Reviews

This seems to be a 3-arc series for a streaming series that fell victim to the 2022/23 writers/ actors strike. In no way can this have been originally intended as a theatrical release in its current form.

It is not good.

Not saying terrible. Just not Good.

Sorry - a minimum number of characters is required to post a review. Do not proceed beyond this point. I may add to this review later but for now: "hot potato hot potato just to fill in space unwilling dragonian disfortunocity regards unwilling overwhelming subsequent brilliant shyness while willingly adding unemployment discussion musically subfrequently beyond disregarded impossibilities including subserviant inconsiquential things."

Once upon a time.

I guess it's how all good stories begin.

One good story began (at least to the public) in 1977 and ended in 1983.

We had all the toys. We even got the 12" 1991 callendar. Kenner became Hasbro. Dark Horse started making new comics.

And yes, the Special Editions came. At 22 years old I got my first BJ in the cinema during Empire.

And wow, new movies. The first one hyped. The last one the best.

And then Clone Wars... Many years of Lucasfilm Glory and Failure.

... The dark years came... .... But Ahsoka. Now we are in the middle. That is what this episode feels like! Thank you Dave!

At the end of 'Ash Vs. The Evil Dead' Ash went to a (post) apocalyptic future. This series was a (fantastic) direct follow-up to Evil Dead, (the inconsistent but superior) Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness.

We were pleasantly surprised by the show after the (not in a good way Terrible) soft reboot movie.

Unsure of what THIS was, a continuation of the good series, or a follow-up to the terrible reboot, we spent much of this films runtime waiting for Ash to come back from the future, appearing trough some kind of flashing Time-Portal, shooting his laser-gun.

As it stands, this isn't even a good sequel to the soft reboot. It borrows as much from 90's/ early 00's Japanese horror remakes like The Grudge and The Ring as it does from Evil Dead. Lift doors opening to release a torrent of blood? Are you kidding me? You're copying The Shining? And much of the climax is straight out of John Carpenter's the Thing (itself a remake of a much weaker British sci-fi film).

So we're left with a weak horror-slasher film for millenials that are unfamiliar with the classics or the original source material.

Jon Favreau. Started. Fixing. Star Wars. HERE.

Complaints galore about this season. And yes, the Mandalorian was a fun series with a new story every week. Many complaints about "filler" episodes. No story progression. No longer!

"The Book of Boba Fett" confused many people. Ripping Grogu away from Luke early as an excecutive decision was one of many. Jon regaining power on the creative storytelling level can only be received positively.

The Mandalorian Chapter 19 (Season 3 Episode 3 S03E03) seems to be a result of the struggle between creative and executive decision making. Rather than an episode of The Mandalorian, we are treated to what seems to be the full B-plot of the canceled "Rangers of the New Republic" Star Wars Disney+ show.

It seems this story was written separately from the rest of the show and was inserted out of necessity. It joins the Prequel movies, the Clone Wars era and the New Republic era. Doing this in a well written and well executed single episode of a show that this story was not intended to be a part of. Unfortunate but genius.

Don't Give Taika Waititi Money!!! Or you'll end up with a film like this.

A horrible @&ß&# of a movie. It's really just the most pathetic excuse for a film. Just terrible.

AND SO MUCH FUN!!! Mel Brooks finally has a worthy successor! Just imagine this with practical effects in the 80's with glitter and without C. G. I. Goats.

"Stylistically this film does a lot. Guns'n'Roses music figured prominently."

"The major end-scene may conform to Marvel standards, contuation results in more 'slightly Pythonesque" humour."

"Well done".

I'm not saying "go see this motion picture". I'm saying GO HAVE FUN!

Remember when Guillermo del Toro made live action Disney films? This sure ain't that.

Low budget remake reminiscent of the Hallark channel. At least Tom Hanks is trying, but the mix of CGI animation and live action is just... Let's just say it makes me feel uncomfortable.

Yes, we get it. No-one is going to remember who Chris Pine was 50 years from now. But at least we know who ended up with the likeness rights to Roger Rabbit... These are not the Shrek-like jokes for adults that make kids films pass the generation gap.

So what is this? An expensive film feeling cheap? A woke mess? A straight to Disney+ piece of...? None of the above.

Can't even say this spoiled my childhood memories, as I wasn't a fan of the original.

It kept people employed and will make children under 10 feel mildly entertained.

My wife refused to stop making mewing sounds untill I turned this off. Can't say she was wrong to make this demand.

We did watch about 20 minutes. Spousal abuse my arse, we had to give this a try. But self abuse? Sorry Disney, I'll give that a miss this time around?

