Reviews

So this is presented as by the Asylum, but I believe it's actually done by another firm (Acme Holdings, or something, it's not clear to me who actually made the film.) But no matter, this is something Hollywood should be doing: Making movies fun again.

Cheesy? Mountains of it.

Low budget? Only the lowest.

Amateur acting? Sort of, it's not top notice but you could tell it was a labour of love and Ramses especially was having a great deal of fun with his part. They all did really, Dracula being reserved and mysterious, the Invisible Man drawing heavy inspiration from his counterpart in the Doom Squad. The Wolfman didn't have as much screen time as I would have liked to see, but he did well with what little he had. Indeed the only naff acting was from Dr. Frankenstein, the actor playing him was kind of going through the motions, which is kind of a shame as I am given to understand he has done much better in the past.

No matter, the plot is straightforward and there is little in the way of twists and turns, but all...err...mashed together, and you a fun little film that the big production houses could learn a thing or two from.

Definitely one for the group watch.

Equals total fiction. And yes, at the end of the film the filmmakers admit as much, but as someone who is intimately familiar with the events surrounding the creation and racing of the Legendary Lancia 037, this film does it a grave disservice.

There is neither enough tension in the film, enough bystanders (indeed, WRC events are packed to the brim with spectators coming from all over the world) or enough of the cars themselves but more importantly, there simply isn't enough detail about the courses.

The history of the '83 WRC is rather glossed over in favour of interpersonal drama which was carried off in a rather hamfisted way.

The director and writing team had so much nailbiting material to work with and their results were just....mediocre. Watch the documentaries on YouTube instead.

I will try to be spoiler free, but the TL;DR opinion is it's terrible. Lots of great ideas on an individual basis, but all mashed together into an incomprehensible mess.

The trailer looked downright interesting. A mercenary team hired to pull an extraction from an island reserved for the rich and shameless.

So far, so good, a bit of a mystery backstory why a late addition to the team shows up, but no worries, adds to the intrigue.

Once they get to the island, everything starts falling apart. They are assaulted by some kind of white noise generator that causes them to bleed out of their ears and behave erratically.

There is hints in the film this might be the work of a hostile gov't or possibly ETs. All kinds of hooks and ideas. Again, so far, so good. Acting is acceptable, lighting is good to "interesting" (a fair overuse of gel filters and saturation cranked up to 11...but it's possible it was on purpose to simulate mental breakdown) but the CGI where used (sparingly, thankfully) was truly wretched.

Unfortunately the build-up of the mystery is thrown away in a rush to reach the end where the director and/or writer ran out of ideas and money in a truly dreadful and nonsensical way.

Quite the shame really, a lot of the ideas, taken separately held promise, but somewhere along the line (about 40 minutes into the film) the whole thing fell totally apart.

Skip it, it's dreadful. 3/10 at best.

The 2017 TV series "Blood Drive" did it better. It was ore over the top, more humor, better characters, etc. TM wants to be funny, but can't go all the way. It wants to be a human interest story, but few of the characters are likable. The world isn't properly fleshed out and too much doesn't make sense. On one hand, it's post apocalyptic, on the other, lights, neon, air conditioning and hot dogs. Maybe it's trying to make a point about class warfare and the haves vs the have nots, but I'm not entirely convinced that what it is attempting. The series starts off strong, and closes pretty well with Ep 7-9, but 10 is filler, as is everything else.

I get it's difficult to translate a video game to the big screen (I'm looking at you Resident Evil) but this....this is just mediocre. It's been done before and better, way better.

4/10 at best.

Or the smarts, looks, budget, attitude, direction or casting.

I knew going in it was a rip-off (and not a homage, but a rip-off) of Bladerunner. I was looking for something in that vein anyway, but this...this did not deliver on any level.

Guy Ritchie sleepwalks through this film, never changing his tone or expression. It was a weekend gig at a fan-fic film for all the effort he put in to it.

The other actors put minimal effort in as well, with the main "Replicant" trying her best but really wasn't given anything to work with, and certainly no direction from the crew, so she was left to do her best and frankly, failed pretty badly.

The plot is nothing to write home about, virtually no action whatsoever, just a lot of talking heads and sparse set pieces, which was made worse by the dire lack of budget. It really looked like a high school-level attempt to duplicate Bladerunner without the slightest idea of what made BR actually work. The world didn't feel real, and certainly not alive or lived-in, like in Bladerunner.

