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Terminator Genisys (2015)
On par with Salvation
This movie proves one thing: the Terminator franchise should really be laid to rest. Trying to rehash the same storyline and characters over and over again just doesn't give enough creative room to come up with a credible story. Genisys fails at reinventing Sarah, John, the T-800 and Kyle Reese, but it is also a very poor movie from a technical standpoint. Here's why.
Nothing ever happens in this movie. The does not move forward with action or scenes but through exposition. A lot of exposition. They all fight, then they get to a room, then someone starts explaining what's happened or what they have to do.
The dialogue is poor. Yeah, that's a bit of a deal breaker since the plot moves forward only through dialogue, but there you go. It is very awkward, very generic. It doesn't seem that the writers tried to flesh out the characters, give them personality, etc.
Arnold's terminator acts out of character, for the whole movie. It just doesn't obey any of the established franchise rules from the previous titles. They've tried to make him way too kid and family friendly. There's no character arc, like in 2, no motivation, no explanation as to why he is the way he is.
Kyle Reese is a useless character. Really, he doesn't bring anything to the table, is not pivotal to the plot anymore, and Sarah doesn't need him for protection since she has a T-800 on her side. All he does throughout the whole movie is bitch and whine.
Plot holes and convenient plot devices. The movie's full of them both, to the point where a major plot device would just appear out of nowhere, without any explanation, not a single line. The film even undermines its own premise: it never explains why only one person can time travel, and surely enough, soon everyone's going back in time.
Lots of CG. Almost every special fx scene was CG, and it showed.
I seriously wonder which one was worse between this mess and Salvation.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Surprisingly good
I half wanted to see this, as I'm not the biggest fan of Marvel's film franchise. The first Captain America was less than convincing to say the least, and he's never been anywhere near my favorite comics character. But here he's a badass! The action sequences are pure eye-candy. CGI is kept to a minimum (or at least -- the minimum a superhero movie would allow). The fighting choreography is fast paced and varied, the Cap isn't overpowered or getting his ass handed to him all the time (like movie Wolverine). His powers are developed in an ingenious way and don't deviate from the source material, to please the Avengers fans out there. Chris Evans' performance is solid, even though the Captain can be annoying at times with his naive outlook on today's world. Still, those are only fleeting moments, and overall, the character is quite likable. There's definitely a nice dynamic with Scarlett Johansson, who is convincing as a more fleshed out Black Widow. The tone of the movie is quite different from other Marvel blockbusters: it's much darker, more inspired by high tension thrillers. Obviously, the plot doesn't hold up to any Robert Redford classic, and isn't all that deep but then who would go into a Marvel movie expecting Citizen Kane or the Manchurian Candidate? The weak link here is the antagonist, who is definitely poorly handled. I didn't remember him from the first movie and honestly didn't care about the emotional aspect of his confrontation with the Cap. These appear as relatively minor flaws compared to the rest of the film though, and the highlight really is the action sequences.
Under the Skin (2013)
Pretending to be something it's not
Just like its main character, this film pretends to be something it's not: it tries to be an art film, but it lacks a compelling setting. It tries to be a sci-fi horror film but it lacks the tension. It is overrated in almost every respect: critics draw parallels to Kubrick, probably because of the long shots, but long shots alone do not elevate the cinematography. Kubrick was a master of composition and framing and both of those are painfully lacking here. It feels like the dp and/or director were trying really hard to actually emulate Kubrick and it shows. The shots are uninspired and even look amateurish at times. The visuals often do not convey the message or emotion that they're supposed to, and what ultimately happens is that they're boring. They're boring to tears. The story itself also feels uninspired. What could have been an original look on either alienation or the confusion of existence fails because there's no connection to the viewer. I didn't feel engaged enough to care either about anyone on screen, or what happened to them, or where they came from. It also feels that Scarlett Johansson was underused. She is convincing with her chilling beauty but the director didn't give her enough to flesh out her character and make her eerie presence even more disturbing. Overall, this is a wasted opportunity. The form is too pretentious, the substance is too neglected, for a film that could have been very special and different.
Mr. Nobody (2009)
Plot less, pointless mess
The only thing that's even remotely interesting in this film is the premise, and the synopsis you might read on the back cover. Everything else it throws at you fails miserably. There is no coherent plot to speak of throughout the whole 2something hours of artsy advertising editing and camera focus tricks. After the first half hour, you might be fooled that there is some deeper meaning to the whole thing but you'll get some pop science theories thrown in just for the sake of it. The dialog is completely useless. There is not a single even semi-important bit of information that is carried by dialog here. You'd think the director would then rely on strong images but no. All the storytelling is left to annoying editing and even more annoying musical selection. Sorry, but you're not Basil Poledouris and your cues and tunes cannot carry a poorly thought out film. The underlying idea that this mess is trying to convey is the ramification of choice -- which is really just an excuse to cram in a multitude of superficial main and supporting characters instead of fewer meaningful ones. Contrary to what some might believe, not having a plot and/or solid characterization does not make a film more alternative or intelligent. It just makes it barely watchable. The only thing worth seeing here is the actresses, who are all excellent. Overall, it just feels like the director wanted to say: "Oh, look what I can do with Final Cut!"
