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Shadow and Bone (2021)
An acceptable adventure with a balanced set of plus and minus
I can't say I was overenjoyed with the first season of this story. It's to me as a male fantasy nerd obvious it was a woman who wrote the books. You see it in the details and the focus in the same way the writer had in Outlander, for example. It's exactly the same as in what's important to tell and what's not important to tell. Where do you put your focus? Female writers have a very different focus than male writers when it comes to fantasy.
And as a male, I have to say the endless minutes of discussing hair, dresses and the feeling of being pompered with are such a female writer classic. The silly romantic scenes scattered all over. There's an overabundance of filler scenes that are completely unnecessary focusing on the wrong things. The characters don't discuss what they should discuss.
The sexual interests of the characters are also apparently very important, but I blame that more on these times than the writer and why this story became successful, apparently.
It's mediocre fantasy. Not good and not bad. You can always fast forward the nonsense and almost get a good story out of it, but you really won't, it's the classical fantasy clichées in abundance with a feminist touch.
It's worth a watch if you really like fantasy stories but not much more than that. I would say it's more romantic fantasy than just fantasy. It's not my cup of tea and I'm hesitant to watch a second seasons. It would be for the characters and not the story, which are quite well written I must say, which is the biggest plus - apart from the agenda nonsense.
The Last Kingdom (2015)
An eternal suffering
If you want to watch a TV series with eternal suffering, where the wrong decision is either taken by someone else or by the main character himself, this is the show for you.
Don't get me wrong, it's a good show. But it's getting very, very tiring it's just all about suffering, all along, with not one moment of success for the main character, ever.
The Hateful Eight (2015)
Tarantino has completely lost it
I don't think I will ever see a movie made by Tarantino again. I don't even want to know the story behind the drug induced fumes that made Tarantino fall from a cliff since Pulp Fiction. He has produced flop after flop and this I believe, might be the glorious downfall of a producer.
This is a movie about torture, because I can't see anyone still being interested in the story halfway through.
He caught some big names in the name of actors, but otherwise, I can't see anything saving this film from being a total failure. I just waited and waited for anything of interest to happen and it never did.
I can write you a story of a family being trapped in a snowy mountain, discussing irrelevance. Nothing of that would ever produce interest in Hollywood. Apparently, if you're Tarantino, anything of mumbling incoherence will produce gold.
Tarantino is the reverse of Midas at this point, with consequential results.
Legends of Tomorrow (2016)
Unfortunately quite cheesy
A bunch of super heroes, time jumps, how can you go wrong? Well, apparently, quite a lot. The script is not inspiring and quite repetitive, the acting is not exactly Oscar material, the subplots and budget bickering (having actors bicker about nonsense is very cheap, that's what Walking Dead taught us) are starting to get aggravating.
I've watched six episodes now and I don't think this show is worth my time. I don't think I like a single one of the main characters, they all feel very shallow and cheesy.
The only reason I continued watching was it was a sci-fi show, but love for a genre cannot save a mediocre show.
Äkta människor (2012)
Interesting idea, horrible manuscript
The concept is interesting. The artistic work considering its budget is impressive. But the whole problem is the entire manuscript is horrible. The first season starts from "promising" and ends in "utter disappointment". The second season is just a train wreck and should never had a chance to be produced. It just goes downhill, fast.
When you start speeding forward through most the episodes because it becomes too embarrassing to watch, you know it's time to quit. Even for Swedish standards, this is horrible.
And the characters, they are just so unbelievably stupid, their behaviour is so incoherent. The number of characters that feel believable are so extremely few. What a mess.
'Salem's Lot (2004)
A parody of a horror movie
First out, I have to say that this show contains perhaps the worst editing I've ever seen. There will never be a reason to release an extended version of this debacle, as the original is the "every frigging scene ever shot" version. Were the editors constantly drunk, on strike, cut out of the budget or just fled the scene when they realized what was coming from the cameras? Or were they just forced to fill the drama out with every piece of crap they could come up with, to fill out the two incredibly drawn out episodes with the promised TV time? The progress of the story is so slow and dull that I actually considered turning the whole thing off at least four times and I regret I didn't.
