Reviews

It has been a dry season for films, or at least film scripts.

Even more so, unique ideas are hard to find.

This film is not a masterpiece, there are no fancy sFX, no exotic locations. But it has a solid script based on an excellent core idea. A true gem of a script, reminded me of good old times where everything started and ended with the script.

In addition, it delivers a great representation of the late 70s vibes - people in their mid 70s will totally get it.

Cast performances are solid and especially the leading man was practically made for this role IMHO.

At last, something brand new from the 70s.

As almost every other reviewer pointed out, the CGI is superb and surely beats Marvel and DC CGI by far. For such a budget, my kudos to the studio, they performed magnificently.

Some readers are pointing out Washington's performance, others got offended by the apparent east vs west conflict depicting the west as the bad ones (not assimilating diversity, LOL). All these are not actual flaws.

Simply, the story makes absolutely no sense, both on small levels and individual scenes and also in a greater overall scale. Ok, we know this is fiction but, on any version of the future which includes AI, almost nothing of what we see makes sense existing. The writers could use some advice from experts as it seems, it's a "kids" vision of an AI dystopia and not a real one.

I'm giving it 7/10 as its visually superb, well directed, decently acted but please, put some real effort to the script next time.

Somehow, I was expecting this to happen from season 1 and it finally did: The story drifts around too many characters. We don't have time to root for anyone since the TV writers where probably required to provide equal screen time for all of them.

I've not read the books but, even Tolkien narrowed down the Fellowship of the Ring so we could tell who the 3-4 important characters where.

Here we got an entire audience of « important» characters so eventually no one is important until a (rare) climactic event happens.

On the good news, acting is superb (by most of the cast), production is good, CGI is semi-decent but does not take away from the story.

Will watch till the end hoping no additional characters join this.

First of all, I've NOT played the game (Mass Effect was the one for me). I nearly skipped this show due to users complaining about lots of things, ranging from CGI all the way to the script and/or its respect to the HALO series. Well, none of these nags matter. The show is good. I'm onto episode 5 and its 7.5/10, rounded up to 8/10 to balance hate votes. Kudos to the casting of the Spartans. Glad to see actual gigantic people (men and women) that can act among us ordinary people. Some annoying characters don't ruin the experience either. Just see it and I suspect if you haven't played HALO, you might enjoy it more.

After the first two episodes, I knew this was a keeper. Could easily end up 8/10 in my book.

Mid-series, I realized that it is missing IMHO the most important ingredient for a mystery-horror-thriller: dread. You don't care about any of the characters because you realize that nothing bad is actually going to happen to them - plain and simple. So you are left with the mystery.

Oh, how I miss the first three seasons of GOT.

Its well acted, filmed, edited, lighted etc. Decent sountrack. If one does not expect lasers and explosions, its story telling grows on you, even if its somehow slow. Halfway season 1, I'd give it a solid 8/10. I didn't even notice the "checklists" that were inserted to the script to apply to current life trends.

And then... children happened and I'm going to keep this spoiler free.

Possibly these scripts are created by an AI, following demographics and trends.

Hope Season 2 makes amend.

So, here we go again: if IMDB had an option to hide the current rating of a film, i would gladly check it and never see any rating again. This film deserves so much more.

It was good, suspenceful and well written. Ok, you may identify the "twist" early in the film, but... you don't expect the ending.

Kudos.

Never read the books, though I know the general story arc. Don't mind gender swapping and race swapping of characters either. Finally, I try to keep in mind that this is TV and not a film neither the book(s).

But there's something wrong with pacing. We move from politics to action packed scenes and then to drama and sometimes romance, in a very unstable way.

Some action scenes make sense while others just need fast forward. Important events seem to happen very fast while a lot of unimportant (?) drama takes too much screen time to evolve.

EVERY scene where Lee Pace is in is at least worthwhile.

Still have hopes for this one as, the stories may finally join to something truly important.

