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UFO Sweden (2022)
Complete garbage
Crazy Pictures, the people behind The Unthinkable are back with another example of how little they actually care about the craft of fimmaking. UFO Sweden is the big budget equivalent of when those cool guys you knew in high school made action packed short films that everybody thought was awesome. In fact, that's probably how these guys started, but when they got older they never realized what actually makes a good movie. This is all about cinematography and special effects. Not once during this production did somebody care about creating believable characters, writing a good script or directing actors. Undeveloped, adolescent crap. Don't waste your time.
Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018)
Maze Runner: The What Now?
Generic. Filler scenes. No story. Random events unfolding in random order. People looking out through windows. People looking towards the horizon. Somebody cries and then somebody says something heroic but entirely without meaning. People pointing guns at each other without actually intending to pull the trigger. Not a single word of original dialogue. Royalty free filmscore from Youtube. Underwritten love story and underwritten characters. Hollywood executives laughing on their way to the bank.
Forbidden Planet (1956)
A must-see
The term "classic" is so worn out that it hardly holds any meaning anymore, but I can't seem to find a better way to summarize this movie. Sure, there are some missed opportunities, some sloppy writing and some bad acting, but thematically and visually this is as good as they come.
The influence this movie has had on the evolution of science fiction films cannot be overestimated. The legacy can for example easily be spotted throughout the Star Trek franchise as well as in the works of other well known sci-fi writers and directors. The story of the investigation of a colony gone silent is a recurring sci-fi tale that has its origin here (or at least it was popularized here), and along with the ethical questions it raises Forbidden Planet really is a milestone. It even touches upon gender issues, although I'm unsure of how much of it that is intentional.
Story, themes and special effects are great! If you're a sci-fi fan this is an absolute must-see, and if you're not at least you can giggle away at Leslie Nielsen in a 50's space uniform.
The Happening (2008)
Embarrassing
The career of director/writer/producer Shyamalan is something of a mystery. Neither Signs or The Sixth Sense are bad movies - at least not in a way that makes you regret that you've spent the time watching them. But then there are those of his films that make you feel exactly like that, and it makes me wonder why this guy still gets to make movies. After Earth. The Visit. The Happening. How can someone go from good to incomprehensibly bad and still have the continued support from the industry? I guess his name for some reason still makes money.
The Happening is a B-movie, or at least it feels like it. The characters are incoherent and act and talk like they're in an exploitation movie from the seventies, and it's not done on purpose - like Machete-on purpose. Most of what comes out of Mark Wahlberg's mouth sounds weird, and his reactions are constantly disproportionate to the situation. He's not a favorite actor of mine but I have never experienced his acting this disjointed before so I'm guessing it's a directorial issue. Zooey Deschanel's performance doesn't sit right either, and the fact that the two characters are supposed to be married is simply laughable. There is no chemistry between them whatsoever.
If the acting and characterization is flawed, what about the story? Well, I do find the premise of the film somewhat intriguing. Unfortunately, it's presented in such a way that it comes off as highly improbable - almost as a joke. The awkwardness of any dialogue concerning the underlying cause of "the event" doesn't make things better. Because of the bad writing the attempts to scientifically explain the infection falls completely flat.
Thinking about watching The Happening? Don't. Watch the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers instead. Similar idea - much better movie. Heck, even the remake from 2007 will do.
Looper (2012)
Fight your present, face your past, forget your future..?
As always when it comes to time travel themed movies it inevitably raises a few questions regarding the applied theories, and I guess there are different ways to approach the matter. The way I see it there's the "Back to the Future way" which is sort of a tongue-in-cheek approach, and there's the "Terminator way" which is more of an absolute-truth approach. "Looper" does however try to move focus away from the time travel theory babble and instead concentrate on the storytelling. Normally I'd enjoy a story digging into the complexity and paradoxes of time travel, but in this case this strategy works to the movie's advantage, at least to some extent. It's like the movie makers are saying: "We're not supposed to understand this anyway
", so it's tempting to just leave it at that. I'm initially convinced of the theories' irrelevance.
