At 7.8, this is SO underrated! I just caught it part-way through and watched it to the end - AGAIN. It's in my top ten movies, ever, in any genre. It has heart, humor, realistic and witty dialogue, and a great soundtrack. It gets BETTER every time I watch it, which is rare because I don't watch too many movies more than once or twice, and I'm hyper critical of almost everything I watch. But even though this film might have a couple of logical flaws with the time travel elements, the rest of it is so well done that even this cynic doesn't care. Now, if you like mindless action, pointless explosions, and stupid, predictable dialogue, or you have a lack of human compassion, you might rate it low. And I might call you a sociopath who can never be my friend.
Reviews
7 Reviews
The Suicide Squad
(2021)
A few mildly amusing one-liners, that's it.
17 June 2022
This movie had a few mildly amusing one-liners in it, spoken by John Cena. That's it. That's really the only positive thing about this whole movie. Margot Robbie was meh, and even Idris Elba couldn't save it from being a complete waste of time to watch. It's like the producers, directors, and writers tried so hard to make it... something. But what? It failed on almost every level possible.
The action was pointless, predictable and utterly, extremely, super, ultra, mega, über exaggerated - just like the string of adjectives I used - even in a genre that's known for those things. I watch almost every superhero/supervillain movie, too. So it's not the genre I dislike. It's just this film. The characters had no development whatsoever, and they ended up being more like caricatures of characters. The chapter titles were supposed to be cool and clever, but they were just distracting and only served to remind me how horrible this film was. I even fell asleep watching it the first time. Thinking I was just tired the first night, I re-watched it from the beginning the next night, and it was still just as uninteresting.
This movie's special effects were decent I suppose. But these days, shiny special effects are commonplace, and by itself that's only enough to satisfy the least discerning viewers, aka the dumbed-down masses. (Judging by the inflated rating, there are plenty of those people out there, though.) Overall, the film was simply bad. Yet, sadly, it wasn't intentionally bad in the way that a pure comedy works as a spoof or a humorous take on a genre.
The action was pointless, predictable and utterly, extremely, super, ultra, mega, über exaggerated - just like the string of adjectives I used - even in a genre that's known for those things. I watch almost every superhero/supervillain movie, too. So it's not the genre I dislike. It's just this film. The characters had no development whatsoever, and they ended up being more like caricatures of characters. The chapter titles were supposed to be cool and clever, but they were just distracting and only served to remind me how horrible this film was. I even fell asleep watching it the first time. Thinking I was just tired the first night, I re-watched it from the beginning the next night, and it was still just as uninteresting.
This movie's special effects were decent I suppose. But these days, shiny special effects are commonplace, and by itself that's only enough to satisfy the least discerning viewers, aka the dumbed-down masses. (Judging by the inflated rating, there are plenty of those people out there, though.) Overall, the film was simply bad. Yet, sadly, it wasn't intentionally bad in the way that a pure comedy works as a spoof or a humorous take on a genre.
Tenet
(2020)
Horrible sound
29 May 2021
I would've been able to understand everything in this complicated story - if I could've HEARD half of the dialogue. I watched parts of this film in three different environments, and even in the best one way too many important lines were simply unintelligble. Since this is apparently a conscious choice by the director, I doubt I'll ever watch another Nolan film.
Utter Garbage
25 March 2017
Warning: Spoilers
The show has been declining IMO. It's already become overly campy and cheesy. But this was the worst episode of the entire series. It was bad enough that Barry and Kara were forced to sing and dance within the context of the Music Meister's shared illusion or whatever, but then Barry had to break out in song to Iris even after that. Ugh. I actually don't mind musicals. But that doesn't mean I want my superhero show to become one. The audio in my DVR recording of the episode got interrupted three times by emergency weather broadcasts, and it was a relief. It assuaged my guilt a bit at fast forwarding through some of those bits, like I did with the parts of this episode I just couldn't stand to watch. For any other episode I would've gone out of my way to re-watch it On Demand if that had happened. I won't bother with Duet, and I'm seriously considering whether it's worth my time to continue watching this show at all.
In Time
(2011)
Sort of like Gattaca rebooted, but nowhere near as good
16 July 2012
Warning: Spoilers
NO SPOILERS IN FIRST SECTION.
