Reviews

The premise to Rammbock is okay, but the main protagonist is, as others have mentioned, very annoying. That's mostly due to his obsession with his ex, who he spends most of the movie pining over, even when it becomes clear that she has already moved on. The other characters, such as the young boy, are easier to relate to and more likeable.

The storyline wasn't very different from the usual zombie fare, although it has a somewhat unique ending. There are a couple of scenes with enough tension to keep the viewer interested and rooting for the characters, which is why I kept watching it. But overall, I was glad it was only an hour-long film.

Aside from the main protagonist, my major gripe is how no one makes any attempt to, or seems concerned about, saving the pet rabbit, and the viewer never finds out what happens to it. Very disturbing for animal lovers. I really don't like movies that treat pets like a prop that can just be left behind without concern. If you add a pet to the film, at least let the viewer know what happens to it, and make its owners (or someone, anyone) show some concern. Movies like The Birds and Dawn of the Dead 2004 got this right.

I give it two stars. It would be one star, but the young boy character was engaging enough to bump it up another star. I would advise to avoid this film unless you're one of those people that want to see every zombie movie out there.

I'm giving this two stars, instead of one, only because I thought the very beginning and ending were decent. Everything else was slow, uninteresting, and illogical. There is very little suspense or action of any kind, and it's one of the worst zombie films I have ever seen. I will summarize it to save you the time of watching it. *** Spoilers to follow.

The protagonist (Sam) goes to pick up his tapes at his ex girlfriend's apartment, and falls asleep before leaving. I thought this part was fairly good. He notices a closed door someone is banging on, which is likely the start of the apocalypse, and it got me hopeful that the movie might be okay. After that, he sleeps through all of Paris being attacked and (mostly) killed, which seems highly unlikely, as there would be a lot of noise. This is where the logic completely disappears, and the rest of the movie gets worse.

Basic things that anyone in his position would do, just never happen. Sam makes no attempt to get news on a phone, TV, or radio, or to call for help. Was it edited out, or are we to assume he did try? Either way, something that obvious should have been shown. He also makes no attempt to plan an escape, or to contact people, or to have an emergency bag on hand in case he has to run. He monitors his food and water, so he knows it will eventually run out, but he makes no plans to leave. None of this makes sense.

Instead, Sam just cleans, scavenges the building's apartments, mopes around, plays music (a lot), and talks to the zombie trapped in the elevator. These scenes are shown in excruciating, boring detail. Eventually, he starts going crazy and hallucinating.

The worse scene is when he kills an innocent cat that wants to be left alone, and that's where the annoying/stupid protagonist becomes completely unlikeable. The next worse scene is when he accidentally kills the one person that makes it into the building by rappelling to the roof. He just assumed she was a zombie when she made a noise outside his door. He hallucinates that she survived, and they spend some time together (including playing more music!), but eventually realizes she was dead the whole time.

After setting his zombie "friend" loose to return to his apartment, Sam burns his cassette tapes, which causes a fire and sets off an alarm. He has to leave by rappelling to the next building, because the zombies force their way in. Then we have the end that I actually like, because the final scene shows a view of all the rooftops in the outskirts of the city leading to the inner city/skyscrapers. It gives some hope that he may be able to survive by moving from roof to roof and eventually find some people who also survived. But, by this point, I don't care if he survives; I just hope that there are others who did.

My final complaint with this no-action film is that the zombies don't make any vocal sounds. Are their vocal cords somehow destroyed, while everything else seems to still function? Again, this makes no sense, and it also makes the zombies less threatening. But, it does fit with how you are meant to sympathize with the zombie Sam "befriends." That's right; you're supposed to feel sorry for the zombies.

If you want to watch a good film of this type that at least has action and is more believable, try the Korean film "Alive" (2020). It's much better than this one.

Spoilers to follow!

I don't understand why this movie has such a high rating. This is not an interesting or exciting sequel to the first movie. I only made it halfway through, to where the first "twist" was revealed. I, and probably every other viewer, had already figured this out about 10 minutes in. I couldn't take any more of the boring, pretentious script, and slow scenes punctuated with overly dramatic music.