The film's main character is Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who works for the mafia as a Looper. Loopers execute people sent back from the future by the mob, as a way of disposing people without detection. Joe is seemingly living an enjoyable life consisting of money, parties, girls, drugs, and some assassinations every now and then. The movie has a nice style to it. Music, editing and pace occasionally make it feel almost like a sixties or seventies movie, but in a smooth and not very obvious fashion. The narrator voice also gives it a noir touch which suits this story well, although as time progresses the movie goes through something of a transformation when it comes to tone and feel, and it doesn't quite end in the same manner it started.
I've lately grown fond of Joseph Gordon-Levitt as an actor, although this might not be his strongest performance so far. Casting in general is fine but not outstanding. Pierce Gagnon is however absolutely brilliant in his role, and I hope to see much more of him in the future.
Anyway, one day Joe find himself aiming a gun at his thirty years older counterpart and things take a turn for the worse. Young Joe (Gordon- Levitt) and old Joe (Bruce Willis) engage in pursuing different possible timelines, i.e. different possible eventualities. This is what I liked the most about the movie - the fact that the story is driven not by the standard good guy-bad guy dispute, but rather the conflict of interest between the two Joes, who essentially are one and the same person. It's exciting to think you know exactly what's going to happen because of old Joe's spent life and memories, and at the same time not knowing anything about forthcoming events because of young Joe's persistence to control his present life. Paradoxically this is also the biggest problem with "Looper". Since it avoids to establish some sort of rules of how time travel in the film's reality works, it's hard sometimes to understand why events play out the way they do, how the present affects the future, etc. I appreciate the different style of the movie and its attempt to uncomplicate the time travel business in favor of the story's depth, but I can't help but feeling this is also an attempt to cover up possible plot holes. When it comes down to it there are certain things you have to explain when making a movie of this sort, and you can't really get away from that. All in all this is an interesting story told in an unusual and inspiring way, but it partially fails to explain itself.
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
The Whatever of the Something
Ten years have passed story wise between "Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace" and "Episode 2 – Attack of the Clones". Anakin Skywalker is now somewhat successfully undergoing education at the Jedi Academy with Obi-Wan Kenobi as his mentor and master. Ten years have also passed since Anakin met Padmé Amidala the last time, and a while after they meet again they start to develop feelings for each other.
Hold on
Anakin and Padmé? If Anakin was supposed to be about ten years old in Episode 1, and Padmé at least sixteen given she was participating in battles waving a blaster around, and also looking very woman-like, that means that there's an age difference by a minimum of six years between the two. Neither one of them must've considered this to be a problem, which actually is kind of contradictory to Padmé's early on confession in this movie that she still views Anakin as a kid. I guess her feeling alone eventually made her forget all about that stuff. Another fact that points to this is that she falls for the guy in the first place. Anakin is portrayed as a completely unsympathetic, self- centered, obnoxious douche bag, and Padmé's feelings of loneliness must've been unbearable in order for her to engage in a relationship with him. Either that or she's just plain stupid. Because they are having a relationship, the dialogue tells us so, even though it's a relationship very detached from how love usually works in real life, and despite the total lack of chemistry between the characters as well as the actors (Portman and Christensen). Fact is, if the situation hadn't been explained to us in words and shown to us in embarrassingly bad "love scenes", Anakin and Padmé would've just come off as two very incompatible persons, one of which has got severe social difficulties.
The reason I'm going on about this love thing is because it's THE THEME OF THE MOVIE, but it's so badly executed it just doesn't hold any water, and thereby making the film collapse in on itself. It's poorly written, it's poorly directed, and the actors with any actual acting skills try their best to hold it together. Natalie Portman does under the circumstances a pretty good job. Hayden Christensen on the other hand is awful to the extent he should consider a career outside the movie industry.
Furthermore I believe Anakin's alleged melancholy to be incredibly forced, and the only explanation we get to his mental health problems is that he misses his mother. To me, that doesn't seem like a valid reason for being a total jerk. Is this mother business that much of a problem anyway? I mean, couldn't the Jedi council sometime over the past ten years have dispatched a couple of Jedi knights to bring Schmi Skywalker to Coruscant with them? I doubt that would've been very difficult.
