Reviews

(Review may contain spoilers)

Welcome to the island, a top secret, off the grid location where the rich and powerful go if they want to disappear (for a while). An unknown force decides to make their wish come true.

Ryan and his team of deeply traumatized soldiers arrive there to extract a client. But they find themselves unprepared for what they will encounter.

The movie reminded me of "Doom". Ryan has this Dwayne Johnson vibe and this other soldier, who may or may not have recovered enough to participate, was like "Reaper". Anyway, there's a lot of tension, suspense and mystery. The acting was okay, the story interesting enough.

My only complaint are the poorly made special effects (lights, lightning, explosions), but there are only very few scenes with such effects to begin with, so it wasn't enough to bring down the mood. You think "they could have spend a bit more money on that", but the next moment you're back in the story and curious about what's going to happen next.

Thus I was quite surprised when I saw the devastating ratings for the movie on Imdb.

As far as dumb, biased games with shallow characters go, this might be one of the better ones. The "good" soldiers all have incredible accuracy while being one-man-armies and taking down armored vehicles.

The germans are all terribly incompetent (makes you wonder how they didn't die by accident until now) and couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Character-wise they're cowardly, decadent or simply mad.

Now I won't blame the movie for that. Many have done the same in the past. So let's move ahead to the better parts. There's a decent amount of action and nice special effects. And while not justifying the german actions, at least one of them gets to tell his side of the story and how things had come to this.

While it takes more than that to make a halfway balanced, decent movie, at the very least I didn't have to struggle through it. It not something I would watch again or recommend, certainly not the kind of movie I would remember.

But for watching once and with low expectations in mind, it might just be good enough.

This is a movie about a very dangerous, very sick man. The kind of man you'd take for a serial killer. Except that he's the good guy and hunts the bad ones. He tries to calm the madness inside him by fighting the madness in the world. The movie often has silent scenes, where people just look at each other and don't respond in any way or form, which is awkward.

There's a lot of very short flashbacks. Calling them puzzle pieces would be too much, because sometimes you won't even realize that it's a puzzle piece, wondering what you saw and why. But the patience of the viewer is rewarded by slowly forming a picture about the past of the man and why he has become the way he is.

But the fragile "balance" of his disturbing life is turned upside down when a mission goes wrong.

I like how you see his struggle to not snap/break down for good. You know he's broken, but he tries all he can to keep the broken pieces in place, despite all the sharp, painful edges. There were a few scenes that didn't make sense or seem to had plot holes. But I think that was made on purpose, to leave some room for interpretation for the watcher.

So in the end you have an interesting drama that you might contemplate for a while.

"Extinction" tells the story of a earth being attacked by "aliens" wearing battlesuits and masks. A family tries to get into safety. On their way they find out that the aliens are the actual humans and that the "humans" on earth are artificial beings who won a war 50 years ago and banished the real humans into space (they fled to Mars).

The action is okay. The story is a bit thin, but it gets the job done. I agree with some other reviews that the kids were... "difficult" at times, but I found it rather realistic and it didn't bother me. The one thing I can't overlook though is the glaring plot hole. For you see, after that old war most of the artificials had their memory replaced in order to live a "normal" life. So, how do you pretend to be normal and everything's okay if you don't age for 50 years? What did the kids do in all those decades? Visit school and preschool year after year again? Did everyone have their memory erased on a regular base? The movie doesn't imply anything like that, besides the center for dream/halluscination therapy.

And since their "relatives"/friends remember that they visited the facility, there should have been some memories and traces left behind if that was a common and reoccuring thing. Therefore I felt like the movie wasn't as well thought through as it should have been. Still a 6/10 in my book. Especially for the moral questions it includes.

"White House Down" is an okay movie. Funnier than "Olympus has fallen", with less action/special effects and a thinner story. The people in the movie joke around often, which makes it kind of entertaining, but it lacks any real tension.

Two things stood out in this movie. James Woods' great performance as a likeable and complex villain on the one side and the weak end on the other. Trained pilots, carrying out the presidents order to prevent a global nuclear war, abort their mission because they spot a girl weaving a flag. Sounds legit.

