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Moonfall (2022)
One of the worst movies I've ever seen
*** Very minimal spoilers ahead ***
This movie should be called "Scream" because if you know anything about space travel or physics, or even how people interact with each other you are going to be screaming throughout the whole movie. This movie is really bad, nothing makes sense, the dialog is simply awful and it's a waste of time.
Obviously you don't watch a movie like that to get a physics class but there should be some limits and this movie doesn't obey them whatsoever. This is worse than what they do in CSI TV series, much worse. The NASA employees speak so much nonsense it's painful. Right off the bat he NASA lady (Berry) says the moon doesn't change the orbit and now it suddenly does - well, the orbit of the Moon is changing all the time, it's actually getting away further and further each day and one day it will fly away - how a NASA character didn't know about it? I understand the writer doesn't have to be an expert in physics or cosmology but if they gave the script to proof read to anyone that has any knowledge about those matters they would have avoided such obvious nonsenses, but on the other hand, there would be no script, so maybe that's why they didn't do it. And it gets worse and worse. Like if the Moon's gravity is cancelling 80% of Earth's gravity, you would have noticed it, you wouldn't just sit there on your butt drinking coffee, everything would be almost flying, but for some reason characters in the movie don't see it. And of course we see typical Hollywood tropes like a helicopter doing 300km/h can't outrun something that a car going 80km/h can. Or do NASA people don't really know that a light year is a measure of distance and not time?
The actors are trying to act seriously but the whole premise and every aspect of the story doesn't make any sense and so it comes across as over the top and cheesy. I had real problems keeping my face straight throughout the whole movie.
This movie is bad and it's not even so bad it's good kind of bad. It's just a waste of time. I hope at least the film crew got paid in advance.
The Whale (2022)
Pretty weak script and performances (apart from Fraser)
I was going into the movie with high expectations and unfortunatelly was severly dissapointed. I see this movie has a great reviews and great score on IMDB, it also received some awards I believe but I have hard time understanding why. I gave this movie 3 out of 10 and all the stars went to Fraser, who played the part really well and I think he's the only reason to watch this movie at all. I felt like the script was very weak, we don't really know much about the characters, they make very substantial and big statements throughout the movie but they don't really back them up which makes this movie look very preachy at times.
All the characters (maybe apart from the mother) are awful and very shallow, for example Liz is this controlling person that creates this appearance of care but in reality she's very self centered and she doesn't do what's best for Charlie, but what will make her feel good. It's very easy to tell Charlie to go hospital, it's much harder not to give him a bucket with chicken wings when he asks. Also she's very bossy and looks down and everyone. She feels like a snake in human form.
Ellie is this angsty teenager that hates everyone and we learn it's because she thinks she's worthless because her father left her and while this might be realistic, the way she's portrayed is also awful. And here lies another problem with the movie - sometimes it's hard to say if this immature behavior from Ellie is just her being a teenager and having problems with her emotional self (as we all did, can't fool the hormones) or if what's she's saying and doing is supposed to carry some meaning for us. Really, what she does is awful, we understand in this movie that she didn't have easy life, but objectively she's an awful person. Also, Charlie knows nothing about her, he constantly repeats the mother tells him nothing about her and he's got one essay from four years before to base his whole opinion of her on, and yet he claims she's an amazing person and I believe we are supposed to feel the same way, but his opinion is based on nothing and from what we've heard from the mother and from what we see she's done in the movie, there is really nothing to corroborate this opinion.
That missionary guy seems interesting at start, although he comes across very artificial, almost a carricature of a human being. He's pushed around and has no conviction and as soon as he learns his parents won't send him to jail, he forgets everything about his mission and just goes home. It feels like he's just a backdrop for other characters to preach their convictions without giving any argument for their opinions, as this character is not pushing back at any point in the movie. The scene through the closed door with Ellie and the guy (i forgot his name) felt very forced and unnatural and it was basically her stating his belief doesn't make any sense and that's it. No discussion, no arguments, nothing, he's just a backdrop. Very dissapointing.
As for the mother character, she was surprisingly interesting - she came across flat at some points, but at others she had some bone in her body, which makes her the most human like character in this movie.
Charlie, now let's talk about the elephant in the room, or should I say, whale. Fraser was great, he was very convincing in his role, although the writers seem to be very confused. At the end, I'm not sure if his final intentions were pure or if he was self absorbed to the very end. You would think that all he wanted was this honesty, but it didn't feel that strongly and it was mixed with the other message, that he wanted to feel that his life wasn't for nothing and he did something good and those two thoughts didn't play very well toghether. There were some very strong points to his character, like when he tried to destroy himself by eating but then sometimes it feels like he's doing it to spite himself and sometimes to spite other people (Dan in particular).