There's also the part of the movie where Obi-Wan Kenobi investigates the whereabouts of a supposed clone army. In addition, there's for some reason an assassination attempt on Padmé connected to the bounty hunter Jango Fett, who in his turn is connected to the clones somehow. Much like in "The Phantom Menace", it's difficult to understand what really transpires, what people are doing and why. Once again things are illogical and people irrational, but even more so this time around. Once again I'm having trouble to account for the story, and ultimately I don't care about the not-so-much-of-a-secret of the clones, the forced fake love between Anakin and Padmé, or the pretty much uninteresting war involving the Jedis and the whatever. For some reason George Lucas felt the need to tell us these things, but instead of seizing the opportunity to create something memorable he just shoves it straight down the garbage chute.
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Is this a story that needs to be told?
When it was announced that three new Star Wars movies were to be made the world was absolutely thrilled. The queue to the box office stretched beyond the horizon. It had been 16 years since a Star Wars movie played in the theaters and expectations were through the roof. But when watching the original Star Wars trilogy, did we ever wonder that much about the history of the world in that galaxy far, far away? Were we really that interested in how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, and was it really that important to know all the details about the Jedi knights' engagements decades earlier?
"Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace" revolves around the two jedis Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, who through an unfortunate and improbable series of events find themselves stranded on the planet Tatooine along with some other people, where they for the first time meet the boy Anakin Skywalker. There's also the questionable story of the Trade Federation blockade of the planet Naboo which involves the evil Darth Sidious, who for some reason sends the almost as evil Darth Maul to assassinate queen Amidala of Naboo. I'm trying here to point out this movie's main problem. People's intentions and motives are often unclear and they don't get explained very well either. Events and circumstances that push the story forward seem implausible and highly unlikely most of the time. The story isn't dependent on the characters' accomplishments or their ability to solve problems, but merely on chance, which makes their qualities and personal traits unimportant, not that they were given any to begin with. Events seem to be detached ideas forced together to make out a coherent story line, and when the movie has ended it's actually quite difficult to account for what happened in it.
Much of the feel and atmosphere of the original Star Wars trilogy comes from the fact that we don't know exactly what happened in the past. Obi- Wan mentions something about the clone wars and Luke's father being a jedi knight, and that's it. That small glimpse of history is what creates all the mystique and excitement we need. Luke's story is that of a forgotten legacy. "The Phantom Menace" is the first step out of three to take away a little of that great feel and atmosphere of the original movies, and for that I am a bit angry. Nowadays I have to disregard the new movies to be able to watch the old ones the way they deserve to be watched. Also, in "The Phantom Menace" the mystique and excitement is replaced by a bland feeling, and the story of the forgotten legacy turns out to be completely uninteresting, which some of us already had suspected. What's the point in telling a story that everyone knows the outcome of, anyway? (Yeah, the guy gets corrupted by the dark side and eventually starts to dress in black, wear a helmet-mask-thing and breathe funny. We don't really care HOW or WHY because it's not important!) The story in Episode 1 is also told in a very bleak manner which makes me care even less than I first did. The characters lack depth, it's hard to understand why they say what they say, and why they do what they do. Things are illogical and people are irrational. The only thing that prevents this movie from being a complete catastrophe is the performance and credibility of Ewan McGregor, but unfortunately the history of Obi-Wan Kenobi isn't especially interesting either.
I had high hopes for the special effects in this one, but to me it seems that the special effects company Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) has gone from being absolute pioneers in creating unbelievable, yet extremely good looking and realistic effects on the screen, to just being lazy guys behind a computer. The reason I'm saying this is because it appears ILM is under the impression that they can computer-animate anything and make it look real. I'm sorry to say that that is far from the truth. CGI-shots are easy to spot, and a lot of it in this movie just doesn't look good, sometimes even cartoonish. I expected more. The sound quality and sound design, however, was great.
I also keep wondering what the target audience is. The slapstick humor delivered by Jar Jar Binks and the not-so-funny jokes presented by Anakin and his kid friends annoy the hell out of an adult audience, but the tactics and politics talk is way too boring and complex (and in this case, illogical) for a child to endure. Maybe the script is written by someone who has the reasoning of a child, is under the impression that he understands politics and warfare strategies but actually hasn't got a clue, and who doesn't know how to make an appealing movie for the intended audience. (I know George Lucas wrote it.)