When I first saw the previews for this film, I thought the premise was interesting. But I was afraid the idea wouldn't be fleshed out and would end up being shallow. So I waited for the inevitable cable release before watching it. Unfortunately, my first impressions turned out to be correct. Sci-Fi and Fantasy revolves around the suspension of disbelief. In a good movie, this happens for the viewer without much conscious thought as the "rules" of the universe are set forth through the telling of the story. But throughout this film I kept having to mentally will myself not to think too hard about the lack of background for the story. If you're the type of person who watches a movie and you can't help thinking "the characters wouldn't DO that in that situation" or "if X thing is possible in this future setting, then why would Y still be an issue," then I wouldn't recommend that you watch it.
The movie ended up reminding me a lot of Gattaca - except Gattaca was much better. It wasn't until reading another review that I realized that the same writer did both. That makes a lot of sense in hindsight! Well, re-hashing of ideas happens all of the time. This can be easily forgiven if the execution and presentation is good/dynamic. But this simply wasn't.
Here are a few other non-spoiler tidbits. Justin Timberlake was so-so in the movie. Amanda Seyfried is pure captivating eye candy, especially with red hair. She was one of the few tiny bright spots. But she wasn't given much to work with. None of the characters in the movie were very deep at all, so it was hard to empathize with their plight or their motivations.
SMALL SEMI-SPOILERS BELOW!!!
To expand on the generalizations I made above, here are a few things I kept thinking as I watched In Time.
There was almost NO background as to how/when/why the entire finite body-time mechanism came about. The level of genetic engineering that would be required to have a in-body time system functioning like that is astounding. With a simple thought and contact with the skin, people transferred exact seconds, minutes, days, etc. YET, there are zero safeguards built in to such a sophisticated system? I can see if someone is holding a gun to your head and makes you consciously transfer over your time. But they can just take it when you're asleep, with no effort? People can take it against your will, making it tick off your last digits and your conscious thought can't stop it even knowing you'll die in a couple of seconds if you don't? You'd also think that the time would be tagged somehow at the nano level, where at least law enforcement would know where the time came from. I mean, they have giant display screens that show them exactly how much time is in each zone. Basically, there were so many things that would require such a high level of technology to even make work at all, and yet there we so many other things that were super primitive even by today's standard of technology. The movie just wasn't consistent with things like that at all in my opinion. It didn't even try to offer any sort of explanations for those things either so I could attempt to keep my disbelief suspended.
Police cars straight out of the 70's eh? Security cameras and handguns that wouldn't be out of place today. But perfectly controlling the human aging process so you are 100% natural until the precise instant you turn 25 and then you freeze there FOREVER, no problem. Glowing bio-luminescent numbers on your arm that you could control with a mere thought and whose ending up on all zeroes INSTANTLY makes all of your bodily functions cease, sure thing. Bah, it just didn't mix or work well at all.
When I first saw the previews for this film, I thought the premise was interesting. But I was afraid the idea wouldn't be fleshed out and would end up being shallow. So I waited for the inevitable cable release before watching it. Unfortunately, my first impressions turned out to be correct. Sci-Fi and Fantasy revolves around the suspension of disbelief. In a good movie, this happens for the viewer without much conscious thought as the "rules" of the universe are set forth through the telling of the story. But throughout this film I kept having to mentally will myself not to think too hard about the lack of background for the story. If you're the type of person who watches a movie and you can't help thinking "the characters wouldn't DO that in that situation" or "if X thing is possible in this future setting, then why would Y still be an issue," then I wouldn't recommend that you watch it.
The movie ended up reminding me a lot of Gattaca - except Gattaca was much better. It wasn't until reading another review that I realized that the same writer did both. That makes a lot of sense in hindsight! Well, re-hashing of ideas happens all of the time. This can be easily forgiven if the execution and presentation is good/dynamic. But this simply wasn't.
Here are a few other non-spoiler tidbits. Justin Timberlake was so-so in the movie. Amanda Seyfried is pure captivating eye candy, especially with red hair. She was one of the few tiny bright spots. But she wasn't given much to work with. None of the characters in the movie were very deep at all, so it was hard to empathize with their plight or their motivations.
SMALL SEMI-SPOILERS BELOW!!!
To expand on the generalizations I made above, here are a few things I kept thinking as I watched In Time.
There was almost NO background as to how/when/why the entire finite body-time mechanism came about. The level of genetic engineering that would be required to have a in-body time system functioning like that is astounding. With a simple thought and contact with the skin, people transferred exact seconds, minutes, days, etc. YET, there are zero safeguards built in to such a sophisticated system? I can see if someone is holding a gun to your head and makes you consciously transfer over your time. But they can just take it when you're asleep, with no effort? People can take it against your will, making it tick off your last digits and your conscious thought can't stop it even knowing you'll die in a couple of seconds if you don't? You'd also think that the time would be tagged somehow at the nano level, where at least law enforcement would know where the time came from. I mean, they have giant display screens that show them exactly how much time is in each zone. Basically, there were so many things that would require such a high level of technology to even make work at all, and yet there we so many other things that were super primitive even by today's standard of technology. The movie just wasn't consistent with things like that at all in my opinion. It didn't even try to offer any sort of explanations for those things either so I could attempt to keep my disbelief suspended.