Push (2009)
Very weak
Here is yet another film which tries to rehash and cash in on the superhuman/superhero/conspiracy/enslavement/MK Ultra paranoia. The premise itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but the execution fails on almost every level that defines a movie.
The writing is beyond bad -- it is confusing, and not in a good way, it's incoherent, and it laughably tries to be smart. The plot is basically one big chase scene, with the good guys trying to outsmart the bad guys. The character development is null. No character has a plausible motivation, and at times you'll find yourself thinking "wait, what? Who are those guys? Why did they...oh, whatever."
The direction takes the cake though. You'll feel like you're watching an almost 2 hour long TV commercial. You expect cool fighting scenes? Don't. There's exactly two of them in the whole film, and the director decided to abuse the shaky cam technique. Abuse it so bad you will feel motion sickness. There's a lot of filler material in there. I honestly wonder how they managed to make it almost 2 hours long. If you cut out all the completely unnecessary car-commercial types of montages, you'll probably narrow this down to 75 minutes or so.
Last but not least, the cast. This is the only vaguely redeeming part of this mess. Chris Evans does a good job, and Dakota Fanning isn't too annoying, I guess.
All in all, this is a waste of time. An unnecessarily long one.
XIII: The Conspiracy (2008)
Boring, predictable, full of clichés
If you're into action-thrillers that are full of all the clichés of the genre, then this one is for you. Everything is in there...from the main character delivering random justice in the street to him taking out pursuers with household items. The frame is...you guessed it, a conspiracy that goes high up in the government in order to take over the world, of course. Couple that with mind-numbing dialog, once again full of clichés, as well as characters full of clichés, and you have XIII. The worse part is how seriously this thing takes itself. It's presented as a serious and intelligent film, but falls really short of it. The main problem really is the way the story is structured...the revelations seem random, incoherent and completely random. Not to mention the annoying and completely unnecessary shaky cam constant flashbacks that are abused throughout the whole movie. If you want to see an action-thriller miniseries that lives up to the genre, watch the State Within instead.
Bekushiru: 2077 Nihon sakoku (2007)
Full of plot holes and superficial characters
There's two good things in here: the animation and the (very) basic premise. Once the veil of mystery is lifted about half an hour in, and explanations start being offered, the whole film degenerates pretty quickly. We have an evil genius type of bad guy with thin motivation for...taking over the world, of course, because he needs test subjects for an experiment. Does that sound believable to you? Granted, it's all fiction, but it has to be at least a little authentic. Anyway, the good guys aren't much better. In fact, they're extremely generic: we have the main girl, who's extremely emotional in spite of being part of the film's version of SWAT (who also carry out CIA-type missions). Then we have a hard ass girl, who's the main girl's ex. Both girls are pretty much eye candy and nothing more. Then we have the dude they're both after, who does nothing except getting captured, thus being in need of rescuing by the two girls. Then we have...the plot. Which is full of holes so big Leonidas could throw in the whole Persian army inside it in the blink of an eye. You'll see what I mean if you decide to watch this. If you don't...well, basically there's a company taking over Japan, on its own, and turning it into a wasteland. How does a single company take over a whole country? How does it fall so easily after two girls infiltrate it when it's supposed to be so powerful? Beats me. So much more could have been done with this with some more thought. That's really all it required. The writers sitting down and figuring out some tighter storyline rather than getting the easy way out and shrugging off all coherence.
Heroes: Chapter Five 'Angels and Monsters' (2008)
Hahaha
Heroes has gotten so bad it's not even so bad it's good anymore. The plot lines are a mess (Sylar being a Petrelli brother was dumb beyond imagination, rivaled only by the Star Wars syndrome of the X-Files in stupidity, everyone acting out of character -- Hiro, Suresh, Sylar), the character development is laughable (Claire getting all vigilante, Peter trying to kills his mother). There is no clear direction in the story either...they just keep adding characters. Now their idea was to have different characters every season...they should have either stuck to that or not added new characters. You can't have both and have a cohesive show. Honestly, the show-runner should fire the whole writing staff and reboot the damn thing next season if he wants to keep it alive for another year.
War, Inc. (2008)
Tries so hard to be funny and fails so miserably. Do not waste your time.
