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Reviews
The Rookie (2018)
Such a good start...sadly...
What a let down. The first two season are great. Some easy viewing, with decent acting, likable characters, a properly done diverse cast, Nathan Fillion, a decent mix between funny, serious and heart felt. Everyone brings something to the table, and believe it or not...nobody blames anything on race or gender for the entire first two seasons.
Then season three rolls around and ruins everything. Now don't get me wrong, race and gender prejudice exist. And some shows do a really good job in tackling these issues. The Rookie does not!
Two of our cops do a support program in a black neighborhood. A young black man breaks a car window and steals something. They catch him, but the bystanders have little praise because "just another black man in handcuffs". As the cops try to shine a light on the fact that this man committed a crime, and someone in this poor neighborhood now has a broken car window they need to fix, no one agrees, its still the cops fault for...whatever reason.
As a former contractor, Nathan Fillions character puts in some work to fix up a local playground for kids. Instead of ANY recognition for good deed, or at least a good intention, he gets nothing but angry complaints, because the lights he fixed (the broken lights were a reason it was too dangerous for kids) now only attract meth dealers.
Yeah...and that is his fault how? The people told him the lights are broken and thats a problem, now the working lights are a problem.
No matter what he does, he always gets the blame, and the show makes this seem ok. Even his POC coworker, who until this point had never made a single comment about race prejudice stabs him in the back, always taking the other peoples side, regardless of how illogical it seems.
There is a racist cop, a sexist doctor and many more "problematic characters", all of these things exist IRL, no question. But the way the are handled here is just paint by numbers lazy writing. No depth, no semblance of realism, just tropes and cliches, to show how bad the world treats women and minorities. Despite a vast number of the upper police Ranks being ethnic.
And of course as an older white man, Nathan Fillion has never experienced any of these injustices in his life (despite him literally having heart of gold and a strong sense of justice, as former seasons keep pointing out), so he gladly takes in all these lessons on how its his fault people are criminals.
4 Stars only because the two first seasons are good. But the third is barely watchable.
Troll (2022)
Average film with a lot of logic flaws
So first of all: the CGI is quite good. I can't comment on the acting because a lot gets lost in the dub.
BUT...none of the decisions in this movie make sense, or we don't get any explanation to some things, lets look at some examples***spoilers***
1) A tunnel is being dug, and people protest. Why?
2) No one believes its a creature, so why call a paleontologist?
3) She does not believe its a troll, but thinks her troll-expert dad can help...
4) when the troll first appears, she can smell him. It smells "supernatural"...that is never explained
5) even when see on live TV, people still don't want to call it a troll. I feel like every Norwegian knows what a troll is and would immediately recognize one, even if you don't believe in them.
6) Modern weapons don't harm the troll but somehow, medieval Europe killed the entire troll-king-family
7) Trolls die in sunlight, apparently overcast is fine though
8) 50meter trolls walks through an evacuated Oslo? Better nuke it...
9) folk tale tells us trolls get angry at church bells....so lets annoy him with church bells and then act surprised when he gets really annoyed
10) circling a troll with helicopters? Better fly in closer for no reason so you can all get smashed (scene was a copy paste of log skull island)
11) troll attack in 10 minutes and you aren't ready setting up your defenses in time? Better stop working and give a lame speech for moral
12) mad troll expert went to mental hospital for his beliefs....but the king of Norway highly respected this man and knew he was right
13) heroes realize killing the troll is wrong. Are super happy when it dies anyway
the movie is too Hollywood for its own good. I thought at first it might be a spiritual sequel to Troll Hunter (excellent movie), but sadly it's more of a sequel to 1998 Godzilla (a terrible movie). It's not a wate of time, but nothing special either.
Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (2022)
Lets focus Lovecraft
I was super excited for this. Guillermo is one of my favorites, ad so is HPL.
Looking only at those that directly borrow from Lovecraft, I have to say I am disappointed. Pickmans model is ok, but the creep factor of the original story is swapped out for a cliché "devil worship" ending with a bit of family gore thrown in. The original reveal is so much stronger. A missed opportunity.
Dreams in the witch house has nothing in common with the original story except the names. And thats sad. While it was never my favorite story, it did have its charm. And the story is actually somewhat deep and philosophical. Not so this version.
Some of the more original entries are better, especially Autopsy and sticking with Lovecraft, graveyard rats was good.
Le sommet des dieux (2021)
Everything you could want
This is a clear 10/10 for me. Beautiful images, and seeing how it's "animated" it's amazing it can compete with the real life vista's of the mountains it adores. Haunting score that perfectly conveys the majesty and danger of mountaineering. And an incredibly gripping story of ups and downs (pun intended).
This will likely be an all time favourite of mine from here on out.
Fractured (2019)
Unexpected gem
I don't like Sam Worthington as an actor.
That being said, he really does a good job in this film. He mumbles a lot but it's a step up from his usually emotionless face.
