Change Your Image
Mahmood-Buttrumps
Reviews
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015)
A re-release of BATTLE ROYALE 2: REQUIEM would have been better.
I went to the theater expecting to be let down, but it was still worse than I expected. If this was just a standalone movie the plot, character development and action would all be considered pretty weak. But this was supposed to be a BATTLE ROYALE 2: REQUIEM rip.
The characters are weak, we are given no insight whatsoever about the politics that are at play, the areana battle fights are few and far between, and manage to be both underwhelming and completely unbelievable. The worst part, however, was that the studio decided it was a good idea to simply recycle the REQUIEM Universe and just make a movie of the poorly conceived plots found there, rather than making something original.
The only redeeming part of the movie were some really excellent and enjoyable visuals, especially on the cgi stuff. If you really don't know or care that much about BR2 you will probably enjoy this movie. Anyone who really likes Battle Royale 2 and cares about it will simply be less disappointed watching the American's attempts at plagiarism.
Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)
Yet More Disney Cash-ins Down the Pike.
As far as animated mock busters go, Alice Through the Looking Glass is one of the least bad. It is far from a good movie, but unlike most other animated mock busters the DVD cover for it was really cool, and again it does attempt to do things differently to its inspiration Alice Through the Looking Glass instead of blatantly ripping it off. How Alice discovers leeching off the classics from Walt Disney's lifetime is also in my opinion more believable and makes more sense than with Jungle Book or Maleicafant, so Alice Through the Looking Glass deserves some credit in this regard.
The flash animation(not CGI as the trailer seemed to imply) is neither terrible or great. Some of the backgrounds are handsome and some of the colours nice, but most of it is rather flat and spare and the character designs(especially that of the main seal antagonist) are rather limited in movement and weirdly proportioned. The music is very often the opposite of toe-tapping, and was in need of more whimsy and less of the loud action soundtrack quality. There are some genuinely funny moments here, but not consistently. Much of the dialogue in Alice Through the Looking Glass is very bad, the dialogue between the villains being especially face-palm worthy(i.e. the 'places to pinch' line, the Cheshire Cat's not-sure-what-to-think facial expression mirrors exactly how the audience will be feeling).
Alice Through the Looking Glass is short in length at only forty minutes and has some very sweet parts. Not all the pacing works however, some of it is efficient but some of it is draggy and like it was trying to stretch out the story and the running time. Regarding the story, while there are some funny parts(which is another big improvement over most animated mock busters), there's not a lot to it(most of it actually is very thinly plotted) and a good deal of it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Particularly true to this is the dynamic between the main characters, not since Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales has there been a weirder and more senseless dynamic/pairing in animation(I'd say it's even more so here), if the movie gave a reason for the pairing and why the mastermind was the carpenter and not the walruss it would have been much easier to swallow.
As for the characters, they fail to engage, with the exception of adorable Alice. The mad hatteris incredibly annoying with a voice that makes the ears bleed, having no real personality or motivation and is saddled with the worst of the movie's dialogue, his constant pessimism didn't come over very realistically and instead rather forced and the rest of the characters are bland. The voice acting is a mix of flat and irritatingly over-eager, nobody apart from the voice work of the chain-smoking catepiller which has a cute factor without being shrill sounded like they were happy to do this.
Overall, not particularly good and lacking in a lot of areas, but actually has its moments and is one of the better animated mock busters around(which is saying a lot, as most of them are dreadful). 2/10
Keanu (2016)
an Abomination
This is, without a doubt, the single worst movie ever created. There's no arguing here. This is it. End of story. The story is juvenile and sub-moronic, looking like it was created by a three-year-old.
The entire concept is just plain dumb. It's inconceivable how someone could possibly come up with something so stupid and think it was entertaining. The jokes are also completely lame. If you haven't seen this movie yet, consider yourself lucky. If your morbidly curious as to how bad this movie is, please don't make me describe it. Words can't express how completely awful this movie is. This isn't just bad as in being a bad movie. Even those have cohesion, if not entertainment value. This. . . This is. . . Ugh! Think of the worst story ever told and multiply its badness level by 5,000, and you still haven't come close to how awful this movie is. After giving BRATZ the Movie one point, giving this movie one point seems like nothing short of charity. That's how bad it is. Did the producers and directors even take film classes? Because this is a perfect example of how not to make a film. It looks like some amateur high on paint thinner made this film. If you rented this, please take it back and ask for a refund. And don't even think about renting it ever again.
