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Reviews
Trap (2024)
What happened?
The movie starts out well enough, the opening scene and setting are intriguing, but things go downhill quickly.
Honestly, I don't really understand what happened here, this isn't the first movie that's done this, and it seems to be a continuing issue with a lot of recent movies coming out of Hollywood. There's a fairly consistent theme here, good movie idea, decent opening scene, mediocre plot that takes a left-turn about halfway through, with bad/stiff dialog and interactions that make little to no sense topping it off.
The premise and idea of the movie is pretty good, a manhunt movie from a serial killer's viewpoint. That's interesting, different from the norm of good cop hunts down bad guy. Other than the Netflix show Dexter, I can't think of anything that has been released recently and follows this format well. This is one of those movies that would have been much better if things had been kept simple and intimate, rather than being developed into a more complicated plot with too many moving parts.
It tries too hard to be too much, too brainy, more complex than necessary, and as a result becomes shallow, messy, and disappointing. The tension that is felt early on in the movie. The intensity, at the beginning of the concert as law enforcement builds a trap, is more or less gone as soon as the interactions with the fake-feeling influencer/artist begin.
After that, it just continues to get more and more ridiculous and unbelievable.
I can't recommend this movie to my friends or family. There are better options for a scary movie on date night, and more polished options for film enthusiasts who want to enjoy a witty serial killer movie.
The Bear (2022)
This is it.
For some reason it seems like we have epidemic of shows and movies nowadays that just turn out to be lackluster or just plain terrible. Unfortunately, just like we fill our stomachs with junk food, we fill our brains with junk food. There's a massive overuse of visual effects, cheesy dialog, misplaced humor that disrupts the plot pacing in moments of rising tension, and an inability to be relatable to viewers.
However, once in a while a gem comes along, one that absolutely nails it in every way. The actors slip into their roles like they were born for them, and everything is so intense that you cannot tear your eyes away from the screen. Somehow, in all of the elements that come together to build that beautiful story, the creates the character become real and believable. They become people that the viewer knows, they change from strangers to close freinds. They are even awkward, angry, happy, and relatable just like your own family.
This is one of those shows.
I never would have expected any of that could be in a show about cooking and a restaurant. But here it is, a show that hit me harder than an 18-wheeler Mack truck heading down the interstate at 70mph with load of industrial building materials.
I can't say many shows or movies have ever made me feel like this, and I'm so happy that this happens to be one of them.
Let it rip.
One Ranger (2023)
This ain't it.
So, fair disclaimer ahead of time, I'm a pretty big fan of most of Thomas Jane's stuff. He's had some great roles that I really enjoyed, and I hoped that this movie would be another chance for him to shine.
Unfortunately, it really wasn't a chance for anyone to shine at all, not even John Malkovich.
Not exactly sure what I expected, I guess I just expected a decent action movie with a Texas Ranger chasing after a criminal. You know, normal stuff. What we got was a weird knock-off of Walker Texas Ranger with a bad script, acceptable fight scenes, and a lot of cliché lines that didn't fit the movie at all. It's like an AI took a bunch of segments from a handful of the most popular action movies and just slapped it all together to create this .... I'm not even sure what to call it. It's just a bunch of oddly disconnected scenes that don't make a lot of sense and are stitched together.
I would also like to point out how ridiculous the gun-play was. Because after realizing half-way through that the story was a bust, I thought maybe things can be somewhat redeemed with a few good gun battles. However, the directors of this movie clearly decided to roll with an emphasis on flashy, and completely ignore believable. There are several scenes where dozens of rounds are fired from handguns that can only hold half that amount. Rifles are given to the main characters from "tactical/strike teams" without sights. Rocket launchers are used on people like it's some kind of video game. Characters using machine guns one-handed, as if recoil doesn't exist and physics don't matter. It's like watching a bargain-bin 80's action movie from the local dollar store, but without the charm, awesome hairstyles, cool cars, and mirrored aviators worn by the main character.
Anyhow, I'm done wasting my time with this review, already wasted far too much time watching this movie. Swing, and a miss. Better luck next time, Thomas Jane.