This film depicts humans as responsible for destroying the planet, and yet they are also considered "better" than the robots, which should be hunted down, even if they are just living their life and not harming anyone? And why aren't the humans smart enough to make robots that won't go rogue? It makes no logical sense, and it's hard to understand the robot obsession with human-style birth as being the ultimate form of creation, when humans are depicted so badly.

I read online what happens in the rest of the movie, and it doesn't get any better. A dull, pointless ending to a dull, pointless film. For those who care, there is also gratuitous nudity and violence.

The acting and production values are good, but I can't give this film more than 1 star.

There are some spoilers in this review!

I watch a lot of dinosaur movies, because they're my favorite subject, and I also enjoy a good B-movie. Unfortunately, this movie is neither a good dinosaur movie, nor a good B-movie.

The main problem is the script. The CGI dinosaurs aren't the best, but I've seen worse, and I thought they were convincing enough. And, there were some cool scenes of dinos doing things I haven't seen before, like jumping at helicopters. So,the CGI isn't my main complaint. Although, it did look like they reused some dino footage more than once, which was funny.

The worst parts of the story are the plot holes and people doing stupid, unbelievable things just to set up a scene. I didn't buy the main storyline and a lot of what happened afterwards. Really, the reporter makes the helicopter pilot keep going lower toward the dino, which is clearly extremely dangerous? Are reporters that stupid? They can't see enough from where they are? Or, a senior-aged Treat Williams jumps way too far from a building to grab onto a helicopter, and can hang on with one hand and hold onto his daughter with the other (after she performs the same jump)? Dropped storylines are also an issue; I still don't know what happened to a couple of the main characters at the end. Did I miss it, was something edited out, or was it just dropped?

It's sad to me that top-notch actors like Treat Williams and Ronny Cox are in this mess of a movie. They clearly did what they could to make it work, but their acting can't fix the bad script. I give it 2.0 stars on a B-movie scale that doesn't include blockbusters. 1 star for the dinos and 1 star for Treat and Ronny at least trying; 0 stars for the script. There is gore and violence, and it's not suited for young children.

There are spoilers in this review!

2012 is a high-budget Hollywood blockbuster with an all-star cast that had great potential, but is destroyed by the terrible storyline and script. To begin with, you have to accept a really implausible cause for the worldwide disaster, but I'm okay with that part, since it's a disaster movie; the main problem is the storyline and bad script that follow.

The storyline is riddled with clichés, 2-dimensional characters, plot holes, and predictable outcomes. For instance, there are cellphones that still work when there should be no infrastructure left, and situations that conveniently change just in time to help the protagonists. The special effects are great, of course, but are rendered ineffective by the unbelievable way the main characters escape, over and over again, from certain death. After seeing them escape multiple times, I eventually stopped being concerned. Of course, the people around them die quickly, as would be expected in these scenarios, and this only shows how ridiculous it is for them to always survive. For the most part, it's obvious ahead of time who will live (the "good" guys) and who will die (the "bad" guys or "sort of bad" guys). Some storylines are left incomplete, such as when one of the main (likeable) characters dies, and the family of protagonists don't even mention her death. They even end up with her dog, who she made sure to save before herself, but still no mention that it was sad/unfortunate that she died, or that her dog misses her, etc. I'm not sure if that was bad editing or scripting, but it makes no sense in the movie. There is also no explanation of whether the wild animals taken on board the ship (to maintain the species) survived or drowned.

The actors overall are (surprisingly) convincing, but there are times when they all seem to struggle with the poor script. The only scripting that seems realistic to me is the relationship between the kids and their dad (John Cusack), especially with the adolescent boy. The other relationships/characters in the movie follow the usual Hollywood formulas: divorced wife he still loves, new boyfriend she doesn't really love and is kind of a jerk (but improves as a person before he dies), crazy conspiracy theorist who is really right about everything after all, estranged parents and children who try to re-connect too late, etc.

The movie seems to drag on way too long, despite the non-stop action. It could have been a good movie, if they had spent less money on CGI and more on the script; as it is, I can only give it two stars for the special effects, for having a fairly diverse cast of good actors, and for the kids/dad relationship. John Cusack gives a strong performance as the main lead, but even he can't save this movie.