Police cars straight out of the 70's eh? Security cameras and handguns that wouldn't be out of place today. But perfectly controlling the human aging process so you are 100% natural until the precise instant you turn 25 and then you freeze there FOREVER, no problem. Glowing bio-luminescent numbers on your arm that you could control with a mere thought and whose ending up on all zeroes INSTANTLY makes all of your bodily functions cease, sure thing. Bah, it just didn't mix or work well at all.
Red Planet
(2000)
If the Devil's in the details, this film's a cesspit of pure evil.
21 May 2001
Warning: Spoilers
**SPOILERS**There are so many other negative comments about this movie that I can't believe I'm writing this. But it was SO bad that I just gave Red Planet my first "1" rating on IMDb. That by itself led me to write this. I wasn't expecting much at all - and I was STILL disappointed. I thought that a sci-fi film with Val Kilmer and Carrie-Anne Moss couldn't be all bad, despite what I'd heard. Ha! It insults the viewer. I try not to nit-pick movies, but when the errors JUMP out at you for the entire movie, it's unforgivable. Even Mission to Mars was better.
Some of the visual effects were adequate, but overall this movie fails miserably. The premise was weak, the plot was cliched, the script was dull, the acting was poor, and the physics/science was WAY off throughout. About the best part of the movie was the gratuitous Carrie-Anne Moss shower scene. But it's really not worth watching just for that.
I disliked this film from the start. A decent movie at least needs a good premise. I stopped the tape 5 times in the first 5 minutes so I could rail against the totally lame, error-filled, and illogical premise of Red Planet.
Supposedly, by the year 2000, humanity is starting to realize we've so polluted the Earth that the only alternative for humanity is simply to "find a new home." So we began a 20-year program of algae seeding on Mars, to create a breathable atmosphere. But something goes wrong, and the algae are suddenly dying. Our heroes will have to go to Mars to figure out why, and save humanity. It's only sci-fi, and they need some reason to go to Mars, but this premise bites. The dates/years don't add up, and there are several other obvious holes and lame assumptions too. Any moron should realize that it would be a million times harder to terraform and colonize an entire plant (in the very near future no less) than it would be to just fix the environmental problems we've created here on Earth.
I thought the movie might still be worth watching, despite the weak start. Nope. They just threw in every cliche and hackneyed plot device they could dredge up from other movies, and tried to make it work. But they didn't put enough passion, effort, or plot twists into any of it, and an awful mess was the result. There was NO suspense; NO surprises. I knew what would happen in almost every scene. I never cared enough about the characters to even really sympathize much with their predicament either.
******** SPOILERS ********
OF COURSE, as the mission nears Mars, a huge "solar flare" virtually cripples their ship, to the point the crew must abandon it. One person (Moss) must stay behind and manually initiate the escape sequence for the others. They have to jettison their invaluable navigation robot on the way down, but it only gets slightly damaged on impact. By the way, it just happens to look like a giant feline terminator, has a combat mode that it gets locked into when the crew, to their detriment, tries to deactivate it later.
OF COURSE, the lander module crash-lands, but the crew somehow survives, and manages to crash very near the (previously constructed) Mars habitat, which contains food and oxygen. But when the crew reaches the habitat, it's been destroyed. In orbit, Carrie-Anne manages to repair the ship enough to return to Earth. She assumes the crew is dead. But they manage to make contact JUST IN TIME, via a 50-year-old modem no less, that was conveniently located nearby in some old abandoned equipment. Right! (Similar to the improbable upload of the virus into the alien computer system in Independence Day.)
OF COURSE, they discover, as they are running out of air, that they can somehow breathe fine on good ol' Mars after all. LOL. But it doesn't really matter, because they have no way to get off the planet anyway. EXCEPT for the old Russian probe that failed to return to Earth 50 years before. It just HAPPENS to be nearby too. Wow, it's a small world after all! But there won't be room in it for everyone, so one person will have to stay behind. But we know that their nav robot-turned-killer will make that problem moot, unless the nasty Mars bugs eat them first. (Can anyone say, The Mummy?) Turns out the bugs ate all of the algae from the terraforming project, and produce oxygen themselves, which is why the crew can breathe. That doesn't even come close to accounting for the temperature and pressure changes, etc., that would be necessary for humans to breathe unaided on Mars. But Hollywood thinks we're all MORONS, right?
