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Jaguara333
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Black Summer (2019)
Feels like a student project. Low budget and bad script
I've watched a lot of zombie movies and television programs. Not all of them by any stretch, but a lot of them, and a lot of the better ones. This isn't one of them.
The whole thing seems very low budget and amateurish. It is the zombie equivalent of those direct-to-video Sci-Fi movies that have future soldiers running around in paintball gear because it's all they could afford.
A lot of things about this series just don't make sense. I could go on at length about this, and some other people have, but the script overall doesn't seem to have been very coherently thought-out. Events seem to happen for thrill effect and not for any real good reasons.
There are derelict cars and cars parked in driveways everywhere. This is only supposed to be a few weeks into the event. There should be an abundance of gas in those fuel tanks, but instead some trucker Thug wastes gas chasing other vehicles around smashing up his truck in the process to try to steal their gas. Makes lots of sense right? Many situations like this in the series.
Other kinds of issues are just badly written characters. For example, I've never seen such unconvincing portrayals of military personnel. You would swear that the scriptwriters have never met anyone in the forces.
Then there are things like the fact that there are military grade weapons everywhere by the final episode. People are firing fully automatic weapons constantly, apparently with no concern about ammunition. Any one burst that's being fired would be enough to empty the entire magazine yet they're able to fire burst after burst like this. There is certainly no question of "Did I fire 6 shots or only 5" in this series. This can be seen when they steal the weapons, cramming as many assault rifles into the bags as possible...but no ammo.
Then we have the ending...a pristine stadium, at first you can only think that it never housed any refugees and the whole thing was a lie...but then by some miracle Rose's daughter appears and you realize the filmmakers were just lazy again. Unless of course the reunion is a delusion, but we may never know.
And why are there no other people inside the stadium? People who made the same pilgrimage? Everyone arrived at the same time? Or our characters are the only ones who made it all the way in? Neither answer makes much sense really.
These are only examples. I could go on for hours, but I've already spent more time on this than the series is worth.
Nightflyers (2018)
Completely unoriginal. Mish mash of stolen ideas and sci fi tropes
This series is typical Martin. It is a collection of ideas and concepts stolen from other, better, books and films mashed together along with as many sci fi tropes and cliches as could be crammed into it.
In addition it is full of things that just dont make sense. Many have already commented on the oddity of the design of the ship and its gravity, even in "silent running" they recognized that the domes were useless for growing plants if you move too far from the sun...but not here. In the super advanced tech ship...with holograms and artificial gravity and a lifelike cyborg...they have no robots at all. Who cleans the blood off the floor? A person. Ok.
It wasn't unwatchable, but really it doesnt even come close to doing justice to any of those it steals from. It is a pale shadow and feels more like theft than tribute to any of its sources. Do yourself a favor...Watch Solaryis, 2001, Dune, or even Event Horizon ...
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
This is not indiana jones
All of a sudden indiana jones is a war hero? A colonel with oss who spied in the "reds" and who won countless medals? Wtf. In the first film he hated those types. Go Lucas and Spielberg do like star wars etc and Just recreate his character in the 4th film. Insulting
I will say though that Shia Lebouf was not bad at all...much better than Cate Blanchett. He doesn't deserve the hate he gets.
The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
Fantastic performance by Meryl Streep but ...
Streep delivers a fantastic and convincing performance full of subtlety...but the film is paced extremely slow and the flow is constantly broken by the jarring transitions to her present day children reading her diary. The acting in those sequences is strikingly bad and destroys any sense of immersion in the story. A cut of this film without those sequences would be at least one star higher...maybe more since I cannot truly tell if I would have been more drawn into the story without them.
The Other Guys (2010)
Starts well but drops off halfway
I would agree with many other reviewers that the best part of this film is early on. I was not quite sure when it started to lose it and was not fully conscious of it at the time. Sort of like how a frog will jump out of a hot pot immediately but if you boil it slowly it will stay there until it dies. With this film by the time I realized that it was gone it was too late. It was a slow gradual decline, but with moments here and there that would give you hope for it pulling it back together.