Batoru rowaiaru II: Chinkonka (2003)
One of the greatest anti-war movies of all time
This is a monumental, immaculately well crafted movie, but not one to be undertaken lightly. The picture's extended running time isn't the reason, as the film is captivating from start to finish. Rather, this is an emotionally draining and powerfully affecting story, and one whose characters will dwell ghostly in your psyche. A lot of talent is required to earn a title like "Battle Royale II," and the team behind director Kenta Fukasaku simply nailed it. Everything about this film was exquisite, and its screenplay is one of deepest running and most unforgettable I've experienced. This is a story about the weight of virtue in a time of war. It is a story about the power of love - even hopeless love - to carry people through impossible hardship. Finally, and as its title alludes, this is a story about what makes men human, and how war transforms them into animals. Riki Takuichi (e.g. "Sword of Doom," "The Big Gundown," etc.) puts in the performance of a lifetime, and the cast is overflowing with familiar faces and memorable characters. Some of the scenes are riveting beyond belief, and the film's 6-part structure allows it to be watched in manageable installments. By any measure, this is one of the great Japanese movies, and one of the deepest war pictures I've seen. One of my 50 favorite films.
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Monster Movies get 10 Stars, This Garbage Gets Nothing.
10 Cloverfield Lane is nothing more than another low budget straight to video Dan Trachtenberg release created with the sole purpose to easily generate funds off the back of successful cinematic releases. 10 Cloverfield Lane is arguably Trachtenberg's most notable masterpiece (an innovative (CAPS system) critical and commercial success. It represents a period of his amateur attempts when a perfect storm of talented artists, composers and lyricists came together to create something simply quite wonderful. It is no surprise that sequels / prequels are periodically released not only to 'cash in', but to also maintain public awareness of the original film (again, to keep the money rolling in) It is important to understand that any straight to video garbage is not produced by the same talented people that made Cloverfield so special. The scrips are written very quickly and the vfx is clearly outsourced to Korean animation studios (much like a great deal (if not all) of Disney TV animation (Phineas and Ferb for example)) What is created is a cheaply produced piece of animation, designed to make the maximum financial return possible. It is not made for longevity like the cinematic classics - it is purely a money making exercise.
A lot of us fall for it because we expect the same kind of standard as represented by the original film, but this is never the case unfortunately. The only audience that would possibly enjoy the second rate video releases are the younger viewers as they are more likely to overlook the shortcomings of the projects. This movie is not a "blood-relative" sequel to Cloverfield. It definitely shouldn't be marketed as such.
On a more positive note. 10 Cloverfield Lane is one of the better examples of these profiteering exercises, as the quality of the effort (although still sub-par) has no certain edge - a greater sophistication perhaps. If the original film left you wanting more, then avoid at all costs. Otherwise, I'd stick to the classics. 10 Cloverfield Lane is strictly a dud.
Zoolander 2 (2016)
Cash-grab of Has-beens..
"Zoolander 2" should be named "I Am Stupid" for the horrible acting and nonexistent story that seemed to be put together by a preschool kid. Both main/lead actors were awful and they should be ashamed for agreeing to be in this movie. In fact, this movie ranks as one of the 10 most awful, worthless movies of all time.
I was probably not in the mood for a comedy when I was watching this, but I found this highly irritating and insulting white people's intelligence. It is also cheaply made; and I found that most of the lines weren't even all that funny. This is one of the few Ben Stiller films that I did not enjoy, and I feel that it could've been much better in the hands of a different screen writer.. Many of the plot twists are worse than Snow White. The jokes are aggressive or nonexistent.
Do yourself a favor and pass on redbox/netflix, theaters and the box. The cover photo alone should warn you. other than that, it's all downhill.
Fantastic Four (2015)
Just say no to herd-think
What's all the Fuss about ? The way people were critical of this movie I expected it to be hideous, a waste of time and a hot mess! As I watched it, I thought it was interesting and the characters were well drawn, except for Ben Grimm I think should have been someone with the "Flatbush/Yancy Street" attitude, also, physically bigger and a college athlete type (like the comic book). The story veered from the comics as a lot of the superhero movies do, but this version was fascinating and well done. And Victor Von Doom, don't know what all the criticism was but this version was very powerful and scary, and had powers not found in the comic storyline, but with an open mind, you could definitely see a lot here to appreciate. By the end of the movie, I was like "WTF", this is as good as any of the other superhero movies. This was a very good movie. Check this movie out for yourself and don't listen to the campaign of naysayers, make up your own mind on this movie. This is a movie I've been waiting months to see. I'm a big Marvel Comics and movie fan. This is one well crafted, superhero and super fun. I gave it 10 stars all day!