A terrible waste of time and talent. Better luck next time.

Standard zombie outbreak, throw in some basic inter-personal tension, and wander around aimlessly for over two hours.

It's been done a thousand times before, and a lot better too. Take the original 4 Romeo movies (night, dawn, day, land) and cherry pick bits from those, throw them in a mixer and you have this film.

The main character alternates between being an idiot, a dullard, and stumble-bum. I have never seen a film where the main character falls so bloody often. It's irritating and eventually got to be farcical.

The other big issue was this film telegraphed every upcoming scene. If you've seen the aforementioned Romero films, then you know what was coming minutes in advance, and because of *that* this move lacked any tension whatsoever.

This was hard to find in 2023, and probably with good reason. Stay away folks, unless you need a cure for insomnia.

I saw it on opening night (a Friday) with some friends. We are all pen and paper role-players and some of my crew were looking forward to seeing this. The theatre was half filled and seemed to be of like-minded folks.

Come Saturday morning, I'd forgotten I'd seen the film. It's possible it just wasn't for me, but I'll give you a neutral review so you can decide for yourself.

For starters, tonal whiplash. The film can't decide if it wants to be a comedy, a serious film, a love story, or a mystery. Thus, it does all four.

And badly I might add. It's also too long and simultaneously not long enough.

Case in point: The players...err...Heroes must track down a long lost ancient artifact. "Oh, I know where it is!" says one Hero.

Well now, that was easy.

Oh sure, they still have to go get it, but if something is long lost and super powerful and that easily found, don't you think others might have found it already? That entire scene of finding out where said ancient artifact is, takes maybe 15 minutes and is largely played for laughs.

That scene should (or could) have taken far longer and been fraught with puzzles, lore and danger. This is what I meant by being not long enough.

The too long part comes at the 3rd+ act (it really felt like a fouth act in a three-part film) that really felt tacked on, and quite rushed, and reeked of cribbing the Avengers film.

The casting was well done, the SFX were....serviceable for a B-grade indie film (shame this was a major-production) and the plot was acceptable, but nothing really fit together properly.

I rather hoped the film would have been good, but weaving through multiple themes ruined it for me.

Let me explain that one, in case it isn't clear: Star Wars has a huge galaxy and thousands of worlds and races to work with, and yet the same half dozen characters keep getting trotted out film after film. It's dreadfully dull. You've got an entire galaxy to work it, use it!

Likewise here with Picard (have only started watching Season 3 because I heard it was an improvement over 1 and 2) they bring back all the old gang and they just look....old and tired.

Yeah Patrick Stewart is. 83, so I get it, but everyone else they've brought back so far seem far older than their years and going through the motions. Only Franks seems to be enjoying the role again, everyone else acts like they are in it only for a paycheck.

Ok, so bad acting aside, how's the plot? Well...it certain is a soap opera set in space. Everyone is full of drama and doubt and of course has some kind of ulterior motive. The writers are trying to do some kind of "Dark Trek" and make it gritty and noir but honestly it's not working. Sure the TOS and NG were all shiny happy people and that needed some moderation but "Emo Trek" is not working..dial it back a bit guys.

Only three episodes in, but I'm not sure I'll last many more. Sorry gang, better luck next time.

And that's all this movie gets. I am a fan of the original novella, so changing the Cenobites doesn't bother me, in fact I'd argue they are more true to the novella than the following films, however the supporting cast (aka the humans in the film) are very poorly written. They are so unlikable as to have come straight from an 80s teen slasher film. Constantly doing dumb things, yelling at each other incessantly to the point of nausea on the viewer's part.

The plot doesn't even follow canon though it does expand (a little) the backstory to the purpose of the box, so that's a plus, but taking away that plus is the way the characters are written. The lead Cenobite has no gravitas and I suppose that's what you get when you hire just anyone for the role, rather than finding a person right for the role. Look at what Doug Bradley brought to the role and compare to the lifeless version in this film and you will see what I mean.

The lighting, cinematography and music is okay but those things will not carry a film that is void of soul and to add further insult, there are jump scares galore in this film. Not that they are scary, more trite and droll, and the plot twists could be seen coming a mile away, as for that matter, are the actions of the main characters. I was two steps ahead of the film the entire time, and that's not a good thing.