The subplots are aggravatingly numerous, surprisingly ill-timed - thanks again, non-existent editors - dragging the tempo down to a constant freezing point and of nothing but the "Who the frigging cares!", "Just stop this!" and "For the love of... *sigh*" kinds. To make matters even worse, you feel no sympathy whatsoever for the incredibly non-believable soap opera characters.
And to put the stake in the heart, basically every single (non-believable) character has the standardized main flaw of having the rationality of a drunk ship rat, making you almost wish just everyone will perish before you do.
For classifying itself as a horror movie, it really set the question in my head if this wasn't really a parody that I was watching. As it's my firm belief it certainly wasn't the intention of being so, I can only conclude this show was downright laughable and amateuristic in basically every important element.
My final question is; did any of the actors choose to participate in this show for any other reason than the money? You probably just have to read the pathetic manuscript to realize what was coming. Perhaps they didn't.
Blood: The Last Vampire (2009)
Regrettably bad adaption
I had hopes for this movie, but unfortunately, it doesn't deliver in any way. A lot of focus is drawn away from the lead character (Saya), an unnecessary character is added which is only annoying on screen, most actors are bad, the manuscript is painfully predictable with tons of plot holes, the movie is altogether incredibly shallow and the CGI looks like it comes from the 80's.
I don't know if I need to continue. Just don't watch it if you're a fan of the original story, because it's just an overall amateur work you won't miss.
If you want to watch a vampire movie, watch Let The Right One In instead.
Kataude mashin gâru (2008)
Absolutely horrible movie
I am perfectly honest if I say this is one of the most brutal films I've ever watched in my entire life. What perhaps strikes you the most is the incredibly horrendous acting by pretty much every actor involved, the laughable and corny lines, the horrible footage, well, just everything is pathetic.
I don't care if it's supposed to be bad, because this is so beyond bad, a bad movie would look like a century award movie compared to this one. Just don't watch it.
I pretty much never ever give a movie a 1/10 in movie score, because you never know when there will be one movie even worse than the one you just watched. Well, this is one of those movies you can be perfectly safe to say will be almost impossible to triumph on a negative scale.
Planet Terror (2007)
A bad parody without the humour
You know what will make a terrible movie? A parody, that will quickly turn into a parody on itself. After the "machete" intro, which made me say out loud "Oooh k?" and the facepalming intro of the movie itself. This is the third movie of all time I could never endure finishing watching. Hot Fuzz and Casshern are the other two. When you get that "Oooh k?" feeling, you know it's going downhill.
A script a 15 year old could have written while being on the toilet isn't going to cut it. When I can't really say if the film wants to be a plain B movie, "retro", or a parody, it speaks lengths about how awful this movie really is.
Don't waste your time, watch something else.
Låt den rätte komma in (2008)
One of the sweetest, goriest movies ever made.
A sweet, gory movie? Is that even a possible combination? Well, this movie proves it and does it splendidly. The movie is presented in Sweden during the 80's, in a cold, dark winter environment in the suburbs of Stockholm.
It has its flaws, but they are few. They are well covered up by the relieving and refreshing fact that no character is obviously heroic and good, nor is any character obviously evil and cruel. Nothing is white and black, all of them are in a grey zone, with their own reasons why they behave like they do, good or bad actions, depending on how you see it. Yes, there are actions performed in the movie that can be seen as both good and bad.
The dark atmosphere is great, so are the performances. It's such a sweet, disheartening movie, that makes you feel sympathetic for and pity so many different characters. Like I said, one of the sweetest, goriest movies ever made. At least in that combination.