On a Wing and a Prayer (2023)
Decent movie. Too many annoying kids.
This movie comes really close to being good, but falls short because of the addition of pointless and annoying characters. Characters that have no value in driving the storyline or improving the plot in any way.
I wanted to enjoy this movie, it's based upon a true story that is amazing on its own, and really doesn't need any "help" or additions to the story to make it more interesting to viewers.
For some reason, movie studios love placing kids in pointless roles in movies. It happens way too much and only serves to break up the tension and lowers the quality of the movie. Children overreacting and being dramatic in a true story like this isn't funny, comedic, or cute, it's just infuriating and annoying.
I don't think it's a stretch at all to say that the movie could have easily been improved with some good editing. If the filler scenes with the two "aviation enthusiasts" children were removed, and instead we simply had a few more scenes with the interactions between the aircraft and the aircraft tower, it would make for a much more enjoyable watch.
True History of the Kelly Gang (2019)
There's no way it could be that bad right? Right?!?!
Oh, but it is, it is that bad. The movie starts off reasonably strong, with a good cast, a good origin story, then somehow manages to go off the rails and plummet straight down a cliff.
I'm not going to waste any more time than necessary, there will be no spoilers or descriptions of the plot. I'll just say it's bad, it's like one of those good ideas you have when you're getting a little drunk. But you go answer the door because there's someone knocking, and surprise - it's a bunch of your buddies with a few bottles of stronger stuff, that gets passed around until it's all gone. Someone makes a call, and the local weed dealer shows up with some of the devil's lettuce laced with who-knows-what, and passes around a bong. Then some other sketchy guy you don't even really know shows up with some really hard drugs, the kind of stuff that you know you shouldn't be doing, but you're already passed the point of being able to make any kind of good decisions. So what do you do? You invite them in, of course! Everyone gets really messed up, and they all decide to help you work on that great idea from earlier. Except now everyone is so blasted out of their minds that the idea turns into some kind of insane word puke that makes zero sense at all, and bears little resemblance to the original idea. At the end of it all, you open a history book and use the first heading you see as the name for your "movie script".
That's what I imagined happened to the writers, directors, and everyone else who was in charge of creating this movie. Because it's an absolute mess, more of a mess than I thought it could possibly be. I kept watching, expecting it to get better somehow, except it was like watching a train-wreck in slow motion. It doesn't ever get better, because it can't, it's too far gone, the wheels are coming off the rails, there's nothing to stop it from turning into twisted metal and flames at the bottom of that cliff. It's just one giant catastrophe on a non-stop collision course with an eventual (and quite merciful) ending.
The title fits this movie about as well as Alec Baldwin's excuse that he didn't pull the trigger.
Old Henry (2021)
The most underrated film of 2021
So, I know a lot of things were going on in 2021, but in general there weren't a whole lot of fantastic movies that impressed me anywhere close to what Old Henry did.
This movie is a sleeper, you expect an average western, and it comes out as something that should be held up to the same level as other great modern westerns like Open Range and 3:10 to Yuma.
Absolutely loved this movie, I won't spoil it for you. But you should watch it.
Busanhaeng (2016)
Wow - a zombie movie that's better than it has any right to be!
Honestly, I wasn't expecting much, just wanting a zombie movie to watch. This was on my watch list, so I gave it a try.
This movie somehow has it all, good acting, fantastic set, good zombies (also - LOTS of zombies). Tons of good suspense scenes. Seriously, this is better than almost all zombie movies that have come out of Hollywood in the last 10-15 years. In some ways, that's sad to say, but it's reality, zombie movies have become full of clichés and recycled plots. They're either a gore-fest, or they attempt to mix in some comedy with it, and you just get a terrible mess of a movie.
This movie is absolutely nothing like that. It's like watching a really good drama movie, but with zombies. I was surprised and impressed, definitely going to look into more movies from their director.
Supergirl (2015)
Absolutely terrible. Seriously, watch anything else.
Look, I'm not gonna waste a ton of time writing a review for a terrible show.
It's bad. It's really, really, bad.