Skip this film entirely, it's a waste of time and money.

Many of the reviews of this film are coming from a political view. While the film is political in nature (or at least the backdrop setting of the film is) one should judge the film on the plot, pacing, actors and so forth.

All films have issues, and this one is no different. The "villains" of the film are put together in a reasonably logical way, (I won't delve into spoilers for anything, the plot synopsis of the film should give you enough clues as to the overarching plot) so instead I will focus on the flaws of the central characters.

That is, the two couples, and the two outsiders. The film uses micro-flashbacks to get a sense of the characters and it's both overused, and underutilized.

Overused insofar as even until the end of the film, the writers are still using these flashbacks to develop the characters and in the case of the medical intern, really should have been placed more towards the beginning of the film, but at the same time, the "reveal" (so to speak) about said intern's motivations would have been spoiled, or at least blunted, had the flashbacks come sooner in the film.

Disappointing, but I can see why it was done in the way it was. Nonetheless, they are underutilized as they could have fleshed out the world (or character motivations) far more than what was presented on the screen.

So, writing is uneven, but not a dealbreaker.

Directing was pretty well done, no glaring amateur errors that I could see. The cinematography was serviceable but relied a bit too much on close-ups for my liking.

The overall plot was pretty good I felt. No cheap twists, no Hollywood forced happy endings, only a natural progression in plot from the position the characters are thrust into, so score one for that.

The music score was a little too brash in places (especially towards the end scenes) for my taste, but it was largely serviceable.

Amusingly, this film is a sort of counterpoint to the 2020 film "The Hunt" which is currently sitting at a (overrated IMO) 6.5 whereas this film is running a 2.1, which is underrated.

If you can set your political views aside, you will find a tight little thriller worth a 7 out of 10.

Overall, not a bad little Weird War 2 film, in the same genre as The Bunker, Frankenstein's Army, Ghost of War, Blood Vessel, The Devil's Rock, etc. This one held much promise, but fell down in certain key areas: Most notably, the runtime was too short for the ideas it presented. A slow buildup of the twists and turns and who knew what, would have set the pacing and tone of the film better. The actors (Mickey Rourke aside, he was a bad casting choice here) did their best with what they had, but the film needed to flesh them out more, to give a better sense of their actions and so forth.

The special effects/location work was very well done for a modest film such as this, but there were a few scenes that needed better lighting so we could see what the characters were doing.

Unlike the aforementioned Blood Vessel the characters here were likable and it would have been nice to know just a bit more about them as the movie progressed.

6/10, a nice little surprise for those into Weird War films.

The film is very much a Stockholm Syndrome affair. I hated it the first time I watched it for all the reasons that have been listed before. Awkward pacing, forced humor, illogical actions by all the characters involved, inane dialogue and so forth.

But I really wanted to like the film, so I watched it again.

And again.

And again.

And after multiple watchings, catching the nuances and all the little details, I can say with confidence that my initial rating of a 1 was uncalled for.

It's at best a 2.

So, lots of neon soaked streets (that we get to see again, and again, and again and again...seriously, it's like they budgeted for three set pieces and were determined to get the most out of them) stylish "over the city" aerial shots (which are used way too much) one fancy car, and little else.

The plot starts off interesting, but as it progresses it gets more and more nonsensical ending up in a "twist" (that you could see coming a mile away) that made *zero* sense if you devoted more than two brain cells to thinking about it.

The characters, aside from possibly the main character, were really bizarrely written, the actions of the two cops, for example, well cops just don't behave that way. Security guards don't behave that way, CIA doesn't behave that way, I feel the director has never read a history book on the characters he was creating, and it really ruined the enjoyment of the film, because at heart, it was a neat premise.

Then just watch this film. I haven't seen cinematography this bad since "Underwater." Everything is filmed in SuperCloseUpVision (tm) with such a shallow depth of field to the camera lens that everything was out of focus. I wear glasses and have pretty bad eyesight without them, I kept thinking I was watching this movie without wearing said glasses, it gave me a headache trying to focus on the characters, before I realized that was just the way it was filmed (seriously, go watch the trailers, you'll see what I mean.) In addition, the entire film is a rip-off of Aliens, almost scene for scene.

Waste of 2.5 hours. Skip it gang.

