... on the movie trailers.

Shrek 4 is yet another victim of the trailer curse, which definitely seems to ruin comedies more than any other movie type. As per usual, the two trailers I'd seen before finally catching the movie, seemed determined to show all of the laugh-out-loud moments.

Have you ever noticed that comedies such as Knocked Up and The Hangover are so much more successful and talked about simply because the trailers show far less (in Knocked Up's case, they used just one scene).

Anyway, Shrek 4 was entertaining enough despite the afore mentioned issue. I did laugh out loud a couple of times as did most others in the cinema. The story is fun and quite clever. The voice acting is top notch as always and the animation is as fantastic as you'd expect.

So if by some miracle you can avoid the movie trailers then I expect you'll enjoy this movie more than I did. Otherwise, watching this fun bit of animation isn't a bad way to spend an afternoon :)

Predators (2010)

Almost, but not quite...

[6/10 · 10 July 2010]

Ah, I wanted to love this movie so much, but there's just a few things that left this movie a little short of the mark. In saying this, there's plenty to entertain as well.

The writers have quite clearly used the '87 version as a template, retaining most of the great parts as well as adding a few twists of their own. This format really should have given us a wonderful sci-fi movie, but they've let themselves down in several regards.

The first is the obvious fact that they didn't bother recruiting a military adviser for the set. We were supposed to believe that these actors were a random selection of hardened killers from various hard-core backgrounds, but they came across as nothing more than uncomfortable amateurs.

The actors spent most of the first hour stumbling around, huddled together in tight little groups like a bunch of scared school children. They kept firing their weapons from a hip position and not surprisingly depleted most of their ammunition within the first couple of acts. We're supposed to believe that a Russian spetsnaz with a 2,000 rounds per minute Gatling gun would struggle to hit a charging pseudo-boar, running in a straight line. They also seemed determined to uncaringly follow trails and had no idea how to move through the bush.

Due to these layman errors, I found it difficult to really get into the movie for the first half hour or so. I was really quite irritated by the amateurish bumbling around.

Anyway, my final gripe is with the cast itself. Very few of them were actually suited for the roles they played. Brody is nowhere near gritty or bad-ass enough to play the soulless leader. Laurence Fishburne, well... where exactly are all of the pies hidden on this alien planet? I found that I simply didn't care what happened to the cast at all and felt little attachment to any of them.

Despite the annoying flaws, I was finally able to disengage my brain and settle down into an enjoyable movie experience. The action set pieces were great fun. I thoroughly enjoyed the hints at Predator culture, how they tick and I especially loved their technology. The end fight, while not quite as epic as Arnie's hand-to-hand in 1987, was still pretty awesome as well.

Overall, for me this movie would've rated 8 or 9 stars were it not for the annoying issues I mentioned earlier. If you're a sci-fi fan, this is an absolute must see... just be sure to leave your brain in the car and try not to take it too seriously. :)

Flightplan (2005)

Save yourself a fiver... watch the trailer

[3/10 · 19 December 2005]

Had it not been for the trailer, I would probably have enjoyed this movie a lot more than I did.

For anyone who has seen the full length trailer, you're left with a distinct feeling of deja-vu throughout the entire movie. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the trailer really does reveal almost every aspect of the plot, such as it is.

The especially disappointing thing was when the trailer revealed the love heart traced on the passenger window. You now knew that Foster was not delusional or insane and as such, all suspense was gone before you even entered the cineplex.

Anyway, for those of you who have not seen the trailer, I suspect you'll enjoy the movie more than I did.

Characters : 5/10 Plot : 3/10 Effects/Sets : 8/10