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Kite (2014)
Nothing wrong with this one
Seeing a 4.3 rating on IMDb, I did expect that something must be wrong with Kite, but found it to be an overall good movie.
Story, Acting, Camera and Setting are without major flaws, and within the genre the story is quite believable and has no obvious holes.
The ending even holds some surprises, and there are a number of memorable scenes.
So why the low rating? My theory is that there are a number of factors:
- The mainstream audience may have a problem with the soundtrack which can be annoying if are not at least a little into dubstep (I found it a prefect fit for this movie)
- To purists the characters may be not cool enough; they are too vulnerable, too human and fail too often be bad-ass uberheroes
- The mainstream may find the setting too dark, while purist may not like the brightening elements in the story
It might have been a masterpiece if the film makers would not have tried to please the mainstream. It almost seems as if there was a struggle between those forces who wanted to appeal to a wide audience and those who wanted to go to the extreme. The mixed result seems to keep many people unsatisfied, although I regard it as well above average.
I can recommend to watch it and make up your own mind. I believe that "Kite" will be more appreciated over time and find its audience.
The Giver (2014)
Visually pleasing shallow nonsense
It felt like I have seen everything in this film somewhere else already.
People live in a synthetic paradise, but it is all a lie, and to make it work they are given drugs to suppress emotions, and society selects a function for everyone, and those who are not useful are killed, mostly when they are still babies.
Our hero finds out the truth, and by escaping the area he sets everyone free when he crosses some magical border that causes all his memories to be transmitted to everyone over the air.
It could have made an interesting movie anyway, but it felt stale or boring most of the time. No surprises, no twists or turns in the story worth remembering.
The music felt like a sticky sweet sugar coating, and in the end I even started to hate it, which rarely happens.
What ruined the film for me was that the director and maybe even the writer did not have a clue about what emotions are. As a consequence most of the actors showed a wide spectrum of emotions even when they were supposed to have none. The distinction between "feelings" and "emotion" the giver makes is complete nonsense.
The term "feeling" is commonly used to describe when you consciously experience emotion, where in the movie emotions are something "deep inside" that is taken away by the daily medication, but somehow the people have still have "feelings", which would mean that they consciously experience something that isn't there.
The actors must have also been confused by this emotion/feeling nonsense, and it shows.
What added to the bore was our hero does not discover much on it's own. Most stuff is just told him. This is as exciting as watching someone going to school.
I gave the movie a 4 because it is visually pleasing, has nice sets and is well designed.
Liquid Sky (1982)
Very special movie that stands the test of time
Watched it after about 30 years again, and it was still a stunning, shocking and hilarious experience today as it was when I saw it the first time. This was in the mid 1980s in a cinema in Munich where Liquid Sky was shown every week for at least ten years. The only film I am aware of that gained an even more prominent cult status is the "Rocky Horror Picture Show".
There are other parallels to the "Rocky Horror Picture Show": Liquid Sky has a similar effect on your mind that could best be described as liberating. It is a bold movie, an attack of sound and color, sex, violence, drugs and crazy characters. What makes all this bearable is the hilarity of the whole story. While normally in movies you are often required to suspend your disbelief to enjoy it, in Liquid Sky disbelief is the rescue line that keeps you sane and lets you enjoy it.
Some scenes were burned into my mind forever when I first saw it. However, it is the kind of movie you can watch over and over, like a good piece of art.
It is also a child of its time, giving a glimpse into subcultures in New York in the late 70s/early 80s that may have been the avant-garde for the 90s Rave-Culture.
Liquid Sky is one of a kind, and you will have missed a life experience if you never saw it.
In the Blood (2014)
Entertaining and suspenseful action with a fresh elements
I did not know Gina Carano before I watched "In the Blood", especially not that she is a real MMA fighter, so the first fighting scene came really as a surprise to me.
Gina outshines most male action heroes with her fighting skills, and it is also refreshing that she is not the usual Hollywood beauty stereotype. My first impression was: "Wow, she looks like a real human being." This made it easy to feel with the character she plays.
The first two thirds of the story also seemed quite credible to me, but after she got to the doctor the plot credibility went quite downhill.