Currently this show has a 5.6 rating and is getting abysmal reviews from people. Most complains are about editing, flashbacks, non-linear storytelling, casting etc etc. For a TV series, it is extremely well shot and photographed. Non-linear story telling should not be a problem as we got a well known story (even for people who had not read the book will get it easily). For those elements it should easily get 8/10. The show lacks proper casting. James Marsden - while he's fine as an actor - is somehow gazing into the great infinite in some scenes. Whoopi is overacting, Owen Teague is sometimes excellent and sometimes bad, can't tell why. Mr. Skarsgård is missing something as Flagg, again can't tell what exactly. Greg Kinnear is excellent, lights year away from all those. So 6(-)/10 for casting/acting. Check out other recent series with a 5.6 rating. This show is way better than that.

Was it good? It absolutely was. Acting: George Clooney is a fine actor and as for the rest of the cast, they were solid to say tht least. Story: despite come illogical things - story was fine. Some cheezy elements of suspense and immense catastrophe were there to please the naysayers but apparently they were not enough. If you were expecting something faster, happier and ending to your expectations, go watch the avengers again. IMDB ratings are pushing us to quit IMDB, and I am a member for 15 years. Luckily some of us as still watching films before reading reviews and ratings.

One solid film, does not deserve the current IMDb user rating. Well shot, acted and scripted. Somehow long but not boring. And the music was actually good. Its actually one large trip till the end, dont expect jump scare horror here. A pleasant surprise.

Let me chip in some thoughts on this:

Started off really well: good production values, great gci, no funny droids. And regarding "fan service", it is still balanced. First three episodes where top-notch, easily raking at 9/10 IMHO.

But has started to become too "rounded", too disney-like. Albait the constant killings and shootouts (yup, a way too many aliens/humans die in this one), there is no other risk. No real psychological risk, no real romance (ep 4 was the 8year olds soap opera), no serious dilemmas. Episodes 4 and 5 reminded me standalone episodes of galactica. Peripheral actors (watch ep 5) act like 80s characters also.

I'm still waiting to see where this is going, and I'm not talking about the baby arc, I'm talking about getting serious for once.

Well, another proof that IMDB rating and review quality is going downhill.

After seeing the reviews I almost skipped this one. Glad that i didn't.

Story: 7+ and actually a fresh take on the superhero saga Cinematography: 7 Special FX: 8, they where actually better than Justice League and on a tiny budget Acting: 5+. This is what makes this film hurt. Better star power would make it a true success.

The film hardly gets 6/10.

Acting was good to superb by almost every cast member. Most scenes where beautifully shot (superb lighting by the way) but thats it.

Style over substance with a script containing plot holes the size of manhattan. Actually the entire film could have been a music video clip. There are films that style matters (remember Sin City?), they actually had a solid story too.

Blame the writer(s) for this one.

I waited for the smoke to clear and , after hundreds of raging reviews from fans, I thought I'd write one as well.

I'm not a SW hardcore fan, I wouldn't care less if Luke had turned to the dark side himself. But this was an uneven film in every aspect. It seemed as it was written, filmed, processed and CGI-crafted by two (or three) entirely different teams:

Splendid CGI along with horrific plastic alien masks (clearly Luc Besons' team on Valerian would have done it better - and surely more imaginatively).

Engaging moments between characters along with atrocious lines.

A terrible misuse of the force: every mystery behind it trashed to the garbage bin.

Ray and Kylos' (and even Luke') stories well written while every other part of the plot thinner than paper.

And then it became clear:

It was not only the producers and Disney trying to milk the genre and merchandise stuff towards the new generation of 12years. Noooo.... It was the director that written and directed Looper - a film that could have been (based on its idea) far much better...but didn't.

That sums it up.

The good: - Noomi Rapaces performance. - The visual effects used for her role(s). - Her... uhmm... love scene.

The bad: - Cliché character stereotypes. - Incompetent professional military personnel (again). - Gigantic plot holes. - Impossible escape sequences.

The worst: The world is depicted again as black and white. A dystopian future guided by evil people, making unspeakable choices. Agents shooting at people for no reason. No gray lines, nothing in between. You'll have to clear your head after seeing this.

I have to agree with most of the reviewers here.

2:22 had the cast, the financial resources, an "adequate" story and everyone did their job well. So what went wrong?

Direction: all done by the book (speaking in 2017 standards). OK, if you have the money, you can do this, but it actually lacks soul and depth.