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
The amazingly unnecessary Spider-Man reboot
Throughout this entire movie I had a very distinctive feeling I had seen something familiar just a while ago. Oh wait
I did. Only five years have passed since the last Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie premiered, and I simply do not understand why this Spidey reboot was made so soon. Nevertheless we get to watch Spider-Man climb walls, fight crooks, swing in nets between buildings in a supposed to be new and amazing motion picture. The problem is that none of this amazes me because it feels like I watched it only yesterday. I haven't had the time to get the hots or to build up any anticipation for a reincarnation of Marvel's spider. Neither have I accepted the fact that I never again will see Tobey Maguire in that red and blue spandex suit. Not enough time has gone by. Not even Peter Parker initially becoming Spider-Man and his conflicted feelings and inevitable problems due to this concerns me because, like I said, it feels like I watched this the other day. Sure, the story isn't all the same as previous screen adaptations of the comic book hero. We get the background story of Peter's parents, there's a new villain on the loose etcetera, but when you get down to it that's just a different setting to an already told story.
I like the Sam Raimi trilogy. It has the right balance between comic book and real life and the world presented to you feels quite realistic. The movies aren't exactly literary works of art, but compared to Mark Webb's "The Amazing Spider-Man" they've got considerable depth. In "The Amazing Spider-Man" everything feels flat, like a copy, like a bad cover band that just makes you want to see the original act. Furthermore, a lot of the dialogue seems off-pace, Andrew Garfield's neurotic way of acting makes me uneasy and pretty often I'm not sure what emotions the actors (mostly Garfield and Stone) are supposed to convey. This of course leads to some confusion regarding the characters' feelings for each other as well as their intentions. If this is a case of bad directing or bad acting I'm not sure. The movie is also edited into a higher-than-necessary pace. Almost every cut could easily be two seconds longer and almost every scene could easily be two minutes longer. A high tempo doesn't per se make a movie more exciting, it could just as well have the reverse effect.
So, was there nothing I liked about this movie? Sure there was. I liked how things where explained and made possible by the technical and scientific skills of Peter Parker's. Things like how he makes his suit, his net-throwing gadgets and so on. It ties in nicely with who he is as a person. I liked the witty punch lines when they weren't out of pace. I also liked Stan Lee's cameo, which was unusually elaborate.
At the beginning of the film the background story of Peter Parker's parents takes up a lot of time. I first thought that this was an interesting approach to a new Spidey movie but soon realized that it was just an excuse to get Peter in touch with Oscorp and Curt Connors. The fate of his parents is actually irrelevant to the Peter Parker/Spider- Man character since what's really interesting about him is the conflict within himself and the seemingly impossible choices he so often has to make. The Tobey Maguire movies don't mention a single word about Peter's parents and still manage to get you so much more involved with the characters than this movie does. The filmmakers do however make hints that they intend to develop this whole parent thing further in possible sequel/sequels, so I might be proved wrong about the relevance in the end.
2012 (2009)
Not convincing, but tries really hard to be so.
I can't really say that Roland Emmerich has put his signature on anything that I've come to appreciate. Maybe I just don't get this type of movie, or maybe it's simply because I feel a total lack of sympathy for any of the characters in this picture, as well as in his previous work. Sounds a bit harsh, I might admit, but the fact is that "2012" is made in a fashion that puts the characters somewhere in a dark corner, and places the idea of "the end of the world" on a pedestal in the center, with plenty of spotlights pointed at it. The story is constantly focused on the destruction of the Earth, and the people just seem to be there to fill out the gaps, and to make the scenes of explosions and floods of water fit together. The flatness of the characters, and the preposterous ways in which they repeatedly manage to escape from death, is really what brings this movie down. On the good side I thought the animations worked quite well, as well as the pace of the film, although the runtime could've been a couple of minutes shorter. The sound was good, with lots of dynamic, just the way I like it, and under the circumstances the acting efforts were fine,(after all John Cusack and Chiwetel Ejiofor are no rookies). Furthermore I think the original idea clearly has potential for a great movie, the question is who would write/direct it to make the idea justice, and in what year would a remake take place?