The film cheats a bit with characters reactions that are supposed to lead you astray on what's actually happening here, as if they knew a camera was watching and they had to food people. But the story keeps you guessing until the end and the twist isn't bad.
Its no masterpiece, but what started as a "bored horror movie afternoon" turned into quite the surprise.
Secret Obsession (2019)
what is the point of this film?
Even without the trailer, you immediately know who the bad guy is.
the movie tries to throw you off with a musical cue and a scrappy looking guy about once...
all characters are only half baked. we don't care about any relationships or backstories.
there is no real plot twist, as it is painfully obvious whats going to happen/what it will be.
and it has a generic happy ending...even a "the killer is still alive" ending would have been better.
there is no really scary stuff here...perfectly lit places all the time, not even jump scares.
my opinion? don't watch it...its just not worth the time at all
I Can Only Imagine (2018)
Sneak let down
Wen't to the sneak preview at our local cinema yesterday and despite hoping for "the man who killed don quixote", this movie played. (luck of the draw)
Now the movie was not terrible per se, but any spirituality or deeper meaning was cut short by extremely cheesy followups, mediocre acting for the most part, and poor cinematography. scenes often came out of no where, leading you confused as to why this happens now. Spoiler ( when Bart stops by Shannons flat for the first time after they parted ways, that was very sudden with no build up)
Now we watched the german dub, so its hard to tell who was acting well and who wasn't in some cases. The dub was terrible, but given what I saw, I would say Dennis Quaid was the only notable performance here (and a good one at that, his scenes were the only intriguing thing)
The Idea of Christian Rock bands does not really exist in Germany, so maybe thats why we felt alienated, but I am open minded, yet a son singing for his deceased father, and only ,mentioning Jesus....I don't know, kind of wird.
we were all flabbergasted when the credits rolled revealing that this was a true story about a real song. Never would have guessed.
Sneak Preview is always a gamble, this time, we lost
Magi: Shindobaddo no bôken (2016)
what happens every time "classic" stories are adapted to anime
Anime can do something few other media can do (well). Take a ridiculous, totally insane premise, and adapt it into an over the top, fun as hell spectacle.
This is not that!
This Anime has the same problems as many anime that try to adapt "classic" stories that weren't meant for anime. Sure the animation and character design is fancy, but the story? OMG its so terrible. What is it with these anime and being so into "trading"? Like that one with the wolf goddess....I thought I would see some fun banter between an out of touch god and a human, but no its was all about market value of coins and such.
Sinbad is similar, there is promise of epic battles with Djin Powers etc, that always only takes up a very small part of any episode. The rest is non existent or rushed character development, non relatable characters, and talk about creating a trading empire. sorry but if I wanted that I would go to business school.
I could go on but the first season of this anime bored me so much, that I will just stop here as I stopped watching.
good day
Life (2017)
Not bad, but nothing groundbreaking
Is this movie groundbreaking? No. Is this movie Oscar worthy? No. is this movie something we haven't ever seen before? No. Then what is it.
Well its a well made hour and 40 minutes of space horror that is not a waste to watch.
Spoilers:
In the beginning I got a bit dizzy, because there is a lot of weightless camera stuff involved...nothing for people with vertigo. But it gets right to the point. Some very important samples from mars are reaching the ISS, and it makes the "catching" of these samples out to be very risky and easy to fail. sadly this is never touched upon again. Any effort to kill off the life within these samples is never met with any objection, whereas the "you don't know what we had to go trough to get this"-character was missing, for better or worse you decide.
For the biologists among us (such as myself), a movie called life could have done a bit better at trying to explain how the creature does what it does. with nothing more than a microscope and some gloves, the on board biologist can tell things that I don't remember being possible in this way from uni. Non scientists might not notice this, but in todays day and age, I enjoy "close" proximity to reality even in Sci-Fi and fantasy. make us believe that what we are seeing can be real!
another problem for me? The alien spends a good....lot of minutes in the vacuum of space(which no adaptation I know of could save an organism that large and exposed, if you are thinking of the tardigrade, they go into a hibernation mode, which this thing (called Kelvin) is said to also do, but never does. What makes this so bad is, that this is a lot of what the movies plot solution rides on: deprive it of oxygen etc and have it go into stupor then send it to deep space. but we have seen it in naked space and nothing happened, so what will "venting the compartments of the ISS" do for you? well at least they stay true to that, because other than being lured to the oxygen sources later on, it doesn't hinder the creature one bit.