I feel (from what little Russian I speak) the translation is pretty accurate here, which is a shame because this movie makes little sense. One one hand, you have high tech Moscow, with very clear nods to Blade Runner, and on the other hand the Military is still using 1960s BTR-60s (8 wheeled APCs). It's possible the director was attempting to make a subtle jab at the Russian gov't today, with the haves and have nots, but I"m not convinced this is accurate.

The plot is the major downfall here, with long-winded exposition dumps at every turn. The director seems not to have heard the phrase "show, don't tell" as some of the exposition is vomited forth for minutes at a time, and seemingly go on forever. Worse still, the central plot point is laughably nonsensical.

Very few of the characters show any emotion whatsoever, and again, it's possible they were going for the deep stoic look, the worn out soldier just trudging through his job, but it's not properly portrayed as such so the acting comes off at stilted, wooden, flat.

Much of the military tactics used in the film were also a matter of form over function, and even non-military watchers can see where certain scenes were set up to look cool, as opposed to being logical, this too, detracts from the film.

There are a few subplots that could have been trimmed from the runtime to tighten up the film (clocking in at over 2 hours) but like the last big action film from Russia, The Guardians, they seem to think more is better, and that's not the case.

As others have stated, it's a quarantine watch, little more. There is a kernel of an interesting film buried within the 2+ hours, but like the Phantom Menace, it could have done with an Phantom Edit.

You are not missing anything by not seeing this.

This film could have been an interesting take on the monster movie genre, but so much of this movie was filmed with a macro lens that all you see are bubble heads, and nothing of the surrounding areas, set pieces, creatures, lighting effects, and so forth.

And that's a shame really. I understand they were trying to go for a claustrophobic feel, but Alien (the movie) did that way better without resorting to super-duper-mega-close-ups all the darn time.

3/10...at best.

For those of you who are unaware of what a "Phantom Edit" treatment is, allow me to inform you.

Years ago, when the full horror of Jar Jar Binks was unleashed unto this world, via "The Phantom Menace", one brave soul sacrificed his sanity and made a fan-edit that involved the removal of all the scenes (where possible I am told) involving Jar Jar Binks.

I am given to understand the edit improved the film, but there was only so much you could do with the dreck to begin with. The same goes for this film. Edit out most of the scenes of the people, and their pathetic dialog (most of which are a mess of cliches) and pointless subplots, and concentrate on the monsters fighting.

Granted the film would only be 15 minutes long then, but it would be a massive improvement over the mess foisted upon the unsuspecting world that is "Godzilla: King of the Monsters"

Unfortunately, potential will not carry a film, simply because it never materialized in the first place. The Cenobites are depicted quite closely to what they were in the original short story that kicked off the franchise ("The Hellbound Heart" for those of you who didn't know.) They were always more than cheap serial killers spouting pithy lines.

So, score one for the idea being more faithful. Sadly, the rest of the film doesn't live up to said potential. The core plot (centering around the three detectives) held no surprises and could be figured out in about five minutes, maybe less.

The goings on behind the scenes with the Cenobites and the...."other" held far more promise and the last ~20 minutes of the film with the confrontation of all three groups was quite well done. The after credit scene, while amusing, didn't make much sense.

There was so much promise here and under the aegis of a better script could have really been something. I wonder if this is simply another place-holder film to keep the rights to the franchise, until something big name/budget can come about.

One can only hope. After all, they have such sights to show us.

There are a thousand (ahem) reviews for this movie, and the bad ones are spot on. Bad acting, boring/predictable plot, etc. All of this is true, but I'm going to tell you a different story. Luc Besson is supposed to have been a huge fan of the original series (as am I, I grew up reading them, and still own them) and when the trailer came out, I scratched my head. For starters, Lauraline is a redhead and Valerian is very tall. So that's strike one. The character's development and, well, "character" is off badly. Lauraline was a 14th century peasant girl that was rescued by Valerian on a mission, and they are more partners/co-workers than lovers. So that's strike two. The story here mirrors the book "Ambassador of the Shadows" and is reasonably faithful with the exception of all the things they changed around for reasons I can accept, but ultimately there are too many mis-cues, poor writing, badly acted scenes and so forth to make up for the visuals, and it tanks this film. I'm not trying to come off as a drooling fanboy slagging a film because it's not "true to the original" I'm slagging the film because it's a wretched mess and Luc Besson can do better.