I give the movie a 6 out of 10. It won't really bore you and will do the trick if you have nothing better to watch, but don't expect too much.

What a strange, disturbing movie. I don't know the actress, but Willem Dafoe shines in what seems to be some sort of low budget production. At first it focuses on his attempts to treat her pain/shock over their lost child. He knows what he's doing and I found the different approaches for therapy and the talk about it interesting and insightful.

Then the movie takes a sharp turn into the supernatural and occult. Sex, death, mutilation, torture (not in this order). Some scenes were extreme enough that I had to avert my gaze. Like the rest of the movie, they are very detailed - even thought I doubt if that's necessarily a plus. The way the movie deals with the "evil" is innovative. Is nature evil? Or is evil acting the way it does because that's its nature, its instict? Or was it all just a shared hallucination and the result of the traumatic event the couple had gone through - some sort of "folie a deux"?

That's open for speculation and it left me with some questions and thoughts. And while I probably wouldn't want to watch this movie again, at least not anytime soon, I can say that it felt worthwhile and "entertaining" in its own, bizarre way.

This movie was quite a surprise. Even the title. A mountain of "sugar", I thought. Must be a movie about drugs. Figures that they were talking about an actual, snow-covered mountain called Sugar. Well, it's white and you can get high up. Close enough.

Two teenagers have a cunning plan: Pretend that one of them gets lost in the mountain, start a rescrue mission and everything and then sell the story to the highest bidder. Easy plan, well organized. Almost no lose ends. Except for the fact that everything everyone ever said and did was a lie or false assumption.

Sugar mountain keeps surprising you with twists and turns, not all of them being plausible, but entertaining and interesting nonetheless. It ends kind of abruptly, leaving the final conclusion and decision to the viewer. So you find yourself thinking about it and about all the messed up stuff you learned about the motives and backgrounds.

The overall acting is good and there's even some character development as you see people grow or change through their experiences.

As said in the title, him playing a role of a ruined, rundown father was a new experience for me. He's not a shining hero, no one-man-army and he's far from perfect. As a former biker with a messed up past he tries his best to stay out of trouble and get back control over his life.

Until one day his long-lost daughter comes back to ask for his help. With few connections from the past and very limited resources you see an aged man fighting to the limit to protect what's most precious to him. The movie feels real and genuine. It's not afraid of showing people with dark sides, issues and struggles. They all try their best (or worst) to make a living and survive, driven by different motives.

Apart from your typical hollywood plot you see that life is no fairy tale, it's a fight for every day, where nothing is to be taken for granted and we have to cherish what we have and every moment. A strong performance that left a strong impression.

This unusual movie offers a realistic approach on the whole "lonely avenger" topic. You see a school teacher getting a breakdown after his wife gets killed by a car bomb ordered by Mr. Dolan (Christian Slater). He loses himself in hatred, despair and revenge plans, giving up everything he holds dear to avenge the death of the woman he loved.

This is where things took a darker, deeper turn than I would have thought possible. For you see, once the teacher traps his nemesis into a hole and starts burrying him alive, Dolan starts arguing to convince him to stop. And he's damn good at it. For example he states that he only killed for business, not for pleasure. And that the teacher has already become something far more evil than Dolan ever was by commiting this act.

This movie will have you thinking about right, wrong and the question whether or not the end justifies the means long after it's over. My only complain is that it lacked Christian Slater. He played a minor part in this movie and you didn't see him much.

Who needs supplies, food and medicine? No need to worry about wounds, infections and sickness either. It's the jungle after all. A few happy pills and you're good to go. At least when it comes to the second part of the movie, that was... rather unrealistic.

The first half was nice though. There you saw a group of travelers meeting each other and then finding a guide to lead them through the jungle. The acting performance was good. Especially that of their charismatic guide, played by Thomas Kretchmann. Then the group splits unless there's only one left. And you know the rest. With basically no supplies besides his trusted happy pills the young man survives in the jungle full of dangers, from the animals to the environment.