there are also three cheat moments in the movie: 1) Now I am no rocket scientists, but if there is a direct path from the thrusters into the crew quarters, you might have a leak in your ship. 2) the alien is in and we have the typical "shadow moves in background, character is uncertain if he saw something" moment. fine, every horror film has that. Then we get some weird "him looking into space" moment, and next his vitals are dropping (actually not next there must at least be like 15 min movie time in-between) and it turns out the monster infested his leg and is slowly eating him (which it could do at record speeds before). How did it get to his leg? its never shown because there is no way that could have happened without us or him seeing it. yes he is a paraplegic, but the monster makes a lot of noise moving around, and is about the size of a medium dog...so stealth is not its strong suit. 3) in the end, the major twist is somewhat predictable, but makes little sense when you sign up the sequences. one shuttle heads to earth, one to space, one gets hit (the earth bound one), and gets back on course, the other gets overwhelmed by the alien. all fine, but the problem is we see the inside of the cabins as all this is happening. and only after the big reveal, do we see that the "into space" shuttle was actually the one without the alien, all of a sudden housing a screaming female survivor. but when we last saw her, she should already have been well on her way into space, yet remained calm, despite her computer that would have informed her about her trajectory. so its a bit a of a cheat to make you think is a happy ending when it isn't.
OK earth is doomed, because despite everyone wanting to burn it, fire never made an impact on this thing. so I guess a sequel will be post apocalyptic.
the acting is solid enough, the effects are OK to more than OK, and you won't feel like a wasting your time if you are just looking for entertainment.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)
Well...that was disappointing
Let me start out with why I was really excited about this film: I am in some ways Eddie Redmaynes character. In fact, I watched to film on a plane back from researching wild animals in Africa, so you can imagine the idea of (finally) getting to see all those amazing magical creatures of the HP universe on the big screen was quite something to look forward to for me. why didn't I go see it in theaters you might ask? well because the trailer already showed that it didn't have much to do with the title in my opinion. the idea of these animals in the most bleak New York I have ever seen instead of the lush green grounds of hogwarts (not that it had to be hogwarts, but green) was not very enticing, but on the plane, I decided to watch it none the less.
So here goes: Eddie Redmayne is a good actor, we have had proof of that, and while he has done some truly terrible work too (Jupiter Ascending), I did not mind his acting here at all, only that it was a terrible character. Sure the: animals over humans mentality is to be expected, and quirky is an ever present character trait in JK's work....but a straight up "shut in" who never once makes eye contact with his partners in crime, but is somehow expected to build relationships with them? yeah....not someone I would choose as a main character. Not to mention that, for all those who are familiar with Doctor Who....his entire character is almost an exact copy of Matt Smiths version of the British doctor. Has an unexpected "hideaway" that is larger on the inside....bowties, over large shoes, and just a weirdness about him, that, if his passion shows makes him very endearing....only that that passion only appears two times in the whole movie. Really not happy about this (and MS is my favorite doctor)
about the rest? yeah so I am sure there were more colors than grey in old NY....also I doubt everything and everyone looked that clean and neat. A problem you often get in old representations of NY, like in King Kong, and even the final scene in Sleepy Hollow....but that does not make it excusable! it makes the animals seems even more out of place than they already are, and adds no interesting setting for any of the story. a large winged snake in a dark attic just isn't as fascinating as it would be in a tropical forrest! The Animals as a whole were a disappointment. lazy copies of existing and slightly changed real creatures most of the time, with no explanation or sometimes even the name. the ones in focus for the character even have very little appeal to them. a kleptomaniac echidna, and a wird reptile-bird that is almost a deus ex machina (even more than the deus ex machina that frank becomes in the end, if you want to find a cool way to obliviate NY in one go...ask MIB2, they did it right). overall, as a researcher of animals, I found it heart breaking that once again, the animals were only a "entertaining" side note" in a movie that supposedly dealt with them.
Which brings me to the plot (for anyone who is still reading). Would it have been so hard to make one of the escaped creatures the thing that Grindelwald wants to use against...well....we don't know against whom. We know very little about his interests from the last few HP books, and this film does nothing to tell us more. The actual idea of the dark power within a suppressed wizard could have made a great stand alone film...but sadly it was the main idea in a film that was supposed to focus on something else.
and since this is getting a bit long, let me (only) mention two more things about this film: the wizard government of America might be the only one that is worse than the actual government we currently see over there....seriously...incompetent, violent, and....just just awful!!! and last but not least, the biggest sore on the ass that was this movie: Johnny F*cking DEPP!!! believe it or not...but I found Colin Farrel to be perfectly cast as a disguised Grindelwald....but oh man what a waste. not only do we know nothing about his characters motivations other than: power and destruction....but sacrificing any information for the "shocking" reveal in the end is ruined by A) the strong emphasis on Grindelwald during the intro means he has to appear somewhere B) Colin was the only villain, so of course it was him C) if you show the back of the head of the secret villain in the first scene....don't follow with the back of the head of the villain in disguise with THE EXACT SAME HAIRCUT!!! was I the only one who found that very obvious? and D) (felt like the movie giving me the D here)....Johnny Depp is the worst choice possible. an actor once hailed as great on a steady decline into ridiculousness. any movie loses all credibility in my head nowadays for casting him....and this one is no exception. more so since it tries to make it the "twist we all wanted" that we really didn't. sad to no longer see colin in this project, who knows, he might have saved it.