hectordanielbuelna Reviews

RRR (2022)

The power of friendship.

[9/10 · 12 May 2024]

Two guys bond together and join forces to beat British occupation through dancing and the power of friendship.

I've enjoyed a lot of Indian movies through the years and this is by far the best one of them all. It just clicked with me. I even enjoyed the musical and dancing numbers, they striked a great balance with this. You get invested in both protagonists and their stories. Both leads are grrat actors with great physicality, Bheem has many scenes where you can see his flaws but also great emotional scenes where you can see his potential and Raju is just on point the entire movie, when the twist finally comes I felt as baffled as Bheem wondering how could he betray his bro.

This movie is not for everyone but I like that international filmakers can still surprise us with these great, action pack films.

Goodbye Earth (2024)

Put to sleep, Earth.

[3/10 · 2 May 2024]

This has to be the most boring possible take on a world ending event I've ever seen.

Instead of using the unique possibilities of social collapse present during an apocalyptic catastrophe, the nearing end is just the backdrop to a boring drama. People act more like they are waiting for the rain to stop, than waiting for their doom. And even then, they are all depressed and annoying.

The soldier's story is the most engaging one and th one that could have sustained the whole show. Sadly, it is connected to the whinny teacher. And her story is connected the even whinnier kids.

This show lacks cohesion, identity and brings absolutely nothing new or worth it to the table.

True Detective: Night Country: Part 1 (2024) Season 4, Episode 1

Lacks that "True detective" feel to it.

[3/10 · 18 January 2024]

With the unbelievably talented Jodie Foster backing this, I gotta say, I had great expectations for this season. Needless to say, I wasn't entertained.

This time the show runners tried to recapture the mystical/supernatural aura from the first season (which season 2 already messed up), this time is all about the indigenous people of Alaska and the spirits which roam the land... But instead of being subtle about it or, at the very least, male it believable, people straight up see ghosts now.

Last, but not least, this episode's structure is so weird. In the fist five minutes so much happens which never gets explained. I finished the episode and had no idea what was going on. I don't know why the characters are connected and I don't know what's the deal all the ghosts! This season sucks. I'm not gonna waste time watching the rest of it when there are 3 seasons which are so much better.

Where the Crawdads Sing (2022)

What a disgusting movie.

[2/10 · 16 January 2024]

I've never read the book, nor do I know anything about her author. But I can say with total certainty that they did a horroble job adapting it.

The premise itself turned me off badly. From the very beginning every character felt like an exaggerated caricature. The performances are plain, even the experienced actors do a poor job. The lead has absolutely no chemistry with rest of the cast. And her whole story is nonsense. I understand how she educated herself reading a lot of books and she kibda had friends, but let's be honest, an abusive household, mother abandonment, isolation and social outcasting won't turn anyone into a functional human being. And some may argue she wasn't sll that functional, but outside of "that thing", she's just an average girl.

The messages and the morality of this movie are all wrong.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023)

Just read the book...

[3/10 · 17 November 2023]

This movie isn't really "bad" as much as ot is bland and souless.

I don't exactly what to blame here. The characters have similar dialogues to the ones found in the books. The actors do good acting. The scenes have the right pacing. Yet, the movie is boring and you end up not caring about anything that happened.

I guess reading the story from the point of view of cunning Snow helps us understand better his feeling and motivations, here we don't have that and the actor have next to no chemistry! Their actions don't seem like a natural progression of their love and feel more like "this happens next cause the book said so".

I was really looking forward to watching it. This movie was such a let down for me.

Shadow in the Cloud (2020)

Just a creative B-movie

[6/10 · 2 October 2023]

I watched this movie and came looking for everyone else's opinions cause I kinda expected huge backlash, since there's a radical change in pacing at some point of the movie which I just knew would rub people the wrong way.

I, however, did not expect the weird backlash it got for the being a movie about a woman. It's kinda sad cause I, for one, felt the actual plot of the movie was overall good, it's just a female equivalent of a power fantasy, which is not bad at all. If anything, the creators were very tamed about it, and I liked that.