He constantly ignores any kind of open wound and injury and when he gets lost for good and is almost at his limits, all he needs to do is hug a tree full of fire ants. Did you know that getting bit by countless fire ants works as a GPS in the jungle? Neither did I. But our hero starts running and all of a sudden he's back on track again. Wonders of nature indeed.

If you can ignore the continuity and logic flaws, it's a rather entertaining movie. Even funny at times.

I felt so furious during the first 20 minutes. Not at the movie, but at what happened there. A movie star (Laramie) and his family become the targets of ruthless Paparazzi that do anything for a "good" story. Yet you can't deny the argument of Rex Harper, the leader of the Paparazzi group, when he explains his reasons and thinking to a random woman he met. He says that people don't approve his means, but are just fine with the reading and watching the results. They want the outcome, but nothing have to do with how it was achieved. That's a strong message and it has you thinking. Good job with that.

Anyway, the group of "evil" Paparazzi causes the actor and his family to get into a car accident. His wife gets wounded and his child is in a coma. As fate or luck would have it, another accident causes one of the Paparazzi to get in mortal danger, his life depending on the helpfulness of Laramie. So far, so good. But for some reason they decided that the Paparazzi would threaten to destroy more of Laramie's life even before he was saved. Given the deviousness and slyness they had shown so far, this is highly unrealistic and unbelievable. Necessary for the plot, maybe. But it doesn't make any sense.

Same goes for the second Paparazzi. While he is stopped by the police and tries to draw the driver license out of his jacket, he pulls out a gun instead. A gun that Laramie placed there so that the police would shoot the Paparazzi. Yeah right, because a gun feels just like a driver license. "Oh, that feels weird. I better get it out and check what it is. Right now!"

Meanwhile an older detective tries to figure what's behind all the accidents, starting from the first one early in the movie. But it takes him an hour to even think about checking the traffic cams for proof of what's really happened. Because when there's a traffic accident in the middle of the city with unclear guild party (and one fatality), the traffic cams are apparently the last thing you'd check.

Stupid. Sadly that describes big parts of movie. Well, it did have a good start and the end was kind of okay. All things considered it's about average.

"Left behind" is a movie about people who disappear and about those who stay behind. In the middle of it all are a pilot (Nicolas Cage), his daughter and a plane full of less or more annoying or even ridiculous characters.

The acting and dialogues leave something to be desired. The story is about average. It has some tense moments. It's just that the producers of the movie tried too hard. They put every single stereotype in the plane. They had an interesting topic but mostly wasted its potential.

Let's put it this way: If it ran on TV and I had nothing better to watch, I'd probably watch it and say "It's okay. Not the worst way to spend the time".

It's been a while since I wrote a review, but this movie was so interesting that I took the time to write down my opinion. It is about a young man and the woman he wants. When she shows no interest he starts to stalk her and build a cage to imprison her.

Even though you get the feeling that he's the bad guy and she's the victim, the movie shows his motives and emotions so well that you can understand them. According to the young woman's analysis he suffers from insecurities, self-hatred, depression and loneliness. Undoubtedly this combination can lead one to dark and dangerous paths. Yet the movie manages to surprise you by revealing that things sometimes aren't as they appeared to be. Quite the opposite actually. And as things unfold and secrets come to light you'll find yourself wondering who to root for.

The story is interesting enough and the acting is significantly better than I would have expected given the topic and the summary I had read before watching. Lately there seem to be many movies around that thematize crimes and delinquents (often mentally ill ones) from a very unique and special point of view. This is one of them. Much like "The woodsman" (2004) it may not be suitable for everyone, but I found it interesting and worthwhile.

I saw the sequel first, so I expected an entertaining, sometimes funny car race. What I got was an action movie with a surprising amount of death and even some sex scenes (even though not explicit ones).

It had some nice details. Like a driver getting tired during twilight because the lights don't work. Or using the crash barrier to lift a car and change tires because he couldn't use the jack. Clever!

Granted, the movie had some plot holes and the story wasn't always top-notch. Another downside is the acting. David Carradine did his part and the "evil" drivers played well, but the rest seemed quite forgettable to me.