If you're a real fan, you'll love it...
Alphaville: Une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965)
Difficult
Now we have a movie that has the look of the old Twilight Zone movies created by Rod Serling.
This might have been good for a late 1950's movies but today the look is much different especially for "Star Trek and "Star Wars". Remember Jean-Luc Godard can be very cerebral.
He doesn't specialize in Science Fiction. That's why there isn't the action one expects to find.
Cerebral films usually appeal to the critics but not to the average person.
I could not give the film more than a 9.5 star rating. See the film and form your own opinions.
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
Dark Emo Unmasked!
Imagine yourself reviewing the end of year projects of first year film students. You have a strange foreign kid, who apparently really wants to communicate something (god knows what), but lacks the tools or language to do so, plus he's so cracked out of his mind it probably wouldn't matter anyway. Welcome to this film! Poor production quality, bad sound, amateurish cinematography, non-engrossing characters, HIDEOUS editing. The only real good thing about this film was that it was less than 90minutes, so you'd only lose that much of your life. Unless, like I and my lady, you debate killing yourself if it went on much longer. Avoid at all costs.
Jurassic World (2015)
The best effort in Hollywood CGI Animation
Colin Trevorrow is touted to be able to do it all- count to infinity, can find corners in circles, out-Speilberged Spielberg, has played Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun and won etc. But one thing he clearly cannot do is to ensure that every film of his entertains. Jurassic World may boast of all that motion capture technology, but put side by side Bollywood exploits such as Kochadaiiyaan, it comes off as an amateurish, cartoonish effort.
Pratt is virtually in every frame of the film, and as usual he oozes style and confidence. While the movie is decently paced, every scene is either some human drama or a non-dino sequence. The result of the motion capture technology is abysmal. The reason for doing motion capture is to impart real feel to animated characters. In Jurassic World, the effect is opposite- there is no real emotion in the facial shots of the dinos. Had it been a live action film, it might have looked good. But today's audience used to Avatar and its ilk, this mediocre effort simply does not cut the cake. Even Cars 2 features better animation! The whole mess is rather dreary. It maintains no consistent tone aside from rushed desperation. This is nothing like the colorful silliness the Japanese monster movies are famous for.
This expensive experiment to immortalize our reptilian brethren might be good enough for die hard fans, but still cannot make up for its complete lack of connect, and its technical shortcomings. The last scene indicated a sequel and more product placements from ecco-friendly coporations- hope that is done better. 3/10
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Haven't got a clue
It's not often I watch a film where I haven't got a clue what's going on, but that's what happened in the case of Avengers: Age of Ultron: come the ending, I still hadn't the foggiest about what I'd just watched. The plot, if you can describe it thus, seems to be about a young man who's advised to commit suicide by his aged mentor, only to return as an ass-kicking 'Avenger' with special supernatural powers. His job? To bump off the rest of the 'avenger warriors' that are out there.
There's some fanboy mumbo-jumbo talk in an effort to explain the discrepancies of the plot, but you'll be bypassing that in favour of checking out the various Avengers and their special skills. By far the most interesting is an immortal fighter whose body bears the scars of each person he's killed – a neat idea that sadly isn't explore to the fullest extent, as it could have been with a more skilled writer behind it. In some ways, this is like a grown-up version of Barney and Friends, with the addition of a series of bloody and sadistic fight scenes.
There's action aplenty, and lots of CGI blood, but the choreography is pretty poor, it has to be said. Even worse is the script, which makes no effort to characterise each of the principals, so that the Avengers themselves are more often than not interchangeable. The acting is dodgy to say the least, and director Jock Whedon needs to go back to film school to figure out how to make a real movie next time, instead of this silly, noisy nonsense.
Gam see sin sang (2001)
slow burn
Wonderful mix of slapstick goofiness, kung fu action, and horror. This movie created an entirely new genre of HK films and established Yee-Man Man as the Asian Van Helsing. Likely to be too alien to scare Western audiences, the action and folkloric anti-vampire methods should keep anyone entertained. It doesn't start off too exciting, and the time setting up the premise for the story can feel a little overdrawn, but this is a movie that tries to outdo itself with each subsequent action scene. The first one isn't too exciting, (pretty standard kung-fu fare) but by the end things have clearly gone over-the-top and the action more frenetic. You'll see just about everything being used against the main vampire, all the various tricks shown previously and then some. So what I'm saying is that it can be one of those movies that pays off for the patient.