Sure there are "female boss" moments, but they are earned, you can't say that often with modern movies. I just just knew there was either a female director or solo writer just by looking at the themes about femininity, and that's not bad at all.

All and all, I'm not praising this movie for the sake of it, I really like this more experimental cinema and I'm a sucker for WW2 era aesthetics. But this is not at all a movie for everyone. I for one think Chloe isn't a very good actress, I just like her and her beauty moved me to watch the movie, which, again, I don't regret at all. Nontheless, there's a a lot screen time spent on her alone and the director didn't use her well (I blame the director cause her dramatic acting in suspiria is so much better or maybe she felt like she shouldn't try that hard for a B movie). The other awful aspect about this movie is how over the top and plain stupid the action was. I coulda given this movie a 9 very easily, but the fake crying and way the writers keep putting the main character in dangerous situation and deus ex machina her out of them is frankly offending.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

This movie lacks consistency

[7/10 · 21 July 2023]

This movie is good. A lot of action. A lot of Cruise running. A lot of great stunts, choreography, practical effects and a very entertaining plot.

That being said, this movie lacks LOVE. Ethan Hunt lacks consistency on his actions. The plot focuses on the action and misses on developing the relationships between the characters. You could argue that someone who watches this movie already watched at the very least the last 2 or 3 movies, but that adds to the detriment of this movie cause instead of acting like very close people, the characters keep having to tell you they went trough a lot cause the filmakers didn't care to show how much they care about each other, instead they have to keep telling you "the thing I care the most are my friends". Maybe this time the focused too much on the action and missed the heart of Mission Impossible, last 2 movies didn't feel like this and I very distinctively remember they stablish this at the start of the movies by showing Ethan risking his life to save Luther eventhough he keeps telling him the mission is more important than his life and Ethan not accepting the sacrifice of his friends.

Also, that plot. God. Feels so 80s, but also feels like it's gonna be super dated by the time part 2 comes out.

Oppenheimer (I) (2023)

The most "Nolan" Nolan movie

[7/10 · 21 July 2023]

I wanna start this review by warning you: the movie is long; there are long scenes of silence, contemplation and instrospection. A person who's not used to watching slow movies can still enjoy it, but there are plenty of senes that added very little and coulda been trimmed to make the movie shorter and more emphatic.

My second complain is the over indulgence on Hans Zimmer's grandiose composition. This is not exactly a bombastic movie, yet there are at least 3 montage which do no progress the plot or show any substantial development on the charactersand are clearly there just to insert Zimmer's music. I found that very off putting. This isn't Inception or Interstellar where the music compliments the spectacle and creativity of the scene.

This is still an awesome movie. Of special note is Robert Downey Jr.: The man can act. This is the very first time I see him actually act in a movie and he was great! The whole supporting cast is so good. A lot of known faces and other not so well known giving excellent performances. I'd like to also give credit to Emily Blunt, reminding us why she's such a household name.

For the most part, this is a courtroom drama, but the little "action" there is in this movie, you'll get your money's worth of "Nolan". There's one particular scene where I felt really immerse and even started getting anxious to see what came next, the whole room felt it too! At that moment you are right there by Openheimmer's side hoping for the best. That was an awesome movie experience.

Don't let my criticism fool you into thinking this is a bad movie. This was still the best cinematic experience I've had in the past 3 years. I just wished these little complains could be improved and turn this into a 10/10 movie.

Black Mirror: Joan Is Awful (2023) Season 6, Episode 1

Lame.

[4/10 · 23 June 2023]

This episode is nothing but a mash up of a buncha more original and better excecuted ideas created by more original people. Stranger that fiction, Tryman's show, the CentIpad episode from South Park. Salma Hayek playing a crazy latina really made my night, probably the funniest episode they've made, but the whole thing was so obnoxious, lame, stupid and, frankly, just pathetic. This one episode shows how self aware the whole netflix team is on how people perceives them and how they keep manipulating the algorithm to make catchy headlines to get free publicity on their awful content. Also, how do I stop myself from noticing how colorful and diverse the cast of the episode is? I feel kinda bad for all those male actors with skin colors on the "brighter" side who can't probably feed themselves lately.