Overall the film was a reasonably entertaining spoof on The NeverEnding stream of police/crime action films. It plays on many of the tropes of that genre and it's ridiculousness is a reflection of those tropes and the genre itself. I was surprised though that the plot was relatively coherent and maintained its own internal consistency. I'm used to most films like this not even trying to avoid plot holes, but rather lazily Revel in them. In this film almost everything ties back into the plot in some way. So while it often had a very juvenile humor, it also had a rather clever plot line that could be appreciated by someone more intellectual. This might make the film a good choice for a father and son to watch together.
I would have rated closer to 7 for the first part and more like three for the final segments. I'll put it at 5 overall. I should note that it is still funnier and in better taste than anything Adam Sandler did ever.
The Colony (2013)
If only the script matched the set
This film had some interesting premise, a decent cast, and some interesting sets but then didn't seem to know what to do with them. The former NORAD complex in Canada should be a filmmaker's dream. A doesn't scripts could be written just inspired by that site alone. The fact that the best they could come up with is just another sci-fi horror it's kind of depressing.
That said film wasn't actually that bad for a B film. It was entertaining on a certain level, but it is full of plot holes. Running around in an ice age without gloves, staying overnight in a derelict helicopter without a fire, jumping across a gap in the bridge , instead of just walking along the intact steel structure on the edge , tracks in the snow that remain despite blizzard-like conditions... All that just for start.
I had more fun imagining the stories that could have been told about life in their colony, as opposed to the story I was actually being told.
The World's End (2013)
Like a sub par episode of Doctor Who... Without the doctor.
As a fan of several of the cast members, I was quite looking forward to this film but ultimately found it disappointing.
Make no mistake this film does not even come close to Shaun of the Dead, and should not even be mentioned in the same paragraph. Well that was a clever parody of the zombie genre and yet still a good zombie film in its own right. It was funny and endearing, you cared about the characters and it was a film you could watch over and over.
This film, on the other hand, has no endearing characters and while it is funny at times, those times are too few and far between. It's contributes nothing to the Sci-Fi genre , and actually seems like a feature film parody of a single Doctor Who episode. However Doctor Who does a better job of parodying itself and the Sci-Fi genre at large. Actually, any single episode of Doctor Who is superior to this film on every level. This film also pretends to be an action film at times...but it is no Jackie Chan feature...if you want to watch mindless fight scenes you might as well go find some old episodes of Xena or Kevin Sorbo's Hercules.
As a final note the plot is also nonsensical, but I barely mention that as it seems to revel in this fact. Saying that the lack of a plot is the point...I guess that's as good as an excuse as any, or you could just see it as a cop out. Some claim that there is a real backstory with some dramatic value, I would dispute this and found at best it reached the levels of false sentimentality.
So to conclude, this film and the characters difficulties in their quest to slog through to the world's end are an excellent metaphor for the difficulties I had in sitting through the film itself. I had as much difficulty getting to the World's End as they did. My advice is to save your 2 hours Andrey watch Shaun of the Dead instead.
Her (2013)
I guess it is love it or hate it
First, I am amazed it still has such a high average rating with so many of the recent reviews being 1 star. The reviews I looked through show this film is very polarizing...yet obviously, many more people who loved it have rated it than people who did not.
I will say this film really surprised me. I went into it not expecting much, as the concepts that are the premise of the film are not ones I am particularly sympathetic to. Despite that I came away quite impressed.
More like classic science fiction that intellectually explores concepts and possible future visions of society.
Cinematography was surprising, extremely well done, lots of beautiful camera work, creative imagery, subtle (and not so subtle) environmental clues to elaborate state of mind or to provide foreshadowing.
Plot was well thought out, well tied together with foreshadowing that doesn't telegraph everything that is coming. There were a few twists and complications that I had not anticipated...but again, this is not a subject matter I have spent much thought on.
Caveat #1 - The film is slow. There is no action. It is a Sci-Fi Drama. It is also not really a romance film either, at least not in the romantic-comedy sense. If you want big explosions or heated sex scenes, you won't find them here. Do yourself a favor, look elsewhere (and spare us another 1* review).
Caveat #2 - The lead character is a bit odd by our current standards, but you should probably be expecting that. This is a future setting, and is a vision of a possible future...there are already trends in this direction, they just are not mainstream today. But if you are threatened by sensitive, slightly creepy guys, look elsewhere.
