Reviews

Didn't make sense. Ever!

Starting with not being wiped out after colliding with a large meteoroid and overtaking a massive meteor shower by several days to land unscathed on a planet in a ripped in half spaceship, that inexplicably took off again on cue with a few ridiculously predictable "moments of suspense".

I'm guessing the vast majority of the budget went in Adam Driver's salary. He did very little, coasting his way through the lack of script and plot, I'm guessing in shock from discovering what he had signed up for.

You'd think that the lack of story was going to be made up for with the usual excessive CGI, but, no you are going to be disappointed there too. What little CGIed monsters there were, were all a pastiche of inconsistent reptilians from other movies. Did they rent a bargain bin of unused CGI files? Or just lack the imagination to come up with any designs or ideas of their own.

The scary monsters had a strange habit of turning up to provide the deemed necessary peril, but then vanishing again for no reason.

In summary. No story. No plot. The barest special effects. No attempt at acting and horrendous editing stitching it all together badly.

There was the sheer relieve that it was finally all over and I could get out of the theatre.

A visually tasty mash-up of Moby Dick and the Dragon movies. Down to the sea beasts having the same faces as the dragons.

I only saw it because my 4 year old grandson desperately wanted to see it but was a scared by the monsters and needed someone to protect him

The colours of the beasts, characters and backdrops are stunning, as are the tall ships, rolling waves and underwater scenes. I was fascinated with the look and graphics, and ignored the flaws in the plot, script and dialogue.

Hollywood finds safety in recycled cliches, in this case the principle beast implausibly falls for a young girl despite she is part of the crew of the ship that harpoons it and we end up with the usual enemies become friends Sorry about giving away that surprise ending.

Ollie soort of liked it despite not understanding what happened and why.

Trying to explain this to the current online generation and, I am guessing mostly American audience, who should be the target is a big ask.

What could have been a revelatory and thought provoking plot was turned into trivial entertainment with a happy ending.

Just how the perpetually affable, supposedly super intelligent Tom Hanks character could not anticipate the bleedin' obvious conclusion, after having conspired at length to bring it into effect, left me laughing. But not the happy, happy ending where despite Pandora's Box being opened, all the problems disappeared merely by removing JUST TWO (apparently that's all it took) central plotters!

It was the shallow portrayal of the plotters that was the biggest weakness, although the heroine wasn't given much to do either. Nobody seemed visibly motivated by greed, megalomania or dogmatic blind obsession. No sign of doubts, laboured decisions, or the inevitable feet of clay that mark real personalities. Like Twitter comments everyone and everything was just superficial. Down to the ridiculously convenient creator of The Circle hanging around in the shadows to effortlessly sabotage his own creation.

Nice photography, nice actors, nice graphics and a nice ending. But since when are conspiracies so "nice"?

The only thing I found (barely) pointed was the performing seal audiences and the banally stupid twitter comments projected over everything.

Summing up, the movie seems to have been created to reveal the "dangers" of compulsory voting (really?!) to Americans who think convenience is the real problem with their "democracy", and to fill the screen with the maximum number of Gen X Extras.

Even the main characters were Extras despite the star casting.

Went to it thinking it was entirely another film, but I'm glad I went in with the wrong expectations.

Absolutely gorgeous photography and frocks, who could ask for more? Especially the local cop.

The wit and hilarious characters really keep this rolling story tumbling on through every twist and turn right down to the last bump, or what you think is the last bump and off you go again with a series of explosive scenes to the final culmination that beautifully wraps it up.

Favourite lines:

"They should do something about whoever is burning that rubbish"

"You haven't met the rubbish!"

One for the chicks.

These days the guys get rippling muscle action fantasies, this at least doesn't have the CGI overdose, instead it is large breasted college Arts Major meets shy, modest, old fashioned, but incredibly ripped bull rider.

Being for the chicks, their eyes meet across a rodeo rail but he doesn't try anything until he has done a lot of walking, talking and front door floral arrangements.

Cleverly after they try hard not to fall for each other (because they aren't meant to be) she falls in the pond and gets all dirty, so has to shower at his place.