Still a decent road movie with quite a few twists and turns. As long as you don't second-guess things too much.

Officer Pete Davis (Ray Liotta) is the cop version of "The Cable Guy". He offers you his friendship and would do everything for you. But turn it down or turn against him and he will be your worst nightmare.

Michael (Kurt Russell) and Madelaine Stowe are happily married and their life is just fine. Until some night a burglar breaks in. Michael chases the burglar away and they call the police. They get a lot of help and support from Pete Davis. The officer even takes Michael for a ride to show him how a patrol day is. On the end of the day he confronts Michael with the caught burglar and asks him to beat up the burglar.

Michael is not happy about this. He denies and from there on doesn't want to have Pete around him or Madelaine. He even turns hostile and insults Pete when he sees him again some time later. That's enough for Pete to snap. From there on things get ugly.

I enjoyed the movie. Kurt Russell plays an imperfect husband who would not always make the best decisions and usually isn't quite brave. His wife is insecure and seems to stay with him mainly for protection and security. She may briefly protest when things don't go as she wants them, but will ultimately back down.

The true star seems to be Ray Liotta. He performs great. It's hard not to like him even when the game clearly implies that he is supposed to be the villain. He is sympathetic and charismatic, so I really felt like blaming Michael for bringing this likable cop to the edges.

And then you get another sample of Ray Liottas awesome acting, when he trades kindness with sadism and madness. He switches attitude and personality as if its the most natural thing, leaves everything good behind and makes you shiver with the cold look in his eyes.

8/10 is a decent score. The movie lacked tension, since it was quite obvious what would happen and how. Not many surprises. And the end of the showdown was cliché. A villain left for dead and rising again? Seen that a million times. But that's just nitpicking ^^

What a movie. So full of emotions, friendship and pain. It stars Kevin Costner and Anthony Quinn, two great actors who play the role of two very good old friends. Unfortunately Costner falls in love with Quinns wife and to avenge them, Quinn has Costner beaten almost to death and his former wife dragged into a brothel to be used by everybody.

But Costner is found on the brink of death, where he was left to die, by a kind stranger who brings him to a house and has a very old woman nurse Costner back to health with some ritual-like methods. After he has regained his strength, Costner leaves to find the woman he loves. On his way he meets a sick cowboy and befriends him. They travel together for a short time until the cowboy dies from sickness. Costner buries him. Then takes the dead mans stuff and continues his search. He is soon found by two other benevolent strangers. It felt like for some reason all the good people in the world had gathered in Mexiko and decided to aid Costner in his search. A single man can't have so much luck.

Be it as it may, they find a trace for the woman but soon lose it again. They have to confront Antony Quinn to regain the trace. He asks one thing of Costner. That he apologizes for taking away Quinns wife. It's unclear if the other two men killed Quinn after he finally gave away the location where his former wife was to be found. The last scene of him is that of a broken man in tears...

The woman got very sick from or during her "work" at the brothel and was brought to an abbey to recover. There Costner finds her. He carries her out, tells her that he loves her and then she dies. End.

The story was great, the performance even better. Especially one scene with Antony Quinn getting upset about two associates reached "Don Corleone"-level. A man to be respected and feared. Gives you shivers just listening to him. In general you could say that this is a movie about people showing their true emotions instead of going all macho and playing tough. They have hopes, dreams, fears. They get happy or sad. They are humans. Even the one "Rock Star" lady told her background story and you saw a fragile woman who just wanted some love.

That's definitely a movie I'm not going to forget anytime soon.

It starts as a promising horror movie with some potential, but after about half an hour it drifts of into horror-comedy, featuring some silly situations and funny lines. It's still entertaining, I guess. But in a different way. Instead of tension and suspense you get laughter. The amount of violence is not over the edge. There are some brutal scenes. They are violent enough to be interesting for fans of the genre and short/forgettable enough to be tolerable for the everyone else. A good compromise, if you ask me.

However, the funny parts don't last forever and after that the story gets darker again. I mean, they have a child killed and eaten. That's some tough stuff. Not anyone would dare to show it. But for the same reason it feels kind of innovative and "fresh" - so to speak.