Clearly intended as an end of series episode. The previous two episodes told us about two seasons worth of story from that perspective - this is it. Those episodes were like the movies after TNG ended. Good, not great. Many explosions etc.

But this.. thank you Seth.. (not Sith).. powerful, amazing, TNG-true, best of the best.

Real...

After your many directorial roles on both Marvel (yeah, I don't care about those either) and Lucasfilm series for Disney+, we hope to once again greet you back as supervising director on THE ORVILLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Takes a while to get there, in fact this movie makes little sense until over an hour. But it does get there...

What at first seems like rotten set- and production-design (mixing periods) starts to make sense at some point. But once it does this film may have anoyed you enough to turn it off...

Being perfectly familiar with the subject matter through several documentaries, I was pleasantly surprised to be met by such a small yet well-known dramatized World War II story.

Perfectly suitable as an off-season BBC television feature this film is worthwhile for the smallish British drama that it is.

Baffling to me is that (in the Netherlands) it was advertised as a major theatrical release, which is in fact how it was released. I do believe this was released directly to Netflix in the U. S. That sort of release seems more appropriate, along with a minor art-house cinema theatrical release perhaps. In the Netherlands we seem to have left the pandemic behind but getting this film as a major release reminds one that its influence can still be felt?

Having Collin Firth as it's only internationally known actor (Star) does not seem come to the aid of the stature of this film. It is a small British drama. For a slightly more spectacular 'small' World War II story, the general international viewership may be better off watching 'Monuments Men' instead.

I first unknowingly met Roland Emmerich at the age of 17 when I was refused entry to a showing on Oxford Street in London of 'Moon 44' on account of not having reached the age of 18. Was forced to take the Underground to a different theater to see Back to the Future 3 instead. In retrospect perhaps not the worst thing to have happened in my life, although the girl at the Oxford Street theater I was chatting up seemed disappointed I was only 17...

Having struck out with the girl I made sure to at least see the film. Bought it the next year on VHS in one of Oxford Street's megastores (either HMV or virgin). I was not asked about my age.

Having gone on collecting films... Later on I found out Roland Emmerich was the director behind Stargate. No wonder I was so excited to get my early pre-release widescreen VHS copy of Independence Day in the Rotterdam Virgin Megastore (I believe it existed for 2-3 years).

The DVD years followed. We fist got Stargate as a Pioneer release, trying to keep their head above water in the post-Laserdisc prosumer market. But then we got films like Godzilla and the far superior The Day AfterTomorrow. Some of these I watched in theaters (multiple times) before purchasing the DVD. I destinctly recall the original U. S. deluxe boxset of Independence Day having every flaw possible on DVD ( I still have it, it requires a (by now) ancient (A-brand) player to play chapters in the correct order).

Then the two "numbers" movies followed. 2012 and 10,000 B. C. Not terrible, not great. A few mediocre films and a sequel later, Roland Emmerich was about to be an old forgotten name.

And here we are in 2022. Where the first true big-budget original Roland Emmerich film in 10 years failed spectacularly at the box-office. One can argue that is because of it being based on a conspiracy theory. But 2012 wasn't? The truth must unfortunately be that the age of the big blockbuster film that started with Star Wars in 1977 has more or less ended.

Anyone who has seen Moonfall can list any number of flaws. Yet, there is no denying that this is the closest we've gotten to the ultimate (90's style) action-scifi-adventure spectaculair since the beginning of the genre. Shame the genre is also pretty much a decaying corpse. Bigger is no longer better. Special effects now seem to come from the discount bin in your local off-brand supermarket.

But should you wish to revisit the golden age of... whatever it was. Go see this movie in cinemas while it lasts!!!

Appears to be a sort of TV program (show). Based on an old XBOX game (may have been released on multiple platforms?).

I don't play games, so reviewed as is. Not as a fan of the game.

The story is totally nonsensical. In fact you'll spend your fist ten minutes watching shooting and explosions. I'm sure there is a story here somewhere. But I don't appreciate having to look for one.

If you're going to rip of 'The Mandalorian' you should at least have a "Baby Yoda".

Nonsensical story related to previous films and wholy unsuitable as reboot.

Sony seems to have given this film some sort of budget and it does (sometimes) show. Kuddos.

As this is most obviously a keepiealivie. One owns the right to a franchise, as long as a new film is released every so often. Fox did a worse job on keeping Predator. So I'll give this two stars. And won't misbehave against anyone giving this 3 or even 4 stars!