Oh yeah, the ending of the episode is super cute, honestly. This season just isn't worthy of the Black Mirror name.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

A sequel done right.

[9/10 · 23 June 2023]

I'll start this by just asking you to go watch this in the cinema. Honestly it was such a good experience. Very few times have I watch the same movie twice on the cinema, but I reall had to and it was worth it.

The acting is awesome. The character design. Sound design. The pacing. A near perfect sequel building of it's predecessor. I'd give it a 10, but there's a huge flaw I cannot overlook (personal taste, I guess) while every characters has a unique and awesome design which really makes compliments their personalities, a lot of the same unique and imaginative character design don't really go well with each other and sometines the "style" of one of the spidermen will take over a scene, which makes the scene pop in an awesome way, but the rest of the characters don't blend well and makes it feel like a bad collage for a few frames. I hope they can fix this in the next movie simply by avoiding bringing other spidermen to the scenes when they're trying to highlight one of them.

Fast X (2023)

Toretto just started playing Rocket League in the middle of Italy.

[3/10 · 19 May 2023]

Fast X finally went too far.

As far as I remember, people keep complaining about this movies being dumb, however, people often dismisses the the charm of the action and the overcomplicated plots of crazy writers trying to show how smart they are. This time they actually went too far.

Once again they retcon an old movie by adding scenes that weren't there. Once again they got caught on a "revenge plot" and once again family has to come together to defeat evil. They quite literallu rehashed the plot of the last 2-3 movies, but this time they got lazy!

The whole family is vack qith a brand new cast.

Allan Ritchson, I love the guy, but he can't act to save his life. He has the funniest dialogues in the entire movie, though.

Alison Brie, the second worse actor in the entire movie, has absolutely no chemistry with the entire cast. It's actually impressive, she seem uncomfortable in every scene. I don't get it.

John Cena again charming his way into making you like his character, he can't act either, but he actually takes advantage of the dialogues and his own phisicality to sell the Jacob Toretto.

And Jason Momoa... Just played a goofier Joker. Jared Leto would be proud. He's even obsessed with the color purple. Someone must've felt very cheeky when he said something on the lines of "I don't wanna kill them, I just want to hurt them real bad". What a failure of a villain. Jumping back and forwards between a serious villain and an clown.

This was, overall, a very dull, uninteresting and boring disappointment. Fast 9 shoulda been the last one.

Not looking forward to the sequels to this mess, not at all.

Renfield (2023)

Entertaining and annoying in equal parts

[3/10 · 4 May 2023]

The premise of the movie is very creative and I really loved the action scene at the begining stablishing Draculas powers and weaknesses. The interactions between Cage and the familiar guy (sadly i don't remember the name of the actor) are quite entertaining and I just love Nicolas Cage as Dracula to be honest.

The whole "self help" aspect of the movie kinda put me off, but I get it, in the hands of better writers it could have been good, but here it's so in your face and hammered into the movie, it's embarrassing. People can read into it if you are s whole lot more sublte with the themes.

The cop woman and the lobo guy are the one reason I disliked the movie so much. Both characters felt so off. Their whole personalities are annoying and disgusting. I wish they were at least played by better actors, caue they are horrible. It was sad to see. Maybe it was the direction, but everyone else did a good job, which makes them stand out even more. Awkwafina just played the exact same character in Chang Chi, but with a lot more cursing, and that Lobo guy, god, so bad... Whoever told them screaming and making faces is acting. This movie could have been so much better with s different casting or a different director. Well... At least got to see Nic Cage playing a "co-dependant Dracula"

Music (I) (2021)

What a disgusting movie.

[2/10 · 24 April 2023]

I'll preface this by declaring my disliking for most musicals. The whole genre doesn't click with me. But this was on a whole new level.

The premise of the movie put me off, but I stuck with it hoping for Kate Hudson's acting to save this trainwreck. But it just added to the awfulness! She just seemed bored and annoyed the whole time.

The worst part was the exploitation. All the characters with disabilities felt like people just trying to appear mentally handicapped. It was done so distastefully. I hated it!