Voila! The obligatory six pack and generous breasts coyly appear and they finally do it in the shower in an uncontrollable moment of passion.

Oh, there was some stuff in between with Alan Alda appearing continually with his head in bandages, in one bed after another.

We can't really wait till lovable old man cupid Alda finally kicks the bucket so he can make everyone improbably filthy-rich-happy-ever-after.

Because happy-ever-after-without-all-the-cash-falling-from-the-sky sucks.

The 3 out of 10 was for the fantastic slow-mo bull ride camera-work.

Saw it as part of a double showing after Kingsman. Talk about chalk and cheese.

All I can do is condemn with faint praise: I've seen worse.

I was more bored with all the tired clichés than anything else.

They showed the villain early on then, dragged a rather nonsensical red herring across the trail, followed by a pretty crap twist that distracted you only because given the rest of the plot, ANYTHING was possible.

Then it turns out the bad guy actually is the bad guy and because it really doesn't add up, Liam and the Cop hastily waffle up some half ass explanation. I presume for the benefit of the dim wits in the Focus Group who didn't get the feeble plot, nor that the feeble plot was actually simply feeble.

I'd lost interest well before that despite they hadn't done all the Action Sequences, still had a few to trundle out, and the obligatory last chase after the villain grabs the girl and drags her along for no reason at all.

It's hard to catalog all the clichés, especially in the action scenes. Stop me if you've seen the wrong way speed chase down the freeway, with the inevitable tumbling heavy objects flattening everything in their path before bouncing over our hero.

The super bad Russian ex-commando, the one everyone kills themselves to avoid, simply can't hit Liam Nielsen for love nor money. Inside a lounge room! Because all he has is a super gun that fires a zillion bullets a second!

Liam runs through it all unscathed. Everything around him gets shredded to demonstrate just how dangerous these guns are!

At that point "we're going to need a bigger gun!" would have raised an easy laugh.

The ending was pretty lame and just seemed to run out of puff. After which it looks like they are setting Liam up to save his granddaughter as the next target. That is at least a couple of "Takens" too far for me.

Before I begin, how do you write a spoiler for the most talked about movie ever?

And how can you be offended by the trouser filler humor?

That would be like seeing a Jerry Lewis film and objecting to the adenoidal stammer and bad hair.

Yes it is ridiculous, the banter typical Seth Rogan and the premise unbelievable, but this is the movies. It is a movie! You know that commercial entertainment, visible on screens large and small?

The only thing unusual about it is that some jumped crazy dictator doesn't like it because it takes the mickey out of him.

It was fun, an hour and a half not wasted (well debatable) but in all I enjoyed it. Haven't been let down by Seth Rogan yet! Not going to win an Oscar but it is in the long tradition of dropping your trousers and holding up a brown eye mirror to nasty powerful politicians everywhere.

Nice to see the Penguins get their due: All our attention for a solid full movie length feature.

Wikipedia can now fill in their history as this story covers their time before the Madagascar series. Everything revolves around their insanely irresistible cuteness, particularly that of Private. Cuteness which incites the envy of the much überignored super villain, who is out to destroy penguindom with his elaborate and ingenious inventions.

Needless to say it ain't easy, not with the resourcefully upbeat quartet out to frustrate him. The greatest challenge to our avian funsters is in fact an Arctic super agency, WestWind, tasked with protecting them and all animals from harm.

With the Tuxedo Four's DIY credo, the work is cut out for the "Professionals" at WestWind who firmly believe serious crime fighting should be left to the Pros. This brings out an oscillating battle of competitive outdoing of each other, that becomes their mutual undoing.

Despite the inevitable capture and ultimate doom at the hands of the super villain, it all comes good in the end. Despite the wimpy fickleness of the American public when all the penguins that ever there were are set loose on New York as green hued mutants.

The constant witty banter and unending improbable escapes from certain death will keep children of all ages laughing on the edges of their seats. Never has there been so much use and abuse of The Big Red Button to such hilarious effect.

What's not to like, they are after all penguins, and "Awww they're so cute!"