If you're looking for a show with any kind of brains, intelligent plot, cool superheros, well, keep looking. I would suggest checking out Smallville for a similar theme. Any of the new Marvel shows are far better than this. Gotham is far better than this. Really, just about anything is better than this.
This is basically the most cliché soap-opera show ever, with some superhero elements thrown in. I would not recommend it for any reason.
The Call of the Wild (2020)
Call of the Wild - except its not.
This movie is incredibly frustrating, it could be REALLY good, the CGi animals gives the producers the ability to make them do whatever they want and really nail the adaptation. Except they dont do it. Instead they inject human action and emotions into the film at such a level that it feels more like a Disney fairytale instead of the brutal tale of survival and grown in the North that Call of the Wild is known to be.
Basically, they took an amazing story about harsh reality, with real character growth and hardship. Then they removed almost all of the harshness of it. So Buck, the dog, the main character, is just making weird growth spurts all of the way through for no real reason.
---------- Warning : Potential Spoilers Below ----------
I guess you could sort of consider the rest of this to contain spoilers if you live under a rock and have somehow never read one of the best-selling books of all-time.
I realize that maybe the idea for this film was to make Call of the Wild a little more children friendly. But this is seriously bad, the action sequences are awful because of how hard they tried to make it friendly. Most of the "fights" in here are just the dogs hitting each other with their shoulders or doing weird WWE moves. If the CGI dogs had acted even slightly like real dogs or if Buck showed any kind of real aggression or anger it would feel a lot better. But the stupid cartoony humor and actions of the dogs is incredibly reality breaking and dissapointing.
The fact that Buck refuses to really bite Spitz, or that he refuses to bite the cruel characters in the movie feels wrong. Not to mention that it's terribly unfaithful to the source material ( the book ) and it's just not satisfying to watch at all.
Overall - I guess you could watch this with young kids and they would love it. Yay? But Call of the Wild isn't meant to really be a childrens story, even though there's nothing wrong with letting your children enjoy it. I remember reading the book originally late in gradeschool, and I thoguht it was fantastic, in fact I have read it multiple times throughout my life, and I enjoyed it.
This movie just feels like the producers were trying to satisfy everyone, and the result is a lukewarm, unexciting product.
Mortal Kombat (2021)
For what this is - it's pretty good.
Honestly I dunno how you could go to see a movie like this and hate it. It's basically a movie about a fighting game with a bit of story thrown on top.
If you went to this movie expecting some Oscar-worthy performances then I dunno why, because it's pretty easy to see that it's not meant to be that kind of movie. What you get is a bunch of cool fights with some signature moves that fans of the game series will really enjoy.
Overall it's pretty good, I enjoyed it, pretty much what I expected after playing some of the games. And it looks like they made the ending so that they could have the option for a sequel and introduce some more characters, which is great, I hope that happens.
Too Old to Die Young (2019)
I wanted to like it. But I can't recommend it.
Honestly. I don't understand this show, the first half was enjoyable. In some ways brilliant. I like the art style, the pace felt slow at the beginning, but I got used to it. I even enjoyed the harsh reality of it. The characters were building a back-story, things were interesting. It looked like the director could do no wrong.
But uh, the second half falls flat. It's like the second half of the show only exists to tear the first half apart and any sense of understanding you thought you had about the show is now gone. Honestly, it feels like I wasted my time. Which is what frustrates me the most, because the second half of the show ensures that you cannot enjoy or appreciate any connection that you built up from the first 5-6 episodes.
In short, it's like the story was going too good, so someone hit the self-destruct button, and then kept filming. And throwing in weirder and weirder scenes as in an attempt to justify their bad choices for the plot.
It's not artistic or unique to destroy a story that has been built. It's just sad. Too bad that the creators of this show didn't see the potential of their own creation, and instead decided to wreck it and make the last 3 episodes feel like hollow jokes of everything else.
Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)
Nothing about this film is good.
Let's get one thing straight. This movie is NOT brilliant, its NOT entertaining, it's NOT funny, and it's most certainly NOT good in any shape, way, or form.
