Reviews

Seriously, this is the worst piece of bad film I have watched in a long time, and I watch a lot of crappy movies (what else is there...). I can live with a half-hearted story, I can bear boring characters that act without logic to a certain degree, but what was served in Chappie was way past anything acceptable. I read some of the newer reviews here, and there are an awful lot that say the same thing: don't let the bad reviews fool you, it is *much* better than they say. I can only draw one conclusion from this: that a lot of real people told their real opinion of this crap, and the studio thought: oh well, we can't let that stand like this - let's get some good reviews up on the net. And the PR machinery was set in motion. If you are burdened with an IQ over 90, you will be painfully underwhelmed by the absence of any inner logic to this movie. Everybody, and especially Crappie, is acting totally unbelievable. The story is such a sorry mess of unrelated pieces of plot, thrown together without any regard to human dignity, it really is tough to explain. But luckily, it isn't worth the effort.

Do yourself a big favor and don't watch this. It is not even worth a free download. 2/10 for some visuals, but nothing special.

Galavant is ... hard to pin down. It's a sort of parody of the classical Disney approach to the world of princesses and princes. The musical format is hard to take, but the songs are so irreverent and taking themselves, the show and the whole genre so NOT seriously, that it is actually bearable and even entertaining to watch.

I'm torn between complete dismissal and enthusiastic praise. The show has it's moments, and actually a lot of them. And at the same time, well, it's a musical. Even the storyline, which in itself is the oldest one in the book, has many surprising themes in store, like how it is to spend weeks together with the same people, or the narcissistic personality disorder of knights. It even manages to tackle really serious stuff like the suffering of innocent people during an invasion, and wrap them in something funny.

See for yourself, you might be surprised by your own laughter. I can't believe I actually enjoyed watching this.

Whenever a mainstream (US-)movie incorporates the Fine Arts as a leading subject, the plot is usually sentenced to carry a huge baggage of the most trifle clichés about arts and artists.

"Finding Forrester" comes to mind immediately, with its claims for presenting the best writer of the century, yet delivering nothing but the most ridiculous and sappy lines any literate 16-year-old could come up with. "Dead Poets Society" is another one of those beloved, yet ultimately empty movies trying and failing to seriously deal with the subject of literature, probably because it simply wants to appeal to a large crowd, and the Hollywood filmmaking rules state that you can't demand too much of such an audience.

Words and Pictures somehow manages to stay clear of most nonsense, and while I wouldn't call it a great movie let alone a great arts movie, it does present the subject in a very real and believable fashion. Neither of the two leads are unnecessarily overdrawn as the "centuriest greatest geniuses" or something, but simply as artists with personal circumstances that are completely plausible. Not making them something extreme either in a good or bad way leaves room for the viewer to relate to them and see oneself in their place. Also, the plot refrains from using the same old devices all over again: no artificial "love story", no "bad guy" that has to be fought to the bitter (happy) end. There is the "moral misstep" that has to be paid for and rectified, but even that feels unpolished and therefore more real than usual. The biggest surprise to me was that there were actually some pretty intelligent remarks about the nature of art and the artists soul that you won't find as a calendar motto.

The movie has its weaknesses, but I wouldn't call them serious. It is a lovely, sometimes uncomfortable story told in a believable fashion and contains more truth than the 10 biggest box office hits of the year combined. Watch if you like the leads or are interested in the subject, or simply like movies that have more story than polish.

I can only agree with people who think this is a bad MiB - ripoff. It really is ONLY "deados" instead of aliens, and it really is the ONLY the same rookie/veteran partner story. Bad monsters plan bad things, again (I'm not gonna tell, but you already know what the plan is), and good agents - sorry, cops - well, you know...

They more or less copied the agents headquarters, they copied the old electronics store of MiB1, even the monsters look a lot like the aliens. What they unfortunately failed to copy was the light and fun weirdness of the first MiB.

But wait: the veteran is wearing a cowboy hat this time, so this must be a completely different story altogether! Sure, if you see it like this, you won't be disappointed, and you are a happy person in general because you know the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus are bringing you new presents every year.