Oblivion (2013)
I am rather confused by the high reviews
(Mild spoilers near the end by comparing to other films)
Pros: Production values are excellent CGI is seamless Action, flashing lights and booms (WHOOPEE!)
Cons: Plot quickly degrades in second half of film All major plot elements are stolen from better films, and poorly executed here in comparison So much of this left me asking "why?"
I am from the old school, and a good sci fi film for me needs more than just cool special effects and some action. Almost 1/2-way into this film I actually thought to myself "Hey, this film is really good", it was building up to something, and while you had an idea, you were not sure what. Shortly after that, it all went downhill.
(spoilers begin here)
First off, so much of the actual premise of this film is stolen directly from the much better dramatic film "Moon". Not just in the premise and use of the clones as cogs in the machine - each set being manipulated through how reality is presented to them...but right down to the radiation boundary zones keeping the clones from running into each other. The thing is the premise made a lot more sense in Moon - where humans were using humans - presumably because it was easier for us, with our limited tech, to do that than to build machines that would be versatile enough to do the work. However, why do the aliens and/or their computers in Oblivion use humans to do their work on earth? It is an interesting and devious plot device, sinister to use ones own kind against them and all...but it just doesn't make sense. One can presume that a technology that is space-traveling for resource gathering, and whose automated drones are the bane of earthlings (only really effectively fought with alien weapons built for the clones)...one would think that they would have the technology to build maintenance drones as well, no? Instead of having a system in place that works everywhere, this alien force uses a strategy of finding an alien life-form on each planet it encounters, hoping that this life-form is suitable to maintenance tasks on its drones, then cloning them, adapting an entire system to be able to deceive them, feed them, house them, etc...it just doesn't make sense when they could just be having worker drones.
Second, the quasi-knight like human warriors...with absurdly big guns. Yeah, OK, whatever.
The computer that wants to meet the enemy? Why? The existing system clearly works well enough to have removed most of the oceans. It is clever enough to analyze voices and heart rates, but cannot conceive a potential betrayal - even after this clone has defied orders in so many ways, and been contaminated by the influence of humans?
This computer intelligence that can monitor heart rates etc, is unable to notice by any means that the passenger taken into its core is male, not female? Not by satellite monitoring, not by life sign analysis of the pod, not by mass analysis of the spacecraft it designed...not by any means.
It has no defenses, yet allows a potentially dangerous force into it's most vulnerable position...makes total sense.
I won't even go into the fight scenes, like how a super-high-tech-AI- alien drone can't aim or out-fly a limited human in a craft also designed by aliens...it must be, because, you know, the human mind is so much more precise than super-intelligent-alien-made AI-drones.
Overly long sports references...because sci fi fans love sports, right? Hey guys, maybe if we throw in something about the superbowl and let him wear his Yankees hat then we can broaden the appeal of the film, you know? I am amazed they didn't find a way to work in NASCAR (Or did I just miss it?)
I am sure if I thought about it more, I could go on...but just like so much in the last half of this film...I have to just ask "why?"
Snowpiercer (2013)
Is this a bad B-movie with decent production or a horrid attempt at trite social commentary?
I do not understand how anyone could like this film. One person even compares it to Animal Farm and 1984...really? Sure, if by that you mean a sub-standard high school student read the "coles notes" of those 2 books then composed this plot the night before it was due as their entry for a short story for remedial English class.
First of all, the concepts and plot of this film are so completely absurd that you have to assume that it is intended in such a way and that the train is really a metaphor intended to make some sort of trite social commentary. Whatever it is, it does it poorly. The social imagery is all poor attempts to restate what others have said better...often the metaphor seems poorly thought out, and well just doesn't work...at all. For example, it doesn't even work as a statement of how the 1% oppress the majority...since the people at the rear of the train don't even seem to do anything other than eat and sleep, so more like they are on welfare than slaves. I could go on, but I have already giving this film too much thought, I just want to forget it now.
Production values are OK, since it doesn't look like it was filmed with a 1985 handicam, but I can't think of much else to say in a positive sense.
I was in agony watching this film to completion, even with a complete suspension of logic. Do yourself a favor and watch something else...even old reruns of the Brady Bunch would be better than this.