Sometimes it's the small things and details that make a movie special and I discovered quite a few of them. Like the one time when they stopped at a diner. The woman went to the toilet and laid some paper on the seat before she sat down. You don't see that everyday. So yes, "Starve" felt quite original.

The story has some interesting aspects. It's basically about how to break the willpower of people and make them do things to survive. In this case a man catches bypassers on their way through a ghost town, imprisons them and threatens to let them starve unless they kill each other for food.

I felt well entertained for most of the time. But since it also had some weak parts in the story and in general lacked tension, I give it 7/10.

This western movie starts very slow, quiet and peaceful. It's filled with dialogue. Most of the time they just talk to each other. And they take their time. Surprisingly enough you don't get bored. The dialogues are interesting. There are clues and hints as you try to figure what role everyone plays in this story.

Then the first one dies. An unspectacular death - for a Quentin Tarantino movie. Just wait for it. The next deaths are way more brutal, even to the point of splatter. I don't appreciate that amount of senseless death and violence. The story could have been a lot better if Tarantino wouldn't have gone over the edge so much.

But then it wouldn't be a Tarantino movie, would it? Anyway, it's 7/10 from me. Story is intriguing, the acting is good. Despite my complains it was worth the time. And I give him credit for making a movie that immerses you for such a long playtime without getting boring even for a second.

So even if you're not a fan of his movies, you may want to give this a try.

It's been a while since I enjoyed a western movie that much. Burt Lancester really shines in his role as Wyatt Earp. He has a strange friendship with Doc Holliday (Kirk Douglas). They argue and nag about each other half of the time. Doc's relationship with a woman (apparently some kind of prostitute) is even weirder. She either loves him or tries to kill him. She betrays him and wants to be with him. Very confusing. That and the main song of the movie, that they repeated a tad to often where the reasons I gave it "only" 9 stars.

In comparison with other movies I especially liked the fact that as a setting they set up a whole settlement. Not only 2-3 buildings in the middle of nowhere that other movies dare to call a "town".

I don't know much about the real events behind the movie, but the story is good. It has true friendship, action and love while it lacks unneeded "jokes", silly lines and slapstick. It felt more genuine and serious to me, which is a solid plus.

By the way, you also get to see DeForest Kelley as Wyatt Earp's brother in a few scenes towards the end of the movie. I only knew him in his role as Doc McCoy from Star Trek TOS. "Dammit Wyatt. I'm an Earp, not a magician!"

The 3 first movies were great. So was the first Wolverine movie, Origins. Then began the downslide. First class was okay, the second Wolverine movie was a bit disappointing and "Days of future past" a letdown.

So I didn't expect much when I started watching this. I was greeted by an awesome opening with great music, playing in ancient Egyptian. Majestic statues of old Egyptian gods, a huge pyramid, a ritual to turn their mutant god into an even stronger god. Wow. And that were only the first minutes.

Then some of the Egyptians plot against their godlike leader and his mutant followers to make the pyramid collapse and bury them alive. Their plan works. Except for the part where the followers sacrifice themselves to save their king. He is held is some kind of stasis for a few thousand years, waiting for time to rise again.

Once he walks the earth again, the villain soon gathers some strong mutants as new followers around him. The X-Men desperately try to fight him, but they are fighting on two fronts. Stryker and his mad scientists are also after them.

Times never have been so hard before for the X-Men. Or everyone else, for that matter. The amount of destruction is even bigger than the one time Jean Grey turned into the "phoenix" and went on a rampage. But that doesn't mean that she can't save the day.

Which is one of my few points of criticism. Her powers couldn't destroy Logan, but she could take down an ancient, almost almighty mutant who had lived a thousand lives and consumed countless mutants and their abilities (one of them being a significant healing ability).

