OneKat1 Reviews

Take Me (2017)

What a fantastic little find

[8/10 · 8 October 2021]

Ray is an entrepreneur. He runs a kidnapping business. Or, well, a simulated high intensity experience, or whatever he likes to call it. Essentially, you pay Ray to kidnap you, and do things to you. No, not sexual things. More like forcing you to eat hamburgers so that you can stop buying hamburgers. Or just kidnapping you for the thrill of it. Sounds crazy, but people pay to jump out of planes, so there are other ridiculous ventures out there. As a side note, this business sort of exists in South America, but they kidnap you with the intention of showing you what to do in the event you are actually kidnapped. So, that one is more educational.

Anyway, Ray is hired by a stunning blonde executive who wants to be kidnapped for the weekend. She over-pays him, and even wants to be slapped. But, things are not what they seem. Ray can't tell whether she's actually agreed to be kidnapped, or if he's actually kidnapped someone. More stuff happens, but you know, spoilers.

It's a comedy-thriller-drama-action. It's the perfect balance of suspense, but also convincing yourself you know what's happening. Worth a watch.

When in Rome (2010)

No sparks but many laughs

[6/10 · 8 October 2021]

Kirsten Bell is angry but sweet, and this movie is cute. Not amazing, but cute. Every cast member brings something, and while the chemistry between the main characters is lacking, that is the only flaw in the casting. And even then, objectively Kirsten Bell and Josh Duhamel seem like they would be a great pair on paper, but they just don't have that spark in real life. Which is fine, but should have been noted in some sort of screen test or something.

Essentially, Kirsten Bell goes to Rome for her sister's wedding, picks some coins out of a foundation and magically has all the past owners of said coins fall in love with her. She must return the coins to the fountain, or to the people who owned the coins to break the spell. Trouble is, the guy she likes (Josh Duhamel) is the owner of one of the coins. Despite the actors having no chemistry, you still want them to end up together. Sort of. Maybe. Okay, I didn't particularly care if they ended up together but for the sake of being a rom-com I would have been disappointed if they didn't.

Hope Springs (2003)

Uplifting, but sort of weird.

[6/10 · 8 October 2021]

Uplifting, but sort of weird. Colin Firth is great. But when isn't he great?

A guy gets a wedding invitation to his fiance's wedding, which should be his wedding, but, what's that? The wedding invitation has the name of a different intended on it? The guy is heart broken, so he decides to go on a holiday. Where? Somewhere hopeful. Somewhere called Hope Springs.

He meets a girl, has a great time, they start going out, etc. His fiance shows up and wants him back. But, and spoiler here, she technically never cheated on him. She was sick of waiting around to get married, because despite being engaged, our guy could not commit to an actual wedding. So she sent him the invite as a sort of prank, or odd joke. Well, obviously, it was not received well. Now, what we're all thinking here is "why wouldn't he have asked her about it before just taking off? What if it was just a misprint at the wedding invitation place?" And of course, that is a great thought and a very good question. Apparently Colin is incredible, but for some reason does not consider it.

Untitled Horror Movie (2021)

Not the Best

[4/10 · 8 October 2021]

With the tag line "You'll die laughing" and the movie labelled as a horror-comedy, you would think that I would have laughed, even once. I mean, maybe that's the point, if you laugh you die? So the movie goes out of its way not to make you laugh? Not sure. If you're thinking maybe it's just me, ask yourself just how funny the title "Untitled Horror Movie" is, and then ask yourself how funny the producers, or whoever, thought the movie title would be.

Essentially, a group of actors find out their tv show is being cancelled. They decide to make a horror movie instead, and read some sort of summoning they found on reddit. Of course, this actually summons a dark spirit which tries to kill them. Or at least freak them out. There is zero clarity on what the spirit really wants, whether the pendant is actually important, why it is attacking them, etc. This movie is just a bunch of scenes thrown together on purpose, by someone who thought that their laziness would be a good idea. Take, for example, how rather than each character getting their own scene in their horror movie, all the actors just perform the same scene. Did anyone think it would not be boring to watch the same scene performed by 5 different actors? The more and more I think about this movie, the more convinced I am that it was trying not to be funny on purpose. Surely.