The best part of this film is the first 10 minutes. It goes pretty steadily downhill from there. The acting is WOODEN. No, not just one single actor is bad at acting, they're all bad, well except maybe the main character's wife. I don't know if it's intended to be bad or some sort of "statement" against good acting, writing, and the practice of making a watchable film at all. But the whole movie feels like a junior high play. So if that was the intention of this, congratulations, you have done an excellent job at making a trash movie.
I'm either not watching the same movie as everyone else who wrote extremely positive reviews. Or they're all giving it good reviews as an inside joke. This is so bad that it makes the 80s action flicks from stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Vin Diesel look like a first-rate show on Broadway.
Now let's discuss the fight scenes. They may have been cutting edge in the silent movie era where sounds needed to be added in, action needed to be slowed down, and effects exaggerated for the audience. But for a movie made recently they're terrible. A blind cripple could fight better than the Vince Vaughn and pretty much everyone else.
Oh, and if anyone cared about set accuracy and realistic portray of the prison system, this movie set would fit better in something from the medieval era rather than the 21st century.
The ONLY way to enjoy this movie is to watch it for the humor of how bad it is. At least that's what I had to do to be able to finish this torture.
Right at Your Door (2006)
An interesting idea that starts out lame and gets worse.
The whole premise of the movie has to do with a bunch of "dirty bombs" that blow up in the city. Somehow during the entire time no one mentions how many people are dying, the media only puts out information that is useless and causes mass panic.
Somehow all of the critical parts of the city still work, electricity, water etc. So really all you need to do is have enough supplies and you can just stay at home and wait.
_______________________________________________________
- Warning - below this point my review will contain spoilers.
Somehow Brad's wife shows up and other than seeming scared and dirty, is completely fine. This dirty bomb did pretty much nothing to her, and that's how the movie goes all the way to the end.
In fact, one of the most amazing things about this entire movie is that we can see this thick layer of ash coating everything, which should be destroying people's lungs almost immediately due to it being so thick in the air and on the ground. Yet everyone is fine. Oh, and everyone can drive their vehicles around just fine too, because somehow all of this ash isn't getting into the engine and destroying it all. Helicopters are flying through these clouds of ash with no issues at all while they suck in tons of the ash through their engines either.
So this whole situation is happening with ash being everywhere, along with a potential neurotoxin that is in the ashes somehow floating around too, and no one is concerned at all. No one is putting on masks or trying to put together a makeshift suit to protect themselves, nope, they just breathe it all in. Fantastic. No one seemed concerned about supplies like food and water at all during the movie, pretty much no thought was put in at all about potential problems for surviving any longer than the next hour or two.
The main thing that this movie did well is portray how stupid people get under stressful situations and how everyone makes irrational and bad decisions. That's pretty much it, none of the characters felt like they had any more that surface emotions. No one ever thought about anything or used any kind of real problem solving to make their situation better.
Oh, and the main that thing that made the movie incredibly bad in the end? The whole plot twist idea. Yep, somehow the inside of the house that has been sealed up the entire time (except for maybe 20 seconds) is now extremely toxic. The "authorities" (which are basically guys in old camo and trash bags - are these supposed to represent Hazmat/Mop suits?) were able to determine this from a tiny little simple of ash that was put in a bag. There was no air sample. No samples at all from Brad, who is now considered to be extremely dangerous. Brad didn't show any kind of symptoms that made it look like he was sick at all - he definitely wasn't coughing up blood and short of breathe like his wife was. In fact he looked like the picture of health aside from being sweaty.
So what's the solution to this situation? Oh, lets kill the main character with lethal gas because he's now a "carrier". Because apparently killing all potential carriers who show no symptoms of being sick while being exposed to a toxin is how we solve the problem. (Hmmmm I guess people who don't get sick can't be considered potentially immune at all.) The whole idea is absurd, it's one of the worst "plot twists" I've ever seen, it's like the directer read the script, decided that is was too boring. Newsflash - it is, and this director came up with this fantastic idea to make the last 5 minutes of the film a WTF? moment to make up for the first 90 minutes being a disappointment.
So instead of being a slow and boring film it's now a slow and boring film with a bad ending. Congrats. Excellent idea for a movie, terrible execution all around.