Script: again, all done by the book. Romance, mystery, some science, cool ideas to engage both male & female audience and forget the gigantic plot holes.

Characters/casting: No real people anywhere. Just pause on any scene that wasn't shot on the road and check: No ugly people, nobody gets dirty, nobody not properly dressed. What is this? Some balance would be nice.

Getting all the right ingredients doesn't ensure the outcome.

Well, I thought you can't miss with Darren Aronofsky. You will either hate or love his films. You will either get it, or won't. Plain simple.

But here you have an exception: "Mother". A flock of haters appeared for a lot of new reasons. They got it alright, they just want to cringe trying to look smart, bash Jennifer Lawrence, or simply being *holes.

You'll see one IMDb user (user?, actually an avatar advertising his trash Asian film critic site) giving this film a 2/10 with a title "Utter bullsh*t masquerading as art".

Thank you IMDb for all those colorful user reviews - rating system going downhill from 2016 on wards.

So much bashing for a film that was actually entertaining.

It looks that 15 percent of the votes are 1s or 2s, along with films like "Manos: The Hands of Fate" that actually deserve it.

Well, that's what you get from viewers having the wrong expectations for a film. Yes it is forgettable, yes you wont get the Brendan Fraser first mummy (the other ones don't need to be mentioned either). And yep, you'll get Tom Cruise running a lot, along with a girl half his age. And 20 minutes of Russell Crowe.

But it was well made, beautifully shot and good paced. No Oscar nominations here but I didn't feel robbed of my ticket.

Give a person a rating button and witness the new era of humanity: the era of haters. Definitely this (and tons of other films) does not deserve its overall rating.

Haters that bash John Wick chapter 2 fall on two categories: The ones that complain about things they knew where coming their way: mindless killings, weak plot, no character development etc. And we now got haters that tend compare this film to the original John Wick: a man who was then feared, now is not (and he is actually more vulnerable).

Well, boo hoo to all: Chapter 2 was more than good - and was indeed a "chapter 2" since it starts exactly where the original film ended.

The film delivered what was promised and more. Period. And now we have witnessed the descend of John Wick the boogieman into a helpless outcast killer.

Extremely well done. Bravo!

I was amazed on how quickly the hate list grew regarding Alien Covenant.

This is not your typical Alien film, just like its predecessor Prometheus: it has an actual plot that follows a consistent story arc. If you haven't seen Prometheus, you are in the dark.

In addition, you have Fassbender at his best and some stunning visual effects.

Some flaws are obvious: The rest of the cast is sub par (prometheus had an amazing overall cast). Most of the crew behaves unprofessionally in a crisis situation. But that's it.

And regarding predictability - it was less predictable than all its predecessors.

Complain as much as you want - this was a good film.

A note in general: for the last 15 years people love to complain about Mr Shyamalans films. You should have learned your lesson by now. If you don't like his style of narrative, don't go see any of his films. Really, skip all his past and future flicks and quit complaining.

We've all loved "The 6th Sense" but IMHO "Signs" and "Lady in Water" were OK, "Unbreakable" was superb (i've seen it 5 times) and I even enjoyed "the Village" which was at least unique. Surely he has produced a few duds but, who hasn't?

Split is a solid Shyamalan-style film, elevated by a superb performance by James McAvoy. Shyamalan-style simply suggests a strong story, solid dialog, one or many twists and weird camera angles. You get no special effects, no splatter-horror elements and surely no boo frights.

The film easily ranks to a 7 for what it is, but instead we have an outstanding performance from the leading actor so 8/10 from me.

Thousands of reviews already, from haters and lovers of the film while the film makes tons (literaly) of money.

For us in our late 40s, it was a good nostalgic rehash of the original with excellent CGI and locations. We all left the theater satisfied about this. But after the smoke cleared out, we were left with disappointment.

Rethinking of the film uncovers its serious flaws: no memorable music, no story depth whatsoever, no silent moments, no time to train but still everybody can fight even against sith lords.

Cinematography is astonishing but this is a reboot clearly targeted to younger audiences for money-grabbing reasons. J.J is good at what he does, so if the prequels where directed by him they would stand out far better than this.

May the force be with us on the next two ones.