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jsmiemans
Reviews
Red Joan (2018)
Too much "Hollywood", story didn't seem grounded in reality
Now, I get that modern audiences tend to want some extra flavor added to their historical drama nowadays (at least, that's what Hollywood keeps telling us), so I was expecting they'd sprinkle on some romantic subplot, change the characters around to suit modern identity/gender politics, and changed the narrative a bit. But in doing so, this film seems to have gotten away from its source-material to such an extent, that none of it felt like a real story anymore. At no point did I get that "wow, this really happened" feeling, which is supposed to be the main motivation driving such films. The plot just isn't interesting enough to stand on its own without any historical context, yet it's far too altered to feel like it connect to its own, real life history.
One of my main gripes was with the main protagonist, who's younger version of herself in particular (played by Sophie Cockson), felt like a completely two-dimensional and shallow character. -- Young, beautiful girl who happens to be a genius-level nuclear physicist (but looks like a supermodel, of course) who, despite her supposed intelligence, at the same time is motivated by completely naive and immature idealism. The fact that the movie tries so hard to endear you to this person who, by any measure, was at her core a despicable traitor not only to her own country but also everyone else around her, made it a hard one to watch for me. Instead of this run-of-the-mill Mary Sue character that feels so completel played out in modern cinema, I would've loved to've seen a REAL actress actually bring something to the role. The film failed in communicating to the audience WHY she did what she did, instead it hinged the whole plot line on the dumbed down notion of "she's in love with a handsome communist".
Would not recommend this one. The film feels labored and tedious, too much disingenuous, romantic sentimentality. Overall, a bore to watch.
7/10 for the cinematography and the production design
4/10 for the story and characters
Rim of the World (2019)
Lackluster effort, felt very disingenuous
Director McG once again demonstrates why Hollywood has all but given up on him. To his list of shortcomings as a director we can now add "doesn't know how to work with child-actors", because to me it seems clear that that's what really went wrong here. There was nothing cute about these kids, there was no charm. Their interactions and reactions felt completely forced, which made every line of dialogue a slog to get through.
I'm giving it 5 stars because the CGI and cinematography were OK-ish..., but I'm being generous there. Definitely not recommending this to anyone.
Hostiles (2017)
A feast for the eyes, but not for the soul...
As a big fan of the Western genre I was naturally very excited to see this.
On the surface there are a lot of things to like; Both Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike give great performances and the acting overall really stands out, the landscape cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, the music great, and the portrayal of life on the American outer frontier was interesting enough to keep me engaged (almost) throughout the movie.
But unfortunately the story falls kinda flat somewhere during the second act and it never quite picks up again. As a result the movie as a whole just ends up feeling a bit drab, dour, and kinda pointless.
I really didn't mind the strong anti-manifest destiny message behind the film, it's a story that deserves to be told IMO, but that message is much better served as an element of the overall plot, not the main driving force behind it. A good Western should have at least a little sense of "adventure", Hostiles is severely lacking in that department.
So not bad, but probably should've been a whole lot better.
Kill Switch (2017)
After Effects - The Movie
I was actually pretty excited to see this film, but... oh boy.
Aside from some neat CGI visuals here and there and a somewhat interesting, albeit convoluted sci-fi premise, "Kill Switch" outright fails to engage the viewer during it's full 90 minute run time. Instead of feeling like playing a video-game (as intended), it ends up mostly feeling very gimmicky and disjointed. More like passively watching someone else play an fps game, on "super easy" mode.
Since it's essentially a B-movie one could easily forgive the bad pacing, wooden acting, dull characters, and even the sometimes utterly nauseating POV- sequences, were it not for the fact that the whole movie just looks downright ugly for the most part. Since it's so heavily reliant on superimposed CGI imagery, the director clearly tried to hide it's stylistic flaws by using an extremely limited color pallet (blue, blue, and more blue). But the poor lighting and lack of any practical effects just make it all come off cheap and bland as a result. Most of the scenes are very flat and uninteresting, even when there's a lot going on on screen. Add to that the constant augmented- reality nonsense cluttering the screen at all times and it really doesn't make for a very pleasant viewing experience overall.
I heard the director is a nice guy so I hate to rag on his movie, but definitely would not recommend this one. Feels like a failed attempt to stretch a CGI-effects demo into a full movie, with little regard for anything else. And you can't do a CGI spectacle movie on a low budget anyway, why even try...