Reviews

A light-hearted commedy that plays a lot with stereotypes.

The movie takes a lot of time to come to the point. Especially the introduction drags on for quite some time. The audience probably knows a couple of minutes in advance what's going to happen. The three couples and their relationships towards each other are interesting, but especially the young couple has no real connection and no chemistry. They are just there and are not given much space to act.

I had a few real laughs, especially when it came to the French/German/English jokes, but then again it was all too stereotyped-up. I'd wished for some more originality.

Maybe a fitting movie for a boring Sunday evening, not so much as a cinematic experience. It's just too shallow for that.

During the movie it felt too slow and I was in secret hoping that something more would happen. I was not sure where the build-up of the movie would lead me, but after I realised that it's not a build-up, it IS the movie, it felt very relaxing and I eventually stopped wishing for something more, something extraordinary or anything at all. I just watched the movie to its end and accepted anything it threw at me.

The serenity, the simplicity and the awkwardness of everyday life was perfect.

I have lived in Japan for a couple of years and this is a very accurate depiction of life in Tokyo. The only thing I would deduct a point for is the music. It threw me off that the protagonist is listening to western music all the time (but once). I get it, it's targeted at an international audience, but there would have been lots of good options for Japanese music from the 70s. This, and the 'thank you' on the Tic-Tac-Toe note broke the illusion of the film for me. The movie would probably have worked even completely in Japanese with (or even without) subs, since there are few and mostly simple dialouges.

Great movie, loved it - in retrospect.

I like 'loser meets beauty' stories, and I also like most of Tommy Jaud's books. They often revolve around some kind of looser who finally overcomes his awkwardness after his gf broke up. While the main characters in the books are usually relatable (often because of the many references to pop culture and real events), and you want them to get better and succeed, in the movie this role is played by Oliver Pocher but in such a stubborn and even hateful way that I just wished him the worst.

In the books the social failures of the main character usually happen because he doesn't know better, or out of some slapstick situation, but in the movie the main character is simply very unsympathetic, rude and simply put not a good friend. It's not the poor nerd who falls in love with an unreachable women, it's a rude stalker who just finds some new victim.

Most other characters don't seem to notice what an unsocial person he is. Even stuff that could be deemed cute and funny in the book turn angry and spiteful in Pochers interpretation.

Pocher probably was used for this movie due to his (then) rising popularity, and if this performance ever worked, it has aged terrible.

I don't know man, was this really necessary? Three different time stages for just a biopic? Sure, it's Nolan and there is no way Nolan would tell a straight story, but overall the movie did not work for me. I mean, come on, just tell the story, spit it out man. From A (development of da bomb) to B (Military exploits it) to C (remorse and political aftermath). Is it necessary to mix this all up?

1. Story Telling: Nolan is just not a good story teller. A nice twist here and there, or some surprise or revelation at the end would be fine, but Nolan just randomly throws us bits of information, it's so hard to follow. And pointing to some scene in the beginning of a 3h movie just to "reveal" that some dialog was not as expected in the end ... it's just not well told. Just tell the story from A to B to C and I would be satisfied.

2. Music: The score was too heavy for the content. I remember a scene with really intense violin noise during a dialogue, as if something of upmost importance was revealed. But if it was I would not know. I found it hard to concentrate through all the noise. It was probably nothing, at least the movie just continued.

3. Too much, much too much information, characters and garbage: I did not know who half of the characters were, their names, their function, their connections or goals. Best and most recognizable was probably Matt Damon. He was the only side character with clear goals to me. But the rest? I am not even sure what the two hearings were about. Revenge of Mr Strauss, but for what exactly? That he did not hear the dialogue between Oppenheimer and Einstein? Did he feel left out? Maybe it was explained, but I must have missed it.

4. The technical side: The start was good, explaining the astronomical side of things, but I already thought to myself that the explanations were not good. If you don't have any knowledge of the matter you won't understand, and if you do you just nod understandingly. This was the first time of many I thought to myself that Nolan just does not care about his audience. He might want to show off some of his knowledge but in a way to constantly tell you how stupid you are not to understand the scientific or political backgrounds. I would have wished to see more 30's and 40's tech stuff, for example how they actually shot neutrons at atoms. Instead all we get is some oszillating waves on a spectrometer and that's it. That's the proof. No further explanation. The Trinity scene is awesome, probably the best part of the film, but even then Nolan had to switch constantly between character shots and the explosion. Man, just show us the explosion in one nice shot. That's what I am here for. To see the bomb get off.

I left cinema like so many Nolan movies: Exhausted, confused and thinking I am too stupid to understand a simple bio pic. This is probably my last Nolan movie for some time. I need a break and a movie with a clear and understandable story line. Maybe something more like Lost Highway or something.

I am disappointed. Although Guardians 3 is not a bad movie per se, it is definetly the worst of the three.