Tropic Thunder (2008)
A movie for 15 year olds
Ben Stiller has said he kind of wrote the script for this movie when he was a teenager, and it shows. And this is probably the audience that'll get the most out of watching this. Teenagers and Hollywood movie makers, logically enough. The "fun" cliché that the characters think they are still making a movie when they're not, is perhaps fun enough for a scene or so, but not for an entire movie. It gets shallow awfully quick.
And no, you can't save the rest of the script with toilet humour and continue on the "they think they know what is going on, but they're not." There are some single funny scenes that may give you a hint of a smile on your face, but not much more.
When I was a teenager, I loved Dumb & Dumber and thought it was one of the greatest movies ever made. Then you grow up and realize how awfully wrong you were. This is also the case with Tropic Thunder. If you're a teenager, you might think this is one of the greatest and funniest movies ever made. But trust me, in a few years, you will realize it is not. It's not even close.
Commando (1985)
Classic B-movie
Sometimes, a movie is so incredibly bad that it gets humorously good. You know what you get when you watch Commando with the Governator in the old days: A bad manuscript, hilarious special effects, awful editing, a complete disregard for real physics, unbelievably badly portrayed characters, bad acting, incredibly predictable scheme, classic 80's action music and a whole bucket load of clichés.
The stupid corny one liners makes you laugh though, because it doesn't get any better than this when it comes to corny one liners.
However, you have to have the same standard criteria for reviewing every film. Any way you put it, it's technically and artistically an awful movie in just about every way. You enjoy watching this movie, but for all the wrong reasons.
Den osynlige (2002)
Very solid budget film.
I was bored a night several weeks ago, when this movie turned up on a channel when I flicked by. I missed a little bit of the start, but something in it caught my attention. It had something in it worth continuing watching. Maybe it was the "odd" gangster (Tuva Novotny) in her hood? And am I glad I watched it until the end. The story is very beautiful, sad, heartbreaking and emotion-gripping at the same time. It is amazing what the performers and the directors created out of such a small budget.
The most amazing part in the movie for me, was still how cunningly you start having good feelings for the villain. Small, subtle changes and all of a sudden, you feel really sad for the "wrong" character.
All in all, a movie worth watching, even for those of you who don't like subtitles, since you can still feel the characters strongly through their voice tones and body language.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Even Disney understood musicals are horrible.
You know what makes a movie or a book great? When you can just float "into the zone" and not be aware of your surroundings anymore, you're just "there". I think you know what I mean. You're not an observer of the movie, you're in the movie, when it's really great. The text of a book is not read, it's happening in front of you in your mind.
You know what's not great about musicals? It's perfectly IMPOSSIBLE to get into any zone or get any flow. Even Disney for crying out loud finally understood what a totally destroying element it is to have musicals as a part of the plot in a movie. Moulin Rouge for example is just fine, because then the musicals are part of the plot, the plot is not acted through the musicals. Key Lines and scenes are not acted through singing. HUGE difference.
Smack, you get a knuckle sandwich in your face, because it gets so incredibly obvious that those people aren't characters, they are just actors singing about their made up feelings, in front of a side-scene. A sad man with a broken heart doesn't start dancing a tap dance, or starts up in a great vocal chorus with an orchestra cooperating with him in the background.
Newsflash: the orchestra in a movie is just there for helping the audience enhance the feelings, the characters are not supposed to themselves actually hear the music. Guess what, I only endured with the actors singing "We will rock you" in A Knight's Tale (which was a mediocre movie) because they: 1)only did it once 2)made fun of the whole ridiculous musical thing. Even when it was a musical scene making fun of musicals, I cringed, because they too stepped over the line by doing it. Don't make fun of musicals in movies, just ignore them, please.
Fictitious scene from Saving Private Ryan, musical version where you can rape any rules you normally have in films: Cptn Miller, singing: "Storm the beach men!" Private, singing: "What? We can't hear you, the background orchestra is too loud!" Musicals... Jesus. You get what I mean? What a joke genre. What a joke movie. I really like Tim Burton, I really do. What a waste of talent. I loved Edward Scissorhands, where your actors actually shut up and don't sing right out about their inner thoughts.