Second point of criticism: The Egyptian villain wants to destroy the world to build a new one. At one stage he gains control over all the nuclear missiles in the world. Now I know what you think: Game over, mankind. But no, that would be too easy. Instead of making them fire the nuclear missiles on each other he just fires every single one of them into space. Because! (Enter reason here, if you find one) Anyway, despite very few flaws this was an epic movie. 9/10

A nearly invincible enemy, who can't be defeated by knifes, bullets or car crashes: check. Ability to see into the future to prevent bad decisions: check. Ah yes, there's also Agent 47.

With that told let's see what this movie has to offer. A decent amount of action, an okay story, a few nice and surprising plot twists and some almost psychic elements that are too far stretched to be believable.

Now I'm not familiar with the world of Hit-man and only saw the first movie from 2007. I appreciate a good action movie. For that we have Agent 47. But the other actress, "Katia van Dees" has some really weird and out of place powers. She can see what happens in places beyond her vision or even what's going to happen next.

Surprisingly enough I'm not complaining about their antagonist, the Terminator-like John Smith. He has some skin modifications that prevent him for getting severely wounded and even though he can bleed a lot after taking a few bullets in the chest, that won't have him lying down for long. But that's technology, not some kind of psychic foretelling magic.

Anyway, Agent 47 helps Katia find an old man. The bad guys are also after him, because he knows how to make Agents (and apparently witches too). There are high speed pursuits, lots of shooting and kills. The usual. I think 7 out of 10 is a fair rating. While it may be far from flawless, it will keep you entertained. Even though it's not as good as the first movie.

Welcome to a world of silence. After a few very weird, almost disturbing scenes you watch a woman driving around in her van. She comes across many people and locations. Then, after more than 13 minutes playtime, she starts talking. The first lines in this movie. Don't expect much more.

Anyway, this woman is very lost. Every few minutes she stops next to a random lonely man and tries to get him in her vehicle. One time she succeeds and drives him to some building. Once he enters, there's nothing but darkness around them. They undress, he vanishes in some weird kind of liquid floor, she is on the road again.

So much plot here. Next stop: the coast. A nice, remote coast full of waves. She meets a man there. He runs off to save someone from drowning. Which means you watch people swimming around for a few more long, eventless and silent minutes. Until an exhausted man is washed up on the beach. She walks over to him very slowly and casually, searches a bit around for stones, then finds one to hit his head hard. Then the strange woman pulls him over the beach...

I felt like watching a snail. So little dialogue in this movie. So many and long scenes where hardly something happens. And if it happens, it happens slow. Very slow. Beats me what people find so special and exceptional about it. It's "exceptionally" bad, but that's all there is.

Silent House is a movie about a girl, her father and uncle. They all are in a dark house (they nailed the windows shut to prevent burglars) to fix it and sell it afterwards.

In the process the father mysteriously vanishes, a girl shows up, the uncle disappears too and the girl keeps walking, running, crawling and crying through the dark house in search of everyone.

Some parts are in full darkness and for most parts there's not much dialogue. She plays her role very good. She struggles to keep her voice low when she has to hide from random persons that seem to appear and disappear in an instant.

It's obvious that this movie didn't need (or had) a big budget. I found myself bored for about 2/3 of the playtime. Then things start to get shape. You realize why she was seeing things and persons and what happened to her two missing relatives. Quite a nice and satisfying conclusion, which I won't spoil here. But it kind of paid of for the rest of the movie and that has to be good for something.

Therefore it's a 6/10 from me.

Is this a low-budget movie? It sure feels like one. Bad acting, worse dialogues and a very stupid story. Your neighbours with their cam could do a better than this.

It's about a man who wants to help his friend getting clean of drugs. In fact a rehab and this movie have a lot in common. Both are hard to bear and require a strong willpower to get through. But unlike a rehab, you will still feel bad after finishing "Resolution", not only during it.

If you want to see countless weirdos walking through a forest, exchanging lines as if they were on some trip, then go for it. There's supposed to be some mystery here. Random things and videos appear. So our hero has nothing better to do than investigate the hell out of it. He is very eager and dedicated, for no particular reason.

In the last 20 minutes or so it starts getting bearable, but before you can get into the right mood to enjoy anything, it's over. With many, many questions left behind. One of them being: What did I watch? And why?

Do yourself a favour and skip this one.