While she was killing people left and right before, she has the villain several times in her hand and lets him go every time so he can continue to pursue her and her husband.
Maybe the writers wanted to show that she is not a cold blooded killer and that she is not the person her father tried to make her.
Their planned getaway also seems unnecessary complicated, unrealistic and puts the whole village in danger. It is also hard to believe that no one gave them away and the ruthless Silvio did not harm any of villagers who were obviously playing him for a sucker.
The ending was OK though, even if I would have liked to see the face of Cam's father when they returned.
Anyway, I liked the movie, and with a currently 5.7 it is definitely underrated, in my opinion it deserves something close to 7.
Without the weaknesses in the last third it would be even better than "Taken". I liked it more than "Taken 2" though, and it definitely stands out in the genre, and I would not regard it as a B-Movie despite of the moderate budget.
Tokarev (2014)
Interesting and solid Movie, but not what you probably expect
Watched this movie despite reading some crushing reviews before, and it is worth watching. I think that most negative reviews come from people hating the story.
They probably hate it because it is unlike most other "Retired Badass Returns"-stories, and it is not the "Hero father goes berserk to save abducted daughter" story you might expect if you have seen "Taken".
In many aspects "Tokarev" is the opposite of "Taken".
It is an intelligent twist of the cliché where ferocious injustice is done to a family member of a retired bad-ass hero to justify when he axes everyone and everything in his way.
The moral of Tokarev's story is a good one, but probably has not much appeal to gun-loving Americans.
The acting, camera and music are solid, the plot has no major holes and is more believable than usual in this genre.
"Tokarev" is not a masterpiece though, the character complexity and development are average at best, and while the story makes this movie interesting, the characters make you watch them more from a distance, so you get less emotionally engaged than the story promises.
Seven stars because this movie is underrated, a 6.3 would be appropriate.
You should watch it to make up your own mind. An interesting contrast especially to "Taken".
Lone Survivor (2013)
Good Entertainment for Men, but a missed opportunity for a great movie
This movie has at least succeeded that I register at IMDb after many years to write a review.
I was a German Airborne Ranger (Fallschirmjäger) many years ago, so I now a little bit about being a soldier, although I have never seen combat.
This movie is acceptable as entertainment for men because most men love weapons and watching men killing each other. You get to see at lot of both.
It is based on a true story, but for me it is hard to believe that the movie comes anywhere close give an accurate picture to what really happened.
There is just too much cliché in this movie, and the SEALs just can absorb too much damage to their body to be credible, and the Taliban die too easy.
On the other hand, if you just try to ignore that, the movie probably shows a lot of truth:
- a successful military operation that goes according to plan is the exception to the SNAFU rule
- communication equipment in the military is sh*t and fails when you most need it
- people who voluntarily join the military are not the sharpest knifes in the drawer
- a well trained group of soldiers can inflict heavy casualties on numerically superior untrained troops
- war sucks, but the sound of weapon fire makes up for it
In the movie the SEALs start taking hits too early and maneuver really bad. It is especially unbelievable that they would jump or fall down a slope they way shown in the movie.
There are also a number of factual errors in the movie.
- In reality, the team was inserted by helicopter just 1.5 miles from the point of interest. In the movie it seems like they were moving at least ten or twenty miles through the mountains.
- It is also not true that Taliban attacked the village where Lutrell was sheltered because they were way outnumbered by villagers. The town was Salar Ban and is only about 0.7 miles from the location of the fight. The old man who brought the note to the American base is factual, but he made most of the way by Taxi.
- The number of Taliban opponents is also heavily disputed; the official number is 30-40, but there are reports that give numbers from 5 to 200. I would regard 10-30 as realistic because the Taliban did not dare to enter the village where Lutrell was sheltered.
It is true however that an Aghan named Mohammad Gulab Khan sheltered Lutrell and later received threats from the Taliban, so he and his family were relocated to Asadabad.
You have to take movie with a grain of salt, but if you want more than just entertainment out of this movie you have to to look through this movie and just ignore a substantial amount of cheesy stuff.