All the sillyness and light hearted jokes of the first two installments seemed just forced: The characters used to argue a lot in the previous movies too, but here the arguments seem more serious and sometimes the friendship actually looks damaged. Rocket gets the spotlight, but most of the background story is simply too dark. I wanted to watch the movie with my kids, but this is not a kids movie. The first two were kind of violent too, but not in this grim, dark and desperate way.

Nebula does not seem to fit in the crew, Drax does not do much at all, Groot seems strangely hallow and 'unfinished', only Starlord and Gomorra have a somewhat interesting tension. Both the adult groot and baby groot from 1 and 2 had something going on, young Groot here seems to lack any personality. The writers did not know how to use this character. The actors sometimes played as if it was the last day before summer vacation - just get it done and forget about it.

I always liked the family and friendship aspect of the first two, because it was somewhat ridiculed by the characters themselfs ("5 idiots standing in a circle" from the first, or "that unsaid thing" between Gomorra and Starlord or Drax being gentle to Baby-Groot at the end of part 2), but here it's not embedded in the actions anymore. It has to be said, over and over again.

For a Grand Finale it often feels too complex, too empty and too forced. Was it a bad movie - no, probably not, but it was for sure not up there with the other two. I will probably re-watch it in a couple of years, hopefully I like it more then. ("Endgame" also grew on me, so there is hope.)

It also sucks that there are so many fake ratings on IMDB, some even don't try to hide it.

I was really looking forward to a chess-themed movie, but I was disappointed. Beside not showing any real games (just very short glimpses of the board or random annotations), chess fans don't really get much out of it. The movie is also unnecessarily brutal and sadistic. If the brutality would at least serve any purpose it would be acceptable, but it does not.

The movie has many flaws in my opinion: First and foremost the decision to show the two storylines in prison and on the ship in parallel. It just does not work well and is more than often only confusing. I probably would have enjoyed the movie more if it would have been in the normal sequence.

Chess itself had not enough room to bloom. Sometimes the main character threw annotations around, but most of them were nonsense or too fast to follow. The movie also does not motivate the viewer to play himself.

The main character was just too crazy. He felt out-of-this-world all the time and I could not really make a connection with him. Most of the side characters also were moderately interesting at most. The chess world champion was even comically overdrawn and seemed like a Manga-version of a chess champion, his hair constantly hiding his face, his bulky stature, his stupid grunting. I was not expecting any realism here, but it was just too overdrawn and weird for me to find him interesting or believable.

I guess as a thriller the movie might work for some, but I for one was disappointed for the sloppy execution. I came for the chess, I stayed because I paid but in the end the movie was neither fun nor rewarding.

I was a bit indifferent when I first saw it in the theatre, but now that I watched it again at home, I have to say I really like it.

It's a slow movie, alright, but that's not a bad thing for me. The story strongly reminded me of Apocalypse Now: Finding (and ending) a high ranked officer gone rouge; the slow descent into madness further down the river; the main character as a soul-searcher who is very good at what he is doing, but not even sure he likes it.

I especially loved the massive impact the darkness of outer space had on me. Lonliness, despair, yet tremendous beauty. I really liked the movie, but I can understand everyone who did not. It's not a movie for the broader audience.

I get it: Drugs are a great way to come up with a neat plot for a movie. But please revise your script when you are sober again.

Minor sppoilers ahead!

The film is full of contradictions and I didn't get much out of it. The first half tries to be some kind of espionage story, with random people going to random places to get random hints that do not contribute much to the story. It does not invite you to think along, since all conclusions are pretty much random. Shortly after the time-themed parts begin to unfold nothing makes sense anymore, but at least it all looks great. I honestly had no idea what the film is about, why exactly people are fighting and what they were trying to achieve. In Interstellar, although I might not grasp the physics behind everything, I still understood what was at stake and why the protagonists were acting as they were, but here it's all very random and nothing makes sense: Apparently you can affect a piece of time-inverted item into doing stuff that you will cause in the future, but it doesn't work later on, or it does not matter anymore. In the one second "heat causes stuff to freeze" (just for the cool effect that is), in the next minute it doesn't and it's all back to good, solid shooting and explosions. The idea of forward-time and backward-time were just not convincingly adopted and although I had the feeling, that there would be cool possibilities, none oft the ideas were not really exploited to an understandable or interesting level. I did not like the box-in-a-box-in-a-box theme in Inception, and in this case it is just a cover up

Characters and their relationships were totally random too, and I can't see why anybody thinks this was great acting. It is not. The actors often seemed to struggle to understand their relationships too. Their motives did not matter, nothing really mattered.

The whole thing feels like being written stoned and there was no effort to fix the giant plot holes, instead it gets plastered with lots of action in the end. All in all an exhausting, long and pointless movie. It often feels as if nobody in Nolans team told him about the obvious mistakes the film makes.