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Wingman_S
Reviews
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
Why?
This movie failed to grab my attention right from the outset, I didn't like the gaudy visual style so I started to tune out 10 minutes in. Unfortunately it doesn't get any better when the two lead actors show up as they're both really off putting, they're the sort of background characters that would come and go in another movie and no one would ever mention them again outside of a meme. Unfortunately here they're expected to carry a movie that's already hamstrung by the sort of tediously disjointed story telling that usually accompanies someone else's holiday snaps.
Half an hour in and I felt my will to live being seriously depleted, there just isn't any sort of cohesive story or redeeming feature to grab on to. I struggle to remember a world or characters I've cared less about, I eventually bailed after 55 minutes.
This is an abject lesson on how to tell a tedious story that didn't need to be told wrapped in $170 million worth of pointless CGI. I like movies that are different from the usual sequels or remakes, but expensive failures like this discourage studios from taking chances, a shameful effort on every level.
Cooper's Treasure (2017)
Smoke and mirrors...
I was initially intrigued by the premise of this show, but it quickly became apparent that all was not as it seemed. From the outset something is off about Darrell Miklos, at times he can be quite charismatic but at the same time he's unable to communicate normally with people, he's always trying to force the conversation with stuff like "remember that time me and Gordon Cooper were best friends?" It feels like he's trying to insert himself into Coopers life after the fact.
The problems just continue to get bigger when he explains how Cooper got his information, his explanation requires an astonishing level of technical ignorance to be accepted. They claim he used some camera device designed to detect nuclear installations that somehow managed to pick up underwater wrecks on a craft with less technology than a modern smartphone. At that time a craft moving at 7600 meters per second with the available optics could just about identify an object the size of a city block. Two years after this using better equipment Cooper was unable to take usable pictures or provide data on where the pictures were taken, despite having a 2nd crewman to help this time. These facts are from NASA's own log files from the mission.
If that wasn't problematic enough, Darrell Miklos's father is a known scam artist who cons people into handing over money to fund treasure hunts at which point he disappears with the money. Gordon Cooper himself was involved in several well documented scams and shady business dealings later in his life, he also told a lot of provable lies and fanciful stories.
Kevin Can Wait (2016)
This show went down hard
Season 1 wasn't too bad it was always a light hearted 20 minute watch, although the final couple of episodes were a bit of a low point, Leah Remini's character just doesn't work on this show she isn't funny, at all. Essentially this makes season 2 a bit of a train wreck, losing Erinn Hayes was a terrible decision, effectively replacing her with Remini was an even worse decision.
This might not be so bad but the writing and acting in the season 2 opener was frankly dismal, to the point it was embarrassing to watch at times and crushingly unfunny. I think it's clear that the writers have run out of road already and are trying to go back to the Doug and Carrie stuff from King of Queens, but lets be brutally honest they both became pretty tiresome and it was the frankly excellent Jerry Stiller and supporting cast that carried the show. Without a decent supporting cast or indeed writers with some imagination this show is pretty much doomed.
A Ghost Story (2017)
Cinematic drudgery...
Definitely not what I was expecting given the acting talent involved, it felt like the aim of the movie was to present a montage of abjectly tedious scenes, and then try and drag those scenes out to the point where you start to feel anger building. I don't mind movies without special effects or all that much happening, but there at least has to be an interesting story to carry things along, Casey Affleck lurking about in a sheet in a succession of utterly dull scenes just isn't very entertaining.
Basically this movie is the equivalent of those weird art pieces where it's just a bunch of old litter in a urinal, but people try to tell you that it's art and you just don't get it...well in this case I'm absolutely fine with not getting it.
Kong: Skull Island (2017)
How did this happen?
It's difficult to convey in words just how bad this movie is, but imagine if someone asked a bunch of random people who'd never acted before to make a movie based on a script that only contained the words "Kong: Skull Island" well that movie would be infinitely better than what we actually got.
I refuse to believe that functioning adults wrote and allowed this movie to be made, I have to assume that movies are now being written and produced by a really crappy AI that someone found kicking around on an old floppy disk. Oh and for anyone wondering, Samuel L Jackson basically plays Samuel L Jackson, the same one dimensional character he's worn thin over the years, I suspect this wont come as a surprise to anyone though.