OF COURSE, then Kilmer (sole survivor) can't get off Mars after all, because the Russian batteries have died. In one of the few mildly interesting scenes, Moss talks to Kilmer when it seems he must surely be left to die. Can you say The Abyss? (Although far less moving.) As Moss prepares to leave, Kilmer realizes he can use the robot's battery to power the probe's launch, if he can get its battery while it's trying to kill him. He does just that, with NO problem, and launches the probe, into JUST the right orbit to rendezvous with the main ship, JUST in time!
OF COURSE, Moss must go EVA and snag Kilmer with a tether, and once inside she must perform CPR to save him. (The Abyss again!) At least Val brought a couple of bugs with him, to take back to Earth to be analyzed. Yippee, he's a hero! OF COURSE, nothing is really answered - there are tons of loose ends.
My description almost makes the movie sound like it could be mildly entertaining. Sorry. It isn't. 1/10.
Some of the visual effects were adequate, but overall this movie fails miserably. The premise was weak, the plot was cliched, the script was dull, the acting was poor, and the physics/science was WAY off throughout. About the best part of the movie was the gratuitous Carrie-Anne Moss shower scene. But it's really not worth watching just for that.
I disliked this film from the start. A decent movie at least needs a good premise. I stopped the tape 5 times in the first 5 minutes so I could rail against the totally lame, error-filled, and illogical premise of Red Planet.
Supposedly, by the year 2000, humanity is starting to realize we've so polluted the Earth that the only alternative for humanity is simply to "find a new home." So we began a 20-year program of algae seeding on Mars, to create a breathable atmosphere. But something goes wrong, and the algae are suddenly dying. Our heroes will have to go to Mars to figure out why, and save humanity. It's only sci-fi, and they need some reason to go to Mars, but this premise bites. The dates/years don't add up, and there are several other obvious holes and lame assumptions too. Any moron should realize that it would be a million times harder to terraform and colonize an entire plant (in the very near future no less) than it would be to just fix the environmental problems we've created here on Earth.
I thought the movie might still be worth watching, despite the weak start. Nope. They just threw in every cliche and hackneyed plot device they could dredge up from other movies, and tried to make it work. But they didn't put enough passion, effort, or plot twists into any of it, and an awful mess was the result. There was NO suspense; NO surprises. I knew what would happen in almost every scene. I never cared enough about the characters to even really sympathize much with their predicament either.
******** SPOILERS ********
OF COURSE, as the mission nears Mars, a huge "solar flare" virtually cripples their ship, to the point the crew must abandon it. One person (Moss) must stay behind and manually initiate the escape sequence for the others. They have to jettison their invaluable navigation robot on the way down, but it only gets slightly damaged on impact. By the way, it just happens to look like a giant feline terminator, has a combat mode that it gets locked into when the crew, to their detriment, tries to deactivate it later.
OF COURSE, the lander module crash-lands, but the crew somehow survives, and manages to crash very near the (previously constructed) Mars habitat, which contains food and oxygen. But when the crew reaches the habitat, it's been destroyed. In orbit, Carrie-Anne manages to repair the ship enough to return to Earth. She assumes the crew is dead. But they manage to make contact JUST IN TIME, via a 50-year-old modem no less, that was conveniently located nearby in some old abandoned equipment. Right! (Similar to the improbable upload of the virus into the alien computer system in Independence Day.)
OF COURSE, they discover, as they are running out of air, that they can somehow breathe fine on good ol' Mars after all. LOL. But it doesn't really matter, because they have no way to get off the planet anyway. EXCEPT for the old Russian probe that failed to return to Earth 50 years before. It just HAPPENS to be nearby too. Wow, it's a small world after all! But there won't be room in it for everyone, so one person will have to stay behind. But we know that their nav robot-turned-killer will make that problem moot, unless the nasty Mars bugs eat them first. (Can anyone say, The Mummy?) Turns out the bugs ate all of the algae from the terraforming project, and produce oxygen themselves, which is why the crew can breathe. That doesn't even come close to accounting for the temperature and pressure changes, etc., that would be necessary for humans to breathe unaided on Mars. But Hollywood thinks we're all MORONS, right?
