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shiloo
Reviews
Takers (2010)
good soundtrack'awful movie
Surely one of the worst action flicks I have ever seen. Even "Rambo IV" had a better story and more character than this huge waste of time. I wonder how any Studio would release a movie so bad and waste 20 millions on a simply trashy production.
I wonder why quite a few decent actors would sign up for this project. Didn't they get to read a screenplay before signing a contract?
There was no character introduction, no explanation on why they had to distrust ghost so much, yet at the same time immediately sign off on this obviously rushed heist. They just finished a calmly, well executed robbery, seemingly with a lot of cash involved. Why then follow someone they quite obviously distrust?
And who are these guys? I don't know them, and I never got to show them. Obviously the screenwriter and the director wanted me to feel sorry for them since they all got to die in slow motion underlined with dramatic music?
And these Russians we heard of them once, but then they suddenly appear and kill off the main characters. And how did the cops find out about the two black guys and their whereabouts? And why did they have to die in a shoot out?
I liked the soundtrack of the movie, and I liked the stylish clothing of the main cast, so 2 points seem fair to me. But honestly, don't waste your life watching it. Don't think that just because you recognize a couple names of the main cast that it can't be that bad. Yes it is, sadly. One of the worst screenplays ever realized in a movie.
Star Trek (2009)
Something different, good and bad
Now I am confident that die-hard Trekkers for the most part hated this movie, simply because this truly is Star Trek remade.
What I don't like is that in some aspects, the movie, more so the script, seemed to appear like a no-effort script. The authors were lazy to implement a few things that ultimately are the core of Star Trek.
Among such things is to have a Spock character, whom I actually enjoyed a lot, who makes a believable torn-between two extremely different cultures personality, but as I read somewhere else, by concentrating on such fine and good character development, which I sometimes missed in the old Franchise, they kinda forgot some other things, like for example that this entire franchise is set in Space, rather than on Planets, with ships traveling in-between. This is not Star Wars, yet it sometimes felt like a less love-story-fantasy oriented version of it.
In short, the epicness was lost. Volcan got destroyed, for crying out loud! And that's it. There were six billion people on that planet, only 10000 Volcans survived, yet it felt like some random earthquake in a sparsely populated area. The only sense of what this truly meant, ironically comes from seeing the old Spock watching the destruction of his home planet.
No offense, but even when the (by human standards) uninhabited planet Genesis was destroyed in the Cinema 30 years ago, it was more epic. Destroying Vulcan looked like the destruction of some arid mining moon somewhere far away, where let say the enemy is testing his new killer weapon, but it looked like the real thing was yet to come.
The movie lacked (not always, but too often) calm, but grand pictures, showing the vastness of space, the eternal silence, and how small everything humane is. One could have almost forgotten this is after all a movie about space-going scientists and explorers - just without the space.
And because of the lack of such grand pictures, a more epic feeling for the destruction of one of the core planets of the federation was lost.
This Star Trek is small in horizon, it focuses on character development, which is nice, but what made Star Trek special, and allowed it to last for 40 years, the epicness, was lost.
I hope that the sequel to this new series will, after having taken the screen-time (and space) to focus on those (new) characters, give us epic pictures, and give some of this old Star Trek feeling back - which is what made Star Trek so vastly different from Star Wars, that could have easily played in a medieval kingdom, with Darth Sidius riding on a black horse.
It is most likely related to the fact that Mr. Abrams actually always liked Star Wars more, and is a specialist for TV shows. I like them all, but I am not convinced that his genius there was applied correctly with Star Trek. I should mention that I am the targeted age group for this movie, but what made me, or friends, watch Star Trek, was the optimism (it's there), the grandness of scale (missing) and that it was not fantasy oriented, but scientifically oriented (kinda there). Let's hope that Mr. Abrams doesn't make it into a soap-opera simply set in space, Star Trek above all is an utopia, where in fact we do not see realistic characters, but ideal characters in many ways, and where we get a feeling on how it would be to truly explore the infinite vastness of space. That is the Star Trek feeling, a unique feeling, please don't make it a Star Wars reloaded, Star Wars simply never quite had the scope of Star Trek.
I believe I should mention what I liked about this movie as well: it wasn't drowned in CGI-effects, something very important. It truly felt CGI was not the core concept (unlike in Star Wars) but simply a means necessary to tell the story. I really liked how some simply cheap and old stuff from the low budget series was most carefully redesigned, while making it still visible where it comes from. I don't mind the AppleStore design, in my opinion there is no reason why a futuristic utopia has to look like a cheap 60s low budget movie (as the original series was in terms of design). This is what I likely liked most, an excellent transition.
And together with some really good acting (after all, those are young kids, not yet the seasoned veterans we got to know in TOS and the movies) I believe all the issues I brought up, together with the good things I mentioned, means this can go very well if certain problems are corrected, or more focus is put on making it a Star Trek movie (without the 'canon' issues), Abrams will make this an excellent re-run.