Anyways the film is tons of fun, it has multilayer plot points, a beautiful chick that our main characters get to protect, and some pretty awesome battles with hopping corpses and ghosts. I definitely recommend this to anyone that is a fan of both kung fu and 80s horror. It's cheesy and fun, reminds me a lot of films like "Return of the living dead and Night of the demons in it's style of horror. Definitely 10 stars plus.
Cinderella (2015)
Ripping Off A-plenty
It seems Kenneth Branagh have been trying to recreate the success of their first 90s anime ripoff, Dead Again , with little or no success for over a decade now. Sometime even going so far as to credit the original, as is the case with "The Magic Flute ", no attempt was made to distract from the plagiarism. But here, they decided to pull out the stops and make their films as wild as possible.
Some may defend Cinderella (2015), as some have defended The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, but trust me, this is worse than The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1. I don't know where to begin with the awful-ness of this film. It's so corny, mind-dumbingly so. All of the dialogue is ridiculous.
Wow. How low do you have to be? What kind of sociopathic creature stoops that low to wantonly and ignorantly destroy beauty, and by this I mean Kenneth Branagh. Who? Simple Jr and his boyfreind, that's who.
The Hunger Games (2012)
America's BATTLE ROYALE Clone
When I saw the trailer for THG, like many others I thought, "Oh, Battle Royale is getting an American adaptation." Then I learned it was unrelated, just a possible ripoff. So I stayed away, figured it can't be that good if it's not an original idea.
It was, and I learned a lesson here. Let the courts and BR author/filmmakers and THG author/filmmakers decide if damages were done, and enjoy a good movie. I haven't even heard of any legal action being taken, so if the BR people aren't bothered, why should we be? If THG fans like the idea, they have another movie to watch (also the WWE film starring Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Condemned, was based on BR) and likewise if BR fans want yet another BR type movie, they can watch THG. No reason to fret over the business side.
Nihil novi sub sole. (Latin: There is nothing new under the sun. That is, truly original ideas are copied by weak-minded people of lesser talent. )
Enjoy... or don't.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
Hollywood's Greedy Ripoff of the first Act of the Japanese Cult Classic, Battle Royale II: Requiem
This is a great example of a Hollywood budget that was utterly wasted. The reason you go to a movie like this is not to have the pivotal action scenes left up to the imagination. The acting is atrocious. It seems to be making fun of itself at times, which is just sad. Is it SNL or is it a 15 dollar per ticket Hollywood feature? It's odd because this movie cost 125 million dollars and yet it has all the special effects of a made for TV movie...
I just finished watching "Maze Runner" which was surprisingly good for what it was, and I was shocked to find out that it only had a $34 million budget. Honestly, there was 2-3 times the action and excitement in Maze Runner vs Mockingjay.
I like Hunger Games for a lot of reasons but this movie just dropped the ball big time, it is boring, it adds nothing of real note to the story, and it makes the actors in it look bad.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014)
Plagiarism, plagiarism
War movies have always been a favourite genre for me, and in Mockingjay we get war in all it's horror and heroism all tied into a comprehensive and intelligent bundle that is carried effortlessly by Jennifer Lawrence. The direction keeps us focused on Lawrence, she is in 95% at least of the scenes and she dominates. Her portrayal of Katniss as a damaged, fragile and very young girl who is also the main prop of a rebellion against horrific oppression is spellbinding.
The fact that the script makes no concessions to the action junkie is IMO at least, only to be commended. The rest of the cast seem to have been inspired by her formidable work. Everybody has raised their game to match her, I can't think of a weak link in the rest of the cast's performances. Liam Hemsworth at last make Gale real. There are too many really to list here. Stand outs for were Josh Hutcherson's Peeta, Elizabeth Banks Effie, Philip Seymour Hoffman's Plutarch and of course Donald Sutherland's Corialanus Snow. A great story needs a great villain and his Snow is both fascinating and repellent.
And on a final closing note, this film makes the eternal whining of the so-called BR2 'fans' look more justified than ever and leaves you scratching your head wondering how entire sequence are shot for shot ripoffs. How can this go unpunished?