OF COURSE, then Kilmer (sole survivor) can't get off Mars after all, because the Russian batteries have died. In one of the few mildly interesting scenes, Moss talks to Kilmer when it seems he must surely be left to die. Can you say The Abyss? (Although far less moving.) As Moss prepares to leave, Kilmer realizes he can use the robot's battery to power the probe's launch, if he can get its battery while it's trying to kill him. He does just that, with NO problem, and launches the probe, into JUST the right orbit to rendezvous with the main ship, JUST in time!
OF COURSE, Moss must go EVA and snag Kilmer with a tether, and once inside she must perform CPR to save him. (The Abyss again!) At least Val brought a couple of bugs with him, to take back to Earth to be analyzed. Yippee, he's a hero! OF COURSE, nothing is really answered - there are tons of loose ends.
My description almost makes the movie sound like it could be mildly entertaining. Sorry. It isn't. 1/10.
Love Stinks
(1999)
Low-budget cast and feel, but surprisingly HILARIOUS!
21 February 2000
INTRO: I just saw "Love Stinks" due to a friend's recommendation. I'd never even heard of it before, and the unimaginative title and unremarkable cast didn't do anything special to entice my interest. So I wasn't expecting very much. As soon as it started, I thought **this has a low budget, B-movie feel to it; I'm probably going to hate it.** Then despite my expectations, I started laughing, and rarely stopped 'til the end. ..
ACTING: French Stewart (3rd Rock From The Sun) somehow didn't seem quite suited for the part of Seth Winnick, an already successful (yet still up and coming???) TV sitcom writer. Yet Stewart delivered his lines in his usual slightly off-beat manner and it was somehow hilarious. Bridgette Wilson was great as Stewart's beautiful but temperamental girlfriend Chelsea, who is over-eager to find Mr. Right and turns neurotic and vengeful due to Stewart's hesitancy to tie the knot.
Bill Bellamy and Tyra Banks are decent, if 2-dimensional, in their roles as newly married friends of the lead couple. Tiffani-Amber Thiessen and Jason Bateman played very minor roles but added some face-recognition credibility to the film as the stars of Stewart's new hit sitcom.
SUMMARY: Love Stinks is a dark romantic comedy that reminded me (for reasons that are obvious when you see the film) of both "There's Something About Mary" and "War of the Roses." In my opinion, despite the low budget feel it had a surprisingly funny script and clever dialogue, along with some crass toilet humor and foul language. But the way in which those elements were mixed seemed to be just right. The plot is not a masterpiece of fiction, but did manage to avoid being predictable, despite the foreshadowing provided via the "It all started when. . ." narrative provided by Bill Bellamy's character.
RECOMMENDATION: If you are a critic, or thinking like one when you watch it, then you might not like it at all. If you are in the mood to just relax and enjoy it, then you should indeed find it to be very funny. Maybe it helped that I just got out of a contentious relationship myself and I was in the mood for some vicarious revenge? But for whatever reason, I liked it a lot and gave it an 8/10 rating.
ACTING: French Stewart (3rd Rock From The Sun) somehow didn't seem quite suited for the part of Seth Winnick, an already successful (yet still up and coming???) TV sitcom writer. Yet Stewart delivered his lines in his usual slightly off-beat manner and it was somehow hilarious. Bridgette Wilson was great as Stewart's beautiful but temperamental girlfriend Chelsea, who is over-eager to find Mr. Right and turns neurotic and vengeful due to Stewart's hesitancy to tie the knot.
Bill Bellamy and Tyra Banks are decent, if 2-dimensional, in their roles as newly married friends of the lead couple. Tiffani-Amber Thiessen and Jason Bateman played very minor roles but added some face-recognition credibility to the film as the stars of Stewart's new hit sitcom.
SUMMARY: Love Stinks is a dark romantic comedy that reminded me (for reasons that are obvious when you see the film) of both "There's Something About Mary" and "War of the Roses." In my opinion, despite the low budget feel it had a surprisingly funny script and clever dialogue, along with some crass toilet humor and foul language. But the way in which those elements were mixed seemed to be just right. The plot is not a masterpiece of fiction, but did manage to avoid being predictable, despite the foreshadowing provided via the "It all started when. . ." narrative provided by Bill Bellamy's character.
RECOMMENDATION: If you are a critic, or thinking like one when you watch it, then you might not like it at all. If you are in the mood to just relax and enjoy it, then you should indeed find it to be very funny. Maybe it helped that I just got out of a contentious relationship myself and I was in the mood for some vicarious revenge? But for whatever reason, I liked it a lot and gave it an 8/10 rating.
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