Anyway, there are two Aussie actors in this movie, which is cool. It would have been nice if they were in a better movie, but whatever. It is what it is.

The Final Girls (2015)

A true comedy-horror

[7/10 · 8 October 2021]

A group of teens are sucked into a horror movie. The only way to escape? Make it to the end of the movie. But what happens when the final girl dies? Who will be the new final girl?

Overall, it was a good movie and I enjoyed it. However, some bits were problematic:

1. The mother-daughter side story was unnecessary and really detracted from the main plot.

T2. He boyfriend was horrible? I genuinely thought his character was a joke, but then he ended up kissing our final girl? I get that the pandering was exaggerated, but what about the misogyny and the blatant rudeness to his ex gf? Women support women. You can't just be an extra dick to your ex gf to impress another girl.

3. How they entered the movie didn't make sense.

4. The final girl being a virgin is out-dated, and should have been thrown out.

Again, it's a good movie. It just could have used a peer review of the plot.

Resort to Love (2021)

B grade, but good B grade

[6/10 · 8 October 2021]

A B grade rom-com. A wedding singer gets a job at a holiday resort. Guess who's getting married there? Her ex-fiance, the one she's still not over.

It's okay. It will make you laugh, but I probably won't remember watching this movie next week.

Capsized: Blood in the Water (2019 TV Movie)

Another survival horror movie with sharks.

[8/10 · 8 October 2021]

Another survival horror movie with sharks. But it's a true story that doesn't go where you think it will and had me crying tears of joy and sadness at the same time. It's a really good film. I really liked it.

Essentially, a group goes out to sea on a yacht, the yacht capsizes and they are stranded on a dingy without food or water, and are being tailgated by sharks.

Gosh, open water is scary.

The Roommate (I) (2011)

If you go your whole life never watching this movie, your life will be better than if you had.

[3/10 · 1 December 2020]

Good (but terrible) casting. It's like someone binge watched Gossip Girl, Twilight and The Vampire Diaries and decided they would only cast performers who weren't great but sort of okay from those. Oh, and of course Billy Zane.

So, first off, there's a few very shady lines like "Normally if a guy doesn't get a girl up to his room after she's had four drinks, he's on kitchen duty for a week". What's worse is that the good guy in the movie said that line. So, you know, the script isn't great. Neither is the directing for that matter.

There should be a trigger warning about animal abuse. You don't see the abuse, but it's not good. Honestly unnecessary and can't believe that they even put that scene in. Utterly distasteful and just no good.

Overall, it's a very basic story about a College roommate going from friend to stalker. It's not great, and has a lot of issues. If you go your whole life never watching this movie, your life will be better than if you had.

A Cinderella Christmas (2016 TV Movie)

Everything You Want from a Christmas Romance

[6/10 · 1 December 2020]

Keeping in mind this is a Christmas romance film, it's quite good. It's got everything you want from a Christmas romance:

• A case of mistaken identity
• A rich and wonderful bachelor;
• A hard-working and generally good protagonist;
• A masquerade ball; and
• An evil step-sister (cousin) who is obviously toxic but so obviously that it makes you stop and think.

Some plot points were a little farfetched, such as the urgent wedding, the fact that the bachelor couldn't work out who our protagonist was because she was wearing a mask, and of course, anyone believing the dress our protagonist wore was actually nice. Not to mention the stocking game which seems ridiculous because you're forced to give someone else five (5) of your possessions which have little-to-none monetary meaning but a whole lot of sentimental value. Personally, I'd rather keep the things that have no monetary value but great sentimental value because that's the point of keeping sentimental objects. Maybe, just maybe, the guests were supposed to return the stocking to the original owner, but considering that our protagonist and bachelor did not, I have no idea. Also. You were supposed to use the objects in the stocking to find the person who they originally belonged to, but neither our bachelor or protagonist did this. So, what's the point? Other than the risk of losing your five (5) possessions because someone else took them because they were supposed to, or took them because they just never returned them to you and went home with them (I'm looking at you bachelor and protagonist).