This is really all I can say about this disappointment, but IMDb requires 10 lines of text so I have to drag this out more than it deserves. The main chick is hot as usual, but she sets a new record because she has ZERO lines in the movie.

Well, I went and saw it, and I regret it.

If you make the effort to read this, you are probably looking for reviews that tell you that this movie is fantastic and you can stop worrying and spend your time and money on a fun evening.

Sorry. I really wished I could give that to you, or that at least it was OK. But 2 hours watching things explode and people yell and run and say stupid, sentimental BS to each other in the most predictable ways just doesn't cut it for me anymore. Maybe it's because I'm no longer 17, and I've seen that sort of movie too many times already.

Let me just say this for the few that still demand a little respect for their intellect. This movie will not give it to you. You will see lots of explosions - really, really lots of it. You will see people running around. And that's about 90% of the movie. The rest is people talking like it matters, but only platitudes that have been said 10000 times before come out. The friendship of Kirk and Spock, which is supposedly the emotional core of the story, is simply a joke. The bad guy is a cardboard-cutout type you see in every second movie. Scotty is the only one saying a few funny lines, but as a character he is just as hollow as everything else.

To sum it up: same old, same old. I guess if you're under 25 and haven't seen that thing 1000 times already, you might find it entertaining in a very shallow way. But do not expect to see or hear anything here that you haven't seen or heard before many times.

I can only weep for the Star Wars series, seeing what JJA made of Star Trek. 3/10 for the effects.

At times like this, when I see a movie like 7 psychos rated almost 8 at IMDb, a deep sense of despair overcomes me. Are people really that easy to entertain and to fool? Is that really all people want?

The first scene says it all: two strange guys talking strange things, apparently they are killers. Pulp fiction, here we come. It's gonna be great.

The next 30 minutes, you are faced with a string of senseless dialog and some weirdos doing weird stuff. OK, it's gonna be hilarious soon, you think. The all-explaining twist is only seconds away, when all will make sense and the ultimate wittiness of it all becomes obvious.

But it never comes. It just goes on with one pointless scene after the next. Some people get killed in a disturbing way. And because it's disturbing and doesn't make sense, it must be funny *somehow*, mustn't it?

No, it must not. Bad movies are just bad movies, no matter what the authors intentions were. There's not a single character in the movie that deserves any emotional consideration whatsoever (not even the dog).

I feel kind of bad writing this review. Usually when people say only negative things about a movie, they didn't really understand it and are just expressing their frustration with a hate review. But I understand quite well what the movie was trying to be, and I would have really wanted it to succeed, just like Pulp Fiction did in a strange but great way, or like the weird but always well thought-through stuff Charlie Kaufmann writes.

But the simple truth here is: the author had no real idea for a movie, so they went for a movie about movie making, threw in seven psychos, and a few murders, and some weird talking that could be mistaken for some sort of philosophical pondering, and hoped for an audience that doesn't make the mistake of bringing a brain with them. Apparently, at least in the latter they succeeded.

All in all a very impressing take on this well known fairy tale.

It's particular strong side is the visuals and the music. There are some stretches in the film where hardly anything is said, only images of the land and the haunting background music deliver the atmosphere and make everything seem very real. The FX match those of LoTR and Avatar, but they never get in the way of the experience, they only serve as a means to create the world the story plays in.

The acting was hardly less impressive. Especially Charlize Theron makes this movie one to remember for a long time. Never ever have I seen a more frightening, more convincing evil queen. She managed to show a complete being, not just a cliché from a fairy tale. She embodies the queen with all her desires, her motives, her strengths and her weaknesses. Theron even manages to make you care for her, because you can see her as just a human being with a *lot* of issues. Despite the fact that Theron made everyone else look a bit pale in comparison, they delivered their characters as good as the story allowed them too. Some were given too little time to develop, like the dwarfs and the huntsman.

I think a very modern aspect of the movie is that it emphasized the two strong female characters, and generally made woman run the whole show. Men on the other hand were only there to follow the lead of either Snow White or the Evil Queen. Of course this is part of the original tale, but as the recent "Mirror Mirror" showed it is not mandatory that this aspect is shown as the main theme of the story.