I feel pretty confident in saying that unless I accidentally watch the new Transformers movie that this is the worst movie I'll watch all year.
The Bridgewater Triangle (2013)
Just wow...
This review is actually for the shortened version that was shown on TV, but even after they had distilled it down to the better material there is still zero substance here.
Generally when someone tells you an unbelievable story you automatically start trying to figure out a logical explanation, but for most of the people on this show that isn't relevant, most of them can be dismissed out of hand simply because they are clearly suffering from some sort of mental illness, the rest is likely drug or alcohol related.
In the first few minutes we're reliably informed that all of the phenomenon are connected, the bigfoot sightings, UFO's, hauntings and devil worshipping etc, because these things traditionally go hand in hand and trying to connect them isn't the work of a lunatic.
4 minutes in and we get a cryptozoologist who doesn't know that bears can stand upright as well as run on all fours, I realise that it's Pseudoscience and he is actually just a quack, but you'd think he'd know simple stuff like the capabilities of a common bear. This unfortunately sets the trend for the entire show.
We live in an era where pretty much everyone carries a phone with photo and video capability, and this is supposed to be an area where loads of weird things happen, logic would dictate that people would be going out of their way to get pictures or video evidence, yet where is it? That's right not a single shred of credible evidence, just anecdotal evidence from a cornucopia of oddballs, and a hilariously bad video from a guy wearing dark glasses and a facial expression that telegraphs his inability to sell the lie, he should absolutely avoid playing poker with that face.
I think there is a greater mystery here and questions need to be answered, but that would only be solved by looking at the rate of mental illness in the triangle compared with elsewhere, as there does seem to be clear evidence to suggest there may indeed be something in the water there.
Mysteries at the National Parks (2015)
Clearly made by someone who has lived in a box for their entire life.
I only watched episode 6 "Firestarter" and I felt embarrassed for whoever made it, generally these sort of programs scrape the bottom of the barrel as it is, but there wasn't a single mystery in this show, they simply ignored blatantly obvious explanations and declared it a mystery, um no.
2 bodies are found on Kīlauea an active volcano, one of them has no signs of trauma and looks to have collapsed and died, basically what you would expect if they were overcome by carbon dioxide or one of the many other gasses that are prevalent around active volcanoes, or even just simply heat exhaustion, but these weren't even mentioned as a possible solution, we did however get an explanation involving sentient fireballs or curses, no really I'm not even joking.
They also put far too much stock into superstitions and curses based on the vaguest coincidences you could possibly imagine, basically they take things that you would expect to see statistically across a large sample of people and try to use it as the proof that something is amiss. It's the equivalent of claiming that saying the word "bang" will give you cancer because the lady down the street did it and she got cancer, well yeah statistically some of the people who say "bang" will get cancer, not because they said "bang" but simply because it is a statistical inevitability, the 2 events aren't connected in any way and trying to connect them is a fools errand.
Save yourself the trouble and just make up some crazy mysteries of your own, they will likely be a hundred times better than anything you'll see here.
Paranormal Home Inspectors (2011)
Really, really bad, but you should definitely watch it.
I gave this 2 stars and it would have been less if it wasn't for Brian, he is an island of common sense and reason in a sea of idiots. The supposed spiritual healer oddball has clearly been given a list of areas to focus on and a copy of the information the other weird investigator lady had dug up about stuff that happened in a 50 mile radius of the house. "Healer Nadine hasn't been given any information on the house" Well what's on the notepad she is carrying?
I almost cried with laugher during the first episode when they briefly mentioned an Indian burial ground, I mean how much more clichéd can you possibly get, I expected they'd at least wait till a much later episode before rolling out that old chestnut.
The other people that hang about the house during the night using cheap IR sensors and other useless junk are a hilarious mixture of overacting and the result of putting 2 hopeless idiots in a dark room together. It's a pity they didn't get handyman Brian to build a padded room for the lot of them, as that would have been a much better resolution than scaring home-owners with needless drivel for the sake of making a TV show. With that said you should still watch it, just to see how hilariously bad it is, it's that bad it's borderline good.