Oloibiri (2015)
You'll enjoy this if you have no brain
The main problem with this movie is its a bad movie that tries to be serious and absolutely fails.
This entire movie is absolutely terrible. Bad acting, and absolutely terrible action. The idea isn't too bad, but it's written terribly.
As far as the action scenes go, this goes back to terrible sequences from old movies where someone gets shot 10 times before they die in a prolonged 30 second scene, it's funny in Austin Powers because it's supposed to be funny, it's not funny in this. This movie is like ordering a burger from a dollar menu and being slapped in the face with reality when you realize that $1 doesn't get you much.
Blood Country (2017)
Should be titled "nothing happens in blood country".
This movie could have been good. The shots are beautiful, clothing and sets are convincing. The actors themselves are pretty convincing. But that's pretty much the best part of the entire movie. This movie suffers (and by that I mean is crippled) by the writing.
I still don't know what the story was supposed to be. Nothing ever gets concluded. This is a movie about a family fued that turned violent with almost no fued or violence at all. Honestly after the first 10 minutes you have seen the majority of the action in the movie. Also, there's tons of questions and open ended storyline. We have a murder that doesn't seem to fit right, like it almost feels like it could have veeb a frame job, an alleged murderer who doesn't act guilty. Multiple character paths that cross and trail off to nowhere. It's honestly just a huge mess and leaves you with more questions and very little understanding of what, happened.
None of the characters ever share feelings or act emotional at all except for a few seconds. This whole thing feels like a news article that got the outline of a story and never went deeper. There are so many scenes where it feels like we as the viewers missed out on something that happened, because we never see what motives the actions of the characters.
Honestly nothing hardly ever happens in this movie.You have a bunch of scenes where the characters don't do much, have a short conversation in which nothing happens, and then moves on to the next scene with the same thing. I was really hoping that there would be some sort of conclusion after the shootout and subsequent second arrest, (what I assume was supposed to be the rising action right before the climax of the film). But honestly, it fell flat and nothing at all was concluded.
Honestly, I'm irritated and frustrated that I wasted 2 hours watching a movie that somehow got awards, and I came out understanding less about the movie than I did when I went in after reading the short summary about it. Most westerns are really good at coming up with conclusions and wrapping up the story, or at the very least they have some nice shootouts, this doesn't ha e any of that. I'm considering looking for the book this was based on just so I can understand what actually happened.
Dogman (2018)
I don't know why I ever added this to my watchlist. Do not recommend.
Ok, so I added this to my watch-list a long time ago. Got the opportunity to watch it, and I'm honestly really disappointed. Some other reviews say this is a brilliant drama, but I think of it as a massive waste of 1 hour and 40 something minutes of my time.
The only likable feature about the main character is that he's good with dogs. That's it. He has no other redeeming qualities that make this movie and enjoyable watch. I honestly feel very let-down. I kept waiting for him to develop as a person, to become something more, but nope. He's just a pushover weasel-like person that never actually does anything. He only makes choices that allow him to keep breathing, that's it.
I completely understand that this character is not someone who is physically capable of facing the situation he is in, even when he is responsible for that situation. But seriously, he is given chances multiple times to solve his problem, and he simply won't do it. Even the dogs that he cares for are smart enough to take care of themselves, but not this guy.
Black Summer (2019)
Setting and atmosphere 10/10, characters and common sense 0/10
This show was pretty refreshing, and I really enjoyed it at first, just like I enjoyed The Walking Dead when it came out. Then, just like how TWD got really stupid after 4-5 seasons, this got really stupid after a couple of episodes.
The setting, scenery, camerawork, and atmosphere are extremely well done in this show, in fact downright amazing. The chaos feels good, no one understands what is going on, and that's great. That's how it should be, this is an apocalyptic show after all. I actually really like how nothing every goes according to plan in this show, because honestly I don't think things would ever go according to plan when everything is crumbling, everyone has conflicting interests, and people will try to take advantage of others.