Another thing I like very much about this take on the story is that the characters motives are understandable. It's not just "this happens and then that happens and then another thing", as is the sad case with most Hollywood movies today. The story unfolds on its own, you can feel the driving force of the events, one thing actually leads to another and most of the time it makes sense why people do what the do or say what they say.

The only weaknesses I can find in Snow White and the Huntsman is that despite its considerable length, it feels at times rushed and incomplete, while other scenes (especially the "emotional speeches") just feel stretched unnecessarily. The story could have easily filled two 2h-movies. Important characters are introduced and immediately play their part, without much development or getting-to-know-time. The ending left me (and my girlfriend) a bit unsatisfied. All the build-up ends rather quickly and left us wondering about many things. But this is criticizing on a high level.

This is one of the best movies I've seen in a very long time. It's amazing what good screen writing, a none-clichéd music score and a few good actors can accomplish with a plot as well known as this one.

All the sense I could make of this movie I could say in one sentence: if you act like a moron, your life will be miserable. OK, got it. And how to change that? The Coen brothers may plan to get to that part in another movie, because in this one, that was not on the agenda.

So our hero, the moron, lets the people around him treat him like crap in every way imaginable. And that's about it. It's not even funny, because the same things keep happening over and over, until it is practically unbearable to watch. At least it was for me.

There is nothing to identify with, unless you act like the moron in the movie, which I doubt, because nobody acts like that. And the few people that may do, I hope for them they will change, but their misery doesn't interest me in the least as long as they just continue repeating it, when they could change it any minute.

So why would someone watch that film? I have no idea. There is nothing to be learned, no entertainment to be found. Well, if you are interested in Jewish culture, you may find a thing or two. It is portrayed with some degree of self-parody, but not really funny.

There is an air of pseudo-intellectualism, like in those clever philosophy books where they manage to say nothing in a really complicated manner, and then you feel inclined to act impressed because you're not sure whether it's just you who didn't get the message, or if there simply were no message. In the case of this movie, I strongly vote for the latter.

I loved the first Iron Man for the self-irony of Robert Downey Jr. He portrayed so well this self-absorbed narcissist with a somehow still pure heart, who finally learns to put his charms and material resources to good use. I loved the relationship between Pepper and him. Despite his success and fame, he is essentially alone, his only friend and not-so-secret love being Pepper. And I liked the fact that given the basic assumptions of the plot, most of it actually made sense.

The second part fails in most aspects in my opinion. Suddenly Pepper is just another bickering b****, and he treats her just like that. All the sweet relationship and vulnerability that was visible in IM1 is gone. The plot is rather confused and very, very cliché. I couldn't believe they are really going through with the silly "Bad Russian" stereotype in 2010. This came 30-40 years too late. Yeah there are lots of machines flying around doing fancy stuff, so what. Seen that so often, a bit Transformers, a bit Spiderman, a bit Fantastic Fours. But nothing really that holds it all together, the saddest part being the characters turning from charming, funny humans to dumb, predictable Hollywood idiots.

Johansson is beautiful, but her role is odd. She pulls off cool fight scenes though. Cheadle or his role, I'm not sure, were boring. Rourke did well except for the stupid role he got. Paltrow the same, could have been good except they gave her no lines but bickering.

All in all way below part 1 and still below my humble expectations. 4 points for Johanssons fight scenes.

Went there thinking to see something like Ratatouille, Finding Nemo or Wall-E... but this wasn't the case. While the movie will be entertaining enough for kids (I guess), I doubt grown ups can find a lot of enjoyment here, except watching their kids enjoying themselves.

The characters are very cliché, and just not funny. They only pretend to be funny, by doing "funny" things, but it just feels set up and artificial. Also, there are a lot of references, which is OK, but also some plain rip-off. The "dude" from Nemo was shamelessly copied in my opinion, also Wall-E. Most of the characters feel like you've seen them already somewhere else.

There are a few mildly funny moments, but all in all it was an unoriginal disappointment for me. To be fair, my girlfriend liked it better.