Stop encouraging him making this crap, so he thinks this is what he should do. Tell him this musical crap sucks, so he can go back to making actual movies in his own style.
You like musicals, you like Mamma Mia, or whatever, fine, I won't judge you. But stay in Broadway, stay in theaters. Let musicals be what they are on their own. Leave the frigging movie genre alone, because you are to movies what rap is to music. You think you're making music, but in reality, you can't sing.
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
No complete story
As with Hot Fuzz, these directors had the same problem in this earlier production, which most story writers have the hardest battle with: to create a story line with all the strings tied together into a complete movie with a good ending.
Although Hot Fuzz turned out to be a real story mess, Shaun of the Dead feels like it is able to stay on track the longer, mainly probably because the story line in a typical zombie movie is so easily predictable to copy.
With that said, I can only say that Shaun of the Dead follows the now typical pattern of a great start, with a "meh" ending.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008)
Really disappointing first half, solid second half
The Terminator movies are probably a great set of scenery for a really good TV series. My hopes were high when I heard about this production, but, the pilot was not what I was hoping for.
To summarize it short, it had too much "TV-series aimed at a teenage audience" feeling over it. It didn't feel like the upcoming of doomsday and the struggling for survival, you didn't feel the machine-like darkness creeping up on you. The reason for this is partly the occasionally lame manuscript, partly because of bad acting from the terminator(s) who didn't feel like terminators at all and partly because of bad music choice during critical scenes (sounds more like an bad action movie than the horror of a lethal, almost invulnerable machine coming to kill you).
I know this is just a pilot, but all these flaws need to be adjusted, before this can be a truly good series. Otherwise we're looking at a one season wonder, like so many times before.
edit 1: After watching the first three episodes, I can only say all my bad feelings from the pilot have been acknowledged and sadly enhanced. Horrible manuscript, boring pace, untinteresting episodes and way, way too much "American teenage high school relations series" feeling over it. Did they really have to drag the Terminator idea down into this crap?
edit 2: I have to be fair to the series and give my opinion after watching the entire 9 episodes. The first three are crap, ep. 4-5 are better but still "meh", while about 6-9 are (risingly) very good actually. The "american teen feeling" is gone and the darkness feels like it's creeping up on them. In the end, the series shows promise. Let's just hope that awakening wasn't too late, because I'm frankly hoping for a second season (13 episodes were planned, only 9 created because of the strike).
Usually series are very good at the start, with a declining finish. Terminator - Sarah Connor Chronicles are just like Jericho: crappy start, solid finish.
Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007)
Splendid single funny scenes, weak overall
Ï will get straight to the point: the story - the essence of every movie - is weak. Did the creators create the story after they had figured out what funny scenes and situations they wanted to put Mr Bean in? However, since a couple of scenes in the movie made me laugh loud, it saves the movie. It's a comedy and it made me laugh and smile a couple of times, what more can you expect? It's doesn't get it to objectively be a solid movie though, that's for sure.
To summarize, it's a pretty bad movie, but it still made me happy watching it. It's also better than the first movie where Mr Bean was in Hollywood, they kept him more to his quiet mentality in this one, which suits him much better.
Hot Fuzz (2007)
Seriously overrated despite impressive technical details
First of all, how this movie has found its way in the top250 on this site is beyond me. But let's not bring out the axe yet, there are some positive things to mention about this flick.
The camera work, editing and originality are top notch and really impressed me. It speeds up like a MTV music video in the right spots to not let seconds and minutes go to waste in parts of the story that are not essential, though you still catch all that is going on. Very impressive work and I applaud that.