I know he can do it, a lot of sensitivity was shown in production design, CGI and cast, so in terms of story, epicness and more 'space feeling', things definitely can be improved.
Badland (2019)
A powerful movie
This is a movie that will not let you off the hook easily. It requires time and thought to process it all. It leaves you angry, sad, shaken. It above all things leaves you asking "Why?". And you will not feel satisfied.
Some reviews exactly portray this reaction, in all possible facets, from bad to good.
This movie feels so scarily real. It shows the human ability of phasing out reality, even the worst kind. It shows love that feels so honest as if you were part of this movie.
I really like that this movie had a European feeling to it:
No fast cuts, no fast paced story telling.
This movie gives you time to watch the unbelievable story unwrap, to the bitter end. It makes you think a lot, without feeling kitschy. This is no light popcorn movie. There are not many dialogs, as the eyes and the faces of the main actors can convey more than words could ever do.
I recommend this movie to all people with an open mind.
I do not recommend it for people that are overly patriotic, or in some way are too close to this topic. You will be angry, and by all means will not like this movie.
Hard Candy (2005)
Intensive
To put it short, it is one of the most intensive movies I have ever seen. I have seen all kinds of movies, all kinds of genres, bad and excellent movies, movies from many, many countries in several different languages, but this movie is surely disturbing and so intensive.
The cinematography is excellent. The acting was fabulous and believable.
I have read some comments about this movie, and some talk about feminism and how it's presented in this movie. Well, the last thing I thought about while watching this movie is feminism, after all we are talking about a 14 year old girl on a crusade against pedophilia...
I think this movie does an excellent job on showing a most delicate subject, and I can only recommend it.
Go see this movie, and seriously, don't think about feminism while watching this, you really would have missed the point...
Casino Royale (2006)
I am sorry, I must have been in the wrong theater...
When I heard all the comments from the media about the movie I chose to ignore it and give the movie a chance, as well as the actor. I was very disappointed, mostly because of the fact that the only thing that had to do with the other James Bond movies was the music at the end. Maybe James Bond had to be changed to a brute killing machine who has a conscience, to a not so smart and clever street thug with no style and no sense of humor. James Bond has alway been something of a Casanova, a macho with style, manners and sex appeal. James Bond had the best tools that her Majesty's Inntelligence could think of, and they were fun to be watched in action. James Bond could wipe out a whole gangster syndicate in a week and always appear clean and tidy at every cocktail party during this week.
Whatever this movie was, and it was not such a bad action movie, maybe the typical no brain pure action movie a la Terminator (I watched 'em all and liked 'em) it just wasn't a Bond. Every James Bond movies until now was extremely unrealistic, one guy who knows it all, saves the world singlehanded and sleeps with the most beautiful women and at the end always says something funny. One of the few places in the world where women don't rule the universe. Mrs. Brocoli, I am sorry that James Bond was primarily done for men, so why did you have to ruin a franchise with such a simple formula: Beautiful women+cool cars+cool gadgets+style+humor
Every James Bond movie in the past did one thing this movies didn't, it didn't take itself too serious, something this movies lacked so much... Sorry James Bond, but I fear you have retired forever.
Caché (2005)
nice try, "Session 9" showed how to do it
------ Skip if you only want to read my comment to the movie ------
Me and my friends made the mistake of listening to someone who proposed the Thai production "Born to Fight" as a movie we should watch.
That movie was bad, but it was so funny that the whole movie theater was laughing at the end, I had never seen such a reaction to a movie like that, no comedy managed to do that, it just was so bad that it was really funny.
--------
Now, just 2 days after watching that movie, I rented the DVD "Caché" aka "Hidden". It was praised by the owner of the store as a good movie, and I liked the description on the back. So me and my friends watched it, what confused us already was the beginning: "Are those the ending credits?" "Did we skip ahead to the end?" "I can't read anything?"
You watch those long shots with the camera staring at something, so you wonder: "Are they important? They must be, after all, the director has only 2 hours..." Well, they aren't, to be blunt. Nothing important happens.
Now where is the story? --> I haven't found it yet, still searchin'
This movie outlines several plots, but doesn't pursue any of them. The acting wasn't that bad, but I have seen much better. The cinematography is mediocre at best, but nothing like "Session 9". The movie is neither thrilling, entertaining nor inspiring, plain and simply two wasted hours of my live, I really feel cheated for my money.
If I compare it to a movie like "Session 9" I should feel ashamed. That was a good movie, very chilly atmosphere, but still thrilling, using the atmosphere of Danvers State Hospital superbly. One of the best cinematics of all movies. Watch that if you like the chilly slow evolving thrill.
I am not the typical Terminator 3 movie watcher who hates to use even parts of his brain while watching movies, but the reaction of my friends describes it perfectly:
"I don't get it, I watched that extremely boring movie only to find out who did it, and now they don't even tell me that!"
"Born to fight was bad, but it was funny, this movie wasn't even funny!"