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Reviews
Extraction (2020)
Action becomes boringly routine, no plot, unfair to Bangladesh
I didn't have high expectations for this movie, but I figured a Chris Hemsworth action pic would provide a couple hours of diverting of pulp entertainment.
Where did it go wrong for me?
The action scenes were well choreographed with lots of fiery explosions, chases & hand to hand combat etc, but about half way through the film it got to the point where it became cartoonish & mechanical. The swarms of bad guys were inept & couldn't shoot straight to the point where it was hard to believe our hero was in any real danger, whatever the odds. It all became very predicable & mind numbing.
The plot is weak, even for pulp. The story revolves around a kidnapping, the reason for which is never really established. Hemsworths character is a walking "mercenary with a painful past" cliché. The quiet, intimate scenes meant to show his humanity are painfully, awkwardly done, as unbelievable as the overdone action sequences and feel like pro forma filler. Too many unbelievable coincidences. Very senseless & disjointed.
Having said all that, I might have given this film a "5" as an action pic if it wasn't for its arbitrary and misleading setting in Bangladesh. As I watched the film I kept thinking that the portrayal of the of city Dhaka is very harsh. Criminals controlling the army & police, a dirty, filthy city, gangs roaming the streets, including kids with AKs - basically Somalia at its worst. And wondered why would Bangladesh allow a film to be shot in Dhaka when it portrays it in such a negative light?
Well, the answer I soon learned is that this film was written, produced and shot in India by Indians and there are no Bengalis at all in the cast. Now there's no reason the plot couldn't have been set in a city in India, other than of course the Indian producers didn't want one of their own cities to be shown as dirty, dangerous, violent, lawless and corrupt. So they moved the whole thing next door to Bangladesh. Never mind that there's no objective evidence that Dhaka is anything like it's portrayed in the film, or for that matter, any worse than cities in India. Just dump the whole dirty, lawless mess on the people across the border.
I have to wonder if the fact that India now has a Hindu nationalist led government and Bangladesh is 90% Muslim played a factor in all this too.
Thumbs down on Netflix and Chris Hemsworth for their association with this tainted picture.
(BTW, I have no personal connection to either country.)
Carthage: The Roman Holocaust (2004)
Silly revisionism
The author completely ignores early colonization of the Western Mediterranean by Greek City States and the influence of Greek culture in the area. The Carthaginians are relentlessly portrayed as The Good Guys, the Romans as little more than clever, grasping barbarians. In fact, as the author freely admits, almost nothing is known about Carthaginian civilization because the victorious Romans erased it. The summary of the Punic Wars is cartoonish. A gigantic bust of Constantine, who ruled the Roman Empire hundreds of years later, is repeatedly used to represent Republican Rome. I could go on, but why bother.
Another Life (2019)
Only worth watching to marvel at its awfulness
The fate of humanity hangs in the balance and this bunch of slackers is the best they could do to crew a starship sent to save the Earth? Like watching the whining cast of a Big Brother episode in space. Katee Sackhoff is totally out of place, looking so buff and chiseled, like she stepped out of a MMA cadge match, among these mear mortals, delivering a one note, angry off all the time character. The plots are a mishmash of recycled Star Trek, Battle Star Galactica, E.T., Stargate etc cliches, that are full of "Could they really do something that stupid?!?" moments, predictable outcomes and phony cliff hangers. Some of the episodes are thinly disguised recycling of previous ones.
Lots of laughs, but almost all of them are unintended.