I don't get it. It's just mind blowing. How can THIS sorry excuse of a film get 7.2? It fails badly at satire. It fails badly at carrying a political message. It fails very, very badly at comedy. The plot is one big mess where you'll just keep going "what...the...hell?" None of this makes any kind of remotely vague sense, from the characters' background to the main antagonist to the development of the plot. To try to cover this garbage with a semi-intellectual and informed gloss, you'll see some characters spewing political-economic-biological-metaphysical BS that makes even less sense than having hip hop wannabes right right next to hip hop divas in miniskirts in the film's version of Iraq. Yeah, you did read that right. If you're expecting to see some smart political satire in here, the way Wag the Dog did it, just don't bother. The only thing you'll see is absurd and distorted leftism. Don't get me wrong, I'm as leftist as possible, but THIS makes a mockery of every left leaning idea you can think of. The only place where this mess belongs, is not in theaters, not in DVD stores, not even on cable TV. It's in the bottom 100. Actually make that the bottom 10. Or the bottom 5. All there is is nonsense that tries so hard to be funny and fails so miserably.
10,000 BC (2008)
Even if you ignore the vast historical inaccuracies, it's still garbage
Honestly, I haven't seen such a bad movie in years. Van Damme's filmography is pure genius in comparison. Daddy Day camp is genius in comparison. Hell, if I had the guts to watch Paris Hilton's movie, I'm sure it would be better than this. If you haven't seen it, you seriously can't even begin imagining how bad it is. Even if you ignore the vast historical and geographic inaccuracies, it still is one of the worst movies you can imagine. The acting is so bad it will make you feel uncomfortable and look away from the screen waiting for that very, very poor excuse for acting to pass. The story is so dull, there's no plot, just loose clichés tied together. Commando has better character development. The ending is so laughable it's not even funny...Honestly I hoped at least the special fx would be good, but guess what...apparently Emmerich though it would be a good idea to hold off the big, epic scenes for the last battle, but by then the anticlimactic effect of this mess is so overwhelming you won't even notice anything. Not that there's much to notice...a bunch of mammoths running around for about 2 minutes. There's no blood to keep it all PG, so there's not even one good scene in the last battle. Even when the main dude was supposed to get all badass and kick the bad guy's ass, he actually shoves a bone in his chest, and we don't get to see anything except a vague, dumb stare. Seriously, dudes...keep away, at all costs.
Flandres (2006)
Pretentious artsy...something, with bad writing, bad direction and bad acting
No, really. I have no idea how I managed to watch this thing to the end, but the only advice I can give you is: by all means, do not waste an hour and a half of your life watching this. I seriously don't know where to start with what's wrong with this title, maybe because there's nothing really right about it, save for one single subplot set...in a war, either in Afghanistan or Iraq (see, we don't know which war it is), involving Belgian soldiers and a female enemy combatant. Otherwise this 'movie' is a mess of randomly thrown in characters (you'll find yourself thinking 'who the hell is this?' all the time if you gather enough courage to watch the movie), pretentious artsy directing (close-up of a face followed by a wide angle shot of the landscape...throughout the WHOLE movie), a practically non-existing plot (there's three changes of settings, neither of which makes sense because we never learn anything about the characters or their motivations, or their personal stories), practically non-existing dialogs, or communication for that matter that I guess was meant to be part of Dumont's vision but just adds up to a big pile of nonsense (yeah...there's a whole lot of staring-thoughtfully-into-the-distant landscape in Flanders, especially at the scene where they're hanging out in the field). Now from a technical point of view, whoever recorded and mixed the sound probably won't find another production to work on in the next 20 years. Also, I thought about it real hard, but I couldn't come up with a rational explanation as to why the producers thought it would be a good idea not to have ANY music in this film. Especially given the fact that there's a huge gap created by the severe lack of dialog in there. Moreover...since when do Flemish people speak French? This would cause a riot in Flanders. And how is it that a bunch of soldiers are left on their own in Iraq/Afghanistan, without any supervision or contact with their base and/or commanders? Where are the PEOPLE? Military operations are conducted in strategic spots (e.g. populated areas)...so why do we have one bad guy popping randomly out of nowhere every once in a while? And the military using horses alongside tanks and Hummers? You can't be serious. Apparently, Dumont wanted to depict an ultra-realistic image of humanity, but realism does not equal incoherence.
Do not waste your time on this.
Ergo Proxy (2006)
Deep & dark fantasy
The series starts off with cyberpunk dystopian overtones and fades into dark fantasy as episodes go by. It is really character driven, so the emphasis is on the main protagonists' personal evolution as the world around them changes, the two main points being finding one's self and madness as a reaction to those changes. Unfortunately, the plot somewhat suffers from that; it gets really confusing in the last few episodes and requires multiple views to really understand what's going on. On the other hand, that leaves quite a bit to the imagination of the viewer, so it's kind of an open story with many statements and less interpretation. Some interesting subplot stories aren't developed, which is a shame because the ideas are really interesting. It also sometimes feels like the writers have thrown in allegories and spiritual or philosophical imagery just for the sake of it, without really expanding or incorporating them into the main storyline. In spite of that it's still one of the better anime shows out there, and has the feel of a graphic and futuristic essay on the self and the relationship of the self with the world.