D-Railed (2018)

Oh my, what a film.

[4/10 · 1 December 2020]

Oh my. Just when you thought Sharknado was bad, someone gave us D-railed.

It starts off as a group board a murder-mystery train. Fun. Exciting. This is going to be a whodunit horror. What a great idea for a movie.

A teenage girl dressed up as a cat for halloween stares at one of the women boarding the train forebodingly. Why? We don't know. The same teenage girl was just talking about how fun and expensive those murder-mystery trains are. Maybe she's hoping someone will give her a ticket? Either way, it's weird. It's also weird and unnecessarily Halloween.

Anyway, we're on the train now and the host is kind of spooky and is wearing cloudy contacts for some reason. One of the passengers keeps hallucinating cockroaches on her plate. We don't know why. The little girl hallucinates a weird figure in the glass, we don't know why. The host dies, or fake dies, whatever really. Some guy talks about how he's on this train because his brother went last year and it was good. He couldn't go last year. His brother couldn't go this year. He looks away into the distance like this is supposed to mean something. Spoiler: It doesn't.

A guy who was a passenger takes his gun out and tries to rob the train. The main character looks at a pendant longingly. We don't care. Some people we have no attachment to die. We find out some of the actors are in on the robbery. The guy with the brother story was sort of in on it but then changed his mind half way through and tried to stop the robbery? I don't know. We don't care. Apparently this all started because one of the actresses was wearing really expensive diamonds (which makes me question why she would be an actress on a train carriage murder mystery show but whatever). She dies.

Moving on from the robbery, the train is derailed and the train carriage is in a lake. Everyone is pretty beat up and unhappy. The train carriage is sinking. A strange mer-person attacks the train carriage and anyone in the water and kills them. The CGI is non-existent, so it's more awkward than scary. In the next ten minutes lines like "No one is leaving anybody" and "The choices we make" are said. A woman who was always anti-train sacrifices herself for no reason.

They swim to land and find a cabin, which they go in, rather than continuing to run from the lake. A guy managed to steal the pendant back from the stolen jewellery bag and return it to the main character. She says that whenever she looks at the pendant she is reminded that she can do anything. Unsurprisingly, we don't care. The funny character is killed in an impossible manner and we see the mer-person in better light. Somehow, they have gotten bigger and scarier looking than when they were in the water. I suspect the costume was too heavy to wear in the water so they picked a smaller one for those scenes, thinking maybe we wouldn't notice.

The young girl sacrifices herself to the predator because the lead was all like "Our lives are our own, and we decide what we do with them". Our lead falls asleep, wakes up and then makes a run for it. Why? Is the mer-person nocturnal? It makes no sense. She runs. There's a voice montage where she's looking into the sky and some random quotes from the movie are said. She follows the tracks until they take her back to where the movie started; a warehouse. Apparently there was no one on the way. Apparently the people in the train carriage that didn't get de-railed didn't reach a destination before this lady walked a day or two to the warehouse.

She speaks to a girl who was given the worst lines in the world. She looks at her pendant and it's a mirror.

oooooooh she disappears. We find out ninety six years ago there was a train crash and the carriage ended up in the river. There were no survivors, and the bodies were unaccounted for (this is clarified as never found) . The carriage was eventually dredged up and restored. So it's sitting in that warehouse.

What is this movie. And why do I like it?

Robin Hood (2018)

I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed.

[2/10 · 4 October 2019]

How can a film with incredible actors, a proven successful storyline and a huge budget get everything so incredibly wrong?

Who wrote the script? There's only so many one-liners we need. What we really needed is storyline and some character development. Honestly, the whole "I choose you" thing was sudden, undeveloped and just ridiculous.

Who was in charge of costumes? This trying to use modern clothes but keep it within theme didn't work. It just made the movie confusing.

Who was in charge of the set? It's all ghastly. It felt like a video game at times. Maybe that was intended? Idk. It made me want to stop watching and didn't make sense.

Where was the consistency? The only positive is some of the acting was quite good. But why these great actors said yes to this film is unknown to me.