The direction was decent in general, although I'm not sure about this whole counting of days. I understand it was to show that all the action is taking place day after day, as it's not that obvious from what's happening in the movie (you could very well suspect the action is stretched across few weeks). I think if they maybe stretched the action to seven days, to wrap it up in a full week, it would feel more at the right place, and as for how it is in the movie, it just kind of breaks the fourth wall.
I'd say Fraser was great as an actor, the script was bad, the direction was decent. Charlie was a confused 2,5 dimensional character, the mother was also almost 3d, the daughter was 2 dimensional and the rest were one dimensional. The characters were mostly superficial, preachy (again) and closed minded. There were some strong points and interesting developments, but in general it felt preachy, without a real bone in it and a bit confused. I didn't like the movie very much.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013)
Cheap jokes and easy answers
I've been watching this mainly for Andy Samberg, I saw some clips on youtube before and thought it could be funny. Unfortunatelly it's all based on cheap jokes, sex and really goofy characters (and the actress playing Santiago simply doesn't fit the role - at least Samberg feels natural in his over the top creations). Also every bad situation has eventually a good outcome, I realize it's a comedy show and not a serious drama, but it gets tiring at some point, it's simply a weak writing. They could write some stories that wouldn't need to be resolved in such a super positive way eveytime and the show would be better. It feels infantile, juvenile at best. Maybe following seasons are better, as I've watched only the first one so far. If anything changes, I will amend my review and I hope it does change, as the setting has some potential. I like the Hitchhock (?) character - he was goofy but not overdone, the captain is just a caricature and Peralta would be much more interesting if he wasn't so shallow. Is talking about sex all the time really that funny? Sometimes it just feels like an SNL skit.
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Worth seeing despite flaws
I love the original Top Gun and I knew this movie had no chance to be as good as the first one and it wasn't. There are many flaws, some situations make little sense, there is little chemistry between many of the characters and some of them seem to be caricatures rather than real humans. There were also too many throwbacks in my opinion, few less would still send a message to the fans of the original and they wouldn't be so in your face.
That being said, the movie is a good piece of action flick, it has this 80s feel and it doesn't really try to be something that it isn't. Good acting by Cruise and pretty thrilling fight and flight scenes. I saw it in IMAX and I would argue seeing it in a cinema makes a difference. The plot is thin, but it doesn't matter. I liked it.
The Silent Sea (2021)
Bad writing ruins this thing
This show has the most annoying horror movie tropes I've ever seen. The characters are often stupid and do things that make you want to scream at how stupid they are.
*** very minor spoilers ahead ***
The plot device is very incosistent also. Sometimes characters are terrified of even a small piece of it and sometimes they ignore it completely even though there is like a large amount of it on the floor next to them.
There is some explanation behind this plot device but it simply doesn't follow those rules and behaves in different ways depending on what the plot requires.
Also plenty of stuff happens by accident. Someone gets lost in a ventilation system and finds a room full of plot relevant entities and right away someone else that is searching for this first person (and they have no idea where they are in relation to each other) gets to her and they explore this room toghether. All by accident.
The writing in this show is simply awful and it's a shame, because I really like Korean cinema, the idea behind the show seems quite interesting too and it's rather well played and set pieces are very nice too. But what's the point of all of this if you can't suspend your disbelief even for a moment, as your immersion gets destroyed by all the inconsistencies and stupidity of the characters?
Aus dem Nichts (2017)
Atrocious camera work
This is a solid drama about a woman who has to confront a sudden death of her close ones. There are two things that really prevent me from giving this movie anything more than 5 stars. One is the topic of the movie. If the movie was shot 7 years ago, I wouldn't even think about it, but in a current geopolitical context the subject of the movie makes you wonder. The other thing is the camera work. I almost left the cinema, it was that annoying. I don't like shaky cam as a concept, I think it destroys immersion, as we are constantly reminded there is a camera, and also is simply annoying. It's not such a big problem if the scenes being shot are dynamic and full of movement themselves, because you don't see it that much, but when you look at the scene where two people sign some papers and the camera is shaking all over the place, you can't help but notice it. There is plenty of good shots in this movie, plentu of creative ones and plenty of interesting ones, so I really cannot understand, how a director with such a good eye decided to use this cheap effect. Do not do this. It looks amateurish and takes away from the movie. That being said, all thos interesting shots... Maybe this is a problem? That the director/camera man was to creative and tried to cram as many shooting technics as possible? I realized just now that some of the shots were one off, they appeared only once not to come back in any other part of the movie and so they stand out. It would reinforce the idea, that they could not say to themselfs that's enough and just put there everything they could think about.