The story in the movie is a standard one - hardened and tough city cop gets - against his will I might add - transfered to the rural area of his country, a small village full of "standard" rural movie characters; the majority are simply uneducated, ignorant and stupid people, especially the local police force.
Now to the bad stuff: the manuscript, the twists and the movie as a whole. There are two movies in the history that I have never, ever finished watching because it got so bad, it felt like a true waste of time finishing watching. Casshern was the first, Hot Fuzz sadly placed as my second.
Seriously. When you watch a movie and you acceleratingly just sigh, shake your head and say to yourself "Now what in the lord were they thinking when they decided to do it like this?", it's bad. I won't go into details, but story-wise I was not entertained (except for a few moments) when I tried watching, it was more the frustrating way because the characters were so non-believable and the story got more and more aggravating the longer it grew.
The movie was simply surreal (in a bad way) and cheap. Not in its budget, but in its performance. You can't make a good movie with a crappy manuscript where everything is built on silly prejudices and where the twists and explanations are just pitiful. The movie simply fell apart to pieces.
Hidalgo (2004)
American propaganda movie dressed in an adventure costume
Call me old fashioned, but I'm getting quite sick of all Hollywood movies where the characters, based on their origin, decide how they are and act. The American superhero goes to an evil Arabic country, where ALL Arabs cheat, have no morale and the wrong values. Oh, and throw in some bribed Europeans (of course).
Don't get me wrong, not exactly everybody in this movie who faces the all American hero are evil. He gets two companions: an African slave with the right values (he wants to be free) and an Arabic princess who of course wants to be treated by western country values.
There we have it: a movie for white boys, with a followup on the African American community and women, two other strong groups on the movie market. And what are the young white boys to learn? African American people are just like us, Arabic women are oppressed and Arabic men are scum.. and oh, Europeans are corrupt.
Hidalgo sickens me. It gets a 3 for the good acting by the horse.
Samurai Chanpurû (2004)
Seriously overrated, no storyline progress
I have heard so many praise this series and I can really not see why. I have seen 18 episodes of this show and after 18 episodes, really nothing has happened. Really. Nothing has happened, which according to me is a miracle.
The story is progressing at turtle speed. In the first 15 episodes or so, 95% of the content is about food, how hungry they are, how they are going to get money for food, whacking up some random guys to get money for food and finally eating food. You got it? Everything is about food.
Don't get me started on the music. Mixing feudal Japan with rap, hip hop and scratching is according to me just horrible and I'm not even Japanese. The intro song is so bad you just laugh at it, especially the lyrics.
But everything is not horrible. The animation is really good, so are the fighting scenes. You can see they have really put effort into the animation, you don't see any normal cheap tricks like making the fighting and running occur with blurry closeups/swooshing, if you know what I mean. The female character is also alright, nothing of that "I behave like I am 6 years old and am doped up on speed", like most female characters behave in anime.
If they put so much effort into the animation, why not putting up a decent manuscript as well? Why they didn't do this is a clue to me. No wonder the show almost got canceled in Japan and that they had to do a break after the 17th episode. Really, the story progress is as dull as watching paint dry. The characters evolve about just as fast as the paint. You got to know something about their backgrounds after a dozen+ of episodes or so. Or why the heck they are even doing what they are doing. Unacceptable.
Enough said. Spend your time on something else. After I had seen the 18th episode, which was the start of season 2, I gave up. The episode that was supposed to perhaps give this show new life was perhaps one of the worst in the whole series.
Amazons and Gladiators (2001)
Laugh or cry?
I guessed the film would be terrible, and indeed it was. Really crappy fighting scenes (seems like they were constantly fighting in slow-mo, assuring not to hurt eachother with their toy weapons), terrible acting (did they even retake a single scene? Can't give credit to a single actor), laughable costumes (at least when looking on the romans and the half-naked amazons in such a cold climate).
Don't ask me about the story and don't ask me about the silly clichées. Read a book instead of watching this film, go feed your goldfish. Anything.