Buddhists philosophy and an action packed Hollywood blockbuster story... A good combination they do not make.

While original ideas for theatrical releases are to receive applause... Going bang-bang-explosion-explosion and gunfight-swordfight-sequences do not.

Also extremely offensive to Buddhists.

Three stars feels generous.

This film looks (very) expensive. Some of the actors are quite good in the smaller scenes.

But when you are presenting us with such a nonsensical plot, you can at least make sure that you get Johnny Depp in it running around and waving his arms while yelling. Clearly Angelina Jolie is not an adequate substitute.

We are presented with references to old mythology. Mostly Greek, but with a wider interpretation. Sometime fun, mostly just blatantly offensive.

A diverse cast should not be a problem, but confuses whatever story there is. Yet apparently they are all robots created before Earth had any awareness of races, so it's fine I guess?

And then more stuff explodes...

7.4 7.8 6.4. Current rating for this film. Current rating for the original. Current rating for the original sequel.

I'll fully agree the last 10 minutes of this film made us go "yippee". 6.5 for that. But the rest of the film? 4.5 on the member berry scale at best.

This film series was cute as a franchise up to episode 4 or 5 with disconnected storylines and varying degrees of production value.

We then got a few fair connecting action films. Fair to good. Not great. But they were enjoyable so made money.

Then the system kept on spinning. Spin-offs. Leading up to this. Another inconsequential sequel that often reminds one of lesser Bond films (if Bond were replaced by a team).

Please give Vin better roles. From the Riddick series we know he is a fair actor when in the right roles. This ain't it...

The worst film I ever enjoyed.

No Bruce no movie, but Bruce does make this just barely tolerable.

Running Man (not Zwarzenegger's best film anyway) type story, mostly with actors running trough the (Canadian?) woods. Some originality, some fairly okay acting.

I did not enjoy the production values, fairly poor cinemaphotography, music below par.

Still, better than a lot of straight to VHS action films back in the day. I'd recommend this over Death Wish 5 for example.

Fine for a Friday 4am screening.

Taking original subject matter seriously while taking the mickey out of both itself and it's predecessos is a hard nut to crack for any (soft-) reboot within a movie franchise, however this film succeeds spectacularly.

This is both a parody of and a worthy successor to previous Matrix features. A worthy successor as in deepening, expanding and adding to philosophical ideas from the originals. A parody as in refusing to take itself and its characters (too) seriously. The nods and winks to how to reboot a franchise are omnipresent. Good examples are (and I don't think these relate to the actual spoilers storywise) are the mentioning of the studio's name (the actual studio that released the movie) with the "with or without you" quote and everything mentioned in the focussgroup related scene (where everything we later get to see is mentioned).

What absolutely clinches it for me is the ending. Again, no spoilers as such. But you can just feel the anoyance of the film makers here. "Oh yeah, you want a political correct female-centric ending? Fine, now chocke on it and here's a terrible all-female Rage Against the Machine cover song to really make it sting."

I've (we've - me and the Mrs.) haven't had so much fun watching a franchise film in a very long time. Like going from Return of the Jedi straight to Revenge of the Sith. It's like Die Hard, an action film and a comedy in one. But with reflection and philosophy sprinkled loosely upon it.

But fair warning, if you are a die-hard Matrix fan and consider the original trilogy's parts 2 and 3 to be holier than scripture you will be likely to miss all the nods and winks, or be offended by them, and you will therefor not enjoy this movie.

I thought it was hilarious, exiting and thuroughly entertaining!

Not being familiar with the source material I'll have to judge this series by its own merrits. I am however not entirely shut off from the outside world. So I did catch snippets of nasty social media comments. In my attempts to ignore these I did feel multi-ethnicity took me out of the story on several occasions as in making little sense storywise. Inclusion can be done both poorly or well. From the standpoints of my white privileged ass as well as my colored (asked her if it was okay to refer to her as such) wife, in this case it was done poorly.

BBC's Merlin. Game of Thrones. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. We are often reminded of the while watching this, in the case of the latter two no doubt on purpose, in the case of the first... ehh? I wish I were reminded of the BBC co-produced 'His Dark Materials' instead as would quite frankly recommend that series over this one.

Feels like a preemptive 'strike' from Amazon against the upcoming Lord of the Rings series. As to the actual story? Some people running around having adventures while Special Effects happen...

I'm unable to review this title as IMdB (algorithmically auto-) deletes any reviews that pretain to the subject matter of the film.

My original review did refer to 14th century (1300's) politics, such as the 100-year war.