But wow, I honestly didn't think it was possible for characters to ever be made look so extremely stupid in a show or movie. This show has by far the dumbest characters I've EVER seen. It's like somehow they have no sense of suitability or priorities all of the sudden, after the first 4 episodes the characters lose any kind of common sense.
Warning - after this point I will have to drop a few spoilers to mention some things I don't like.
I think the turning point of this show shows up right after everyone escapes from the school. As soon as the characters get a chance to breathe, they lose common sense. With the exception of Sun no one focuses on gathering food/water/weapons or anything else that you would want to survive. I did not once see anyone filling a backpack with anything necessary to survive longer than a few hours.
Also, beyond that, everyone makes incredibly stupid decisions. Like ramming the back of the truck with the van, which made no sense when they're trying to escape, and its impossible to do any damage to a truck by ramming it with the most fragile part of an already fragile vehicle. Then the weird "raid" compound episode. Where everyone has this well coordinated plan to steal weapons, (oh and only weapons - dont worry about ammo at all, its not important) and then all of the sudden the girl goes and stabs someone, and as a result gets several hundred people killed/infected. WTF.
I'm not even going to start on the stupidity of prioritizing weapons and no ammo, and how everyone instantly knows how to handle weapons that they have never touched or fired before.
In conclusion: this show could honestly have been downright amazing. If it weren't for some of the dumbest writing I've ever seen. Black Summer has everything going for it, except for the one part that extremely flawed. This entire show is like a well-built race car, with a driver who's never been on a racetrack or even driven anything faster than a minivan.
The First Purge (2018)
Gotta turn off your brain for this one.
If you really want something with a plotline that you can enjoy, this really isn't it. There are lots of semi-cool action and chaos scenes, which is pretty normal for a Purge movie. But there just isn't any believable backstory or logic to this one.
This is basically an 80's flick in 2018, lots of over-the-top guns and explosions, some weird slow-mo gun-foo moments. Semi-decent acting, and a ridiculous plotline. If you really want a good shooter movie you would be much better off with any number of war movies or cop movies.
My main overall complaint is that this film just feels shallow. There are some sorta-scary and interesting moments at the beginning. But then it just turns into a giant, unbelievable shoot-out in the last quarter of the movie, the finale is hilariously bad.
The Man from Earth: Holocene (2017)
Do not recommend, nothing like the original.
This movie is everything that the original was not - and that's not a good thing. The entire plot of this movie is dumb. That's all I can say for it.
The original movie interested me, it caused me to think about the world, think about history, about the possibility that the premise of a 14,000 year-old human.
This movie brings pretty much nothing to the table except for the original character. Everything else about this movie feels like some crappy plot from a low-budget detective tv-movie gone wrong. It insults the beauty of the original movie, it insults the viewer. More unoriginal and terrible cliches could not be written into this script, yes, it's that bad.
Do yourself a favor. Save two hours of your time and read a history book.
The Man from Earth (2007)
One of the most thought-provoking movies I've watched.
This movie is way better than I expected. It is told in a very relaxed way, but also told very intelligently. In no way does this insult the viewer by making things seem really dumb and obvious, it will challenge the way you think about the world - even if it is only a movie.
I would highly recommend this movie if you enjoy movies that make you think, and movies that make you want to learn more. Rather than a movie where the plot is spoon-fed to you and has lots of explosions.
The Titan (2018)
Honestly? It's like two different movies.
I dont know how to describe this movie. The beginning is interesting, the scenes are well shot, visuals are interesting. All of this applies to this movie. Until about halfway. Then things start getting really stupid.
At the halfway point the director seems to suddenly hit every cliche that has been established. Stupid scenes of people dying? Got it. Stupid scenes of an "evolved species"? Got it. Stupid rebellion and escape scene? Got it. Stupid scene where main characters trick the "bad guy"? Got it. Extremely ridiculous ending? Got it. By the way, lets throw in a random "super power" that we got people to somehow gain by evolving right at the ending. Yup, got that too.
Honestly, it's like two different people wrote the script, and neither of them talked to each other. One thought the movie was going to build up to something meaningful, so he wrote the first half. The other guy thought he was remaking Predator/Rambo/Superman, and he wrote the second half.