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johnpendarvis
Reviews
Ghost in the Shell (2017)
Futurism without heart=tedium
First of all, looking at the futuristic cityscapes in this atrocity, I think Ridley Scott has a legitimate plagiarism case. But, on the other hand, Blade Runner had a seamy, grimy underbelly that lent realism to the otherwordly pastiche. This thing is shiny and shallow.
I remember seeing Scarlet Johannsson in Ghost World, great small release film from 2001, and thinking she's a nice actress who should be interesting to watch. Fast forward to now, she has had tremendous high profile, big budget success, but that's not always such a great thing. Watching her sleepwalk through the endless Marvel drivel prepared me for her self consciously robotic take on her role in this film. And yes, I am aware of criticizing her portrayal of an android as robotic seems silly, but being enigmatic gets extremely tedious with no other even mildly interesting other characters to play off. She's dangerously close to sharing stereotype status with Mila Jovovich and Charlize Theron-futuristic badass, invincible babes who routinely dispatch trained male assassins twice their size with minimal exertion. It's BORING.
The film itself is a CGI mess, and even after the film was over, I had no clue what the motivation or purpose of any of it was. I think you could probably make 10 interesting films on the budget of this pointless piece of dreck.
Pitch Perfect (2012)
Who are these people?
Really, who are the people who watch this drivel and give it 10 stars? I want to talk to some of them and get an explanation about what happened to them. Surely this asinine genre has run it's course....who pays money to watch this stuff? Not an original or interesting moment in the whole thing. Forced humor, incredibly stilted and predictable dialogue....just STUPID top to bottom.
It makes me sad that their are so many empty headed shallow people.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
Whoever cast this was on crack.
I guess it's possible to suspend disbelief enough to think the young leads were futuristic action heroes, but I couldn't do it. The male lead looks like he's pubescent, the female has a perpetual "duuuuuuh" countenance.....it's comical. Mix in all of the sci fi clichés (Avatar styled big Disney eyed heroic aliens, comically two dimensional villains, CGI fights n space so overproduced your mind wanders, etc.) Really, really dreadful.
Deep Impact (1998)
Some hilarious reviews here!
The glowing reviews for this manipulative, scientifically dubious, dreadfully put together piece of drivel are very amusing. Could not be more generic. There is one scene in this horrible abortion than pretty much sums up every cliché' ever-the "holding our breath in the control room" scene every half assed sci fi contains, inevitably followed by the melodramatic, last second success of the mission, and the requisite cheering and hugging. You can set your watch by it. Actually, you can predict every scenario and scene in this dreary thing. And please, somebody put a mirror under Tea Leone's nose so we can ascertain if she's still alive.
Begin Again (2013)
One massive problem.
This thing struggles mightily for a "Commitments" kind of vibe, and except for one major problem, pretty much succeeds....trouble is the problem is so front and center, it ruins the whole thing......the music....it's awful. Derivative, wobbly pitch, trite lyrics, it's absolute garbage. I had to mute the performances to get through it. I find it hard to believe people could actually enjoy that phony, screeching drivel.
Collide (2016)
Suspension of disbelief stretched way too far.
Pretty generic action film, they could have saved enough money by replacing Hopkins and Kingsley with cheap character actors to use an actual script with a plot. This film really begs the question most of this mindless claptrap always engenders- if the villains can fire 10,000 rounds at the hero and not hit him once, why do they keep shooting?
Sader Ridge (2013)
Why was this thing made?
"Psychological thrillers" are difficult to pull off. They require two things to be effective and as believable as they need to be-1. A strong premise, 2. An internal logic of some form....This film has neither. Unfortunately, it doesn't have anything else either. You will seldom witness a more plodding, disjointed, just downright dreary waste of film. I don't know where these "actors" came from, but they were uniformly unconvincing, and in the case of the antagonist, completely inaudible. If you have the curiosity to watch this, don't worry about bathroom breaks, or grabbing a snack, you won't miss anything.
Continuum (2012)
Truly horrible.
Possibly the worst of a horrific lot of ScFy channel "original" series, a contrived mess that is lifeless, repetitive, and just deadly boring. It also has the distinction of featuring the worst protagonist in recent memory, Rachel Nichols. She has two expressions- one of forced defiance, and a totally blank one that she uses about 90% of the time. Possibly the worst actress on a channel that features Tara Reid, no small accomplishment.
Martian Land (2015)
Godawful
Seldom will you see a more flat, lifeless attempt at filmmaking than this. Dreadful acting, static camera work, wildly fluctuating and jarring scene segues.....it's almost comical....almost. The CGI is cheap and two dimensional, constant disjointed reaction takes, you may have guessed by now I didn't like it much. Absolutely no redeeming quality to this massive stink bomb.
Miss Sloane (2016)
Truly unique.
I must say this is the only film I have ever seen in which the painful death of pretty much every character, particularly the title one, would have given me much enjoyment. It presents the utter lowest, most venal people in some kind of strange media worship. Idiotic liberal non sequiturs about gun control, ridiculous one dimensional political clichés-it's got it all.
The Sand (2015)
Hilarious....
I love to read reviews that give something like this more than one star, and try to picture the reviewer. Usually, Sloth from the Goonies comes first to mind.
It's really pointless to try to separate these ScFy channel "films", they're all pretty much the same- inane plots, horrifically amateurish acting, static cinematography (endless reaction shots to something offscreen), jarringly different film formats from scene to scene, etc, etc, ad nauseum. This one was particularly silly and suspenseless, laughable special effects.
It was awful.