And the whole trying to traffic drugs for "a good cause"... The whole film just made me sick. And you may be too, so be warned.

Ammonite (2020)

Look out for the bait

[4/10 · 16 April 2023]

I gave this movie a change without even reading the description. I used to think that watching a movie with Kate Winslet was a safe bet, as well as Ronan. But this was just awful.

I vaguely knew the story of the famous archeologists who discovered the first Ictyosaurus and figured the movie qould be about the life of Mary Anning in the aftermath of said discovery.

At first I thought. The "relationship" developing between the co-stars was one of friendship or some kind of mother-daughter dynamic. At no point did the actress made me feel it was a film about romance up to the moment Ronan started kissing Winslet. It's not at all the actresses fault. They do a great job at portraying their characters. I entirely blame the director and the writing. The "subtlety" was too excessive and both the director and the writers probably figured that ot was a 1800s movie so women can only show emotion through raw lesbian sex scenes which I had to watched sitting right next to my mother.

The whole relationship is not even realistic. This cannot be defended, both actresses act all cold right up to the point the start having sex and somehow that's also the only aspect that works, cause I read all the reviews celebrating this bland made up story about a weird relationship between 2 historical figures that that now will taint the memories of 2 extraordinary woman cause someone at Hollywood decided they now have to kiss. Disgusting.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

This feels like a 2020s remake of the old one.

[3/10 · 7 April 2023]

I can't believe it. Nintendo made the same mistake once again. Mario games have always been kinda mediocre on the story department, but there've been a few good ones. One thing that never misses the mark is gameplay. Videogames are a very different media, but nintendo has been known for been very protective of their IPs. This makes it extremely frustrating to see this movie fails so horribly.

I'm not joking when I say it feels like a remake of the old Mario movie. That one movie that made Nintendo abandon completely the movie industry. Sadly, they gave too much freedom to the creators of this film. A company known for pumping out mediocre films and disgusting amounts of sequels and spin off to their IPs.

Even as a kids movie it fails at delivering, focusing more on pop culture and bostalgia instead of appealing to kids. And been a "kids movie" doesn't justify at all how awful this is.

Nintendo coulda partnered with dreamworks, paramount or any other company, but no, they chose itumination. Probably the cheaper one.

I feel so cheated.

You People (2023)

This is not okay.

[2/10 · 6 April 2023]

This movie is so blatant, in your face and out of touch with its political commentary I got offended for you all, people.

I used to think Jonah Hill and Eddie Murphy were safe bets when picking a movie, but this movie was just sad. I can't believe the amount of hate in this. Right from the opening everything's just wrong. The writers (Jonah Hill included) are probably thinking they're somehow fighting racism by being extremely racist towards everyone else. I don't know who's the intented audience for this, but I can assure you that if the first scen of the movie doesn't hook you, you don't need to keep watching, it DOESN'T get better after that. I wished I'f watched a different movie, almost 2 hours of being uncomfortable, angry and bored, all at the same time.

Fall (I) (2022)

Worth watching.

[7/10 · 27 March 2023]

To be honest, I really just watched cause it's called "Vertigo" in my country. At first the whole premise seemed kinda boring, but I just gave it a try. And it was worth it.

First off, the acting's just great, every actor does a great job, and I specially loved the 2 leads, their chemistry and the whole dialogue feels natural and real, which really sells the movie. The drama is very blunt but effective, from the start the movie is very emotional due to the whole accident in the prologue and watching the pain of the protagonist bleed into the lives of her loved ones felt very realistic. Finally, the whole dilemma of the movie is well realized, it doesn't get boring at all, and the story progresses very seemlessly and naturally. You can get a good sense of how much time has passed just by the way the protagonist shows signs of exposure.

I found this to be a fresh take on the "survival" genre. This woman's life get totally broken by a horrible event and she gets talked into trying to go back only to be put in "this" situation. Then things get worse and worse, and the actress did a great job on showing us how her character breaks apart... Gotta say that this movie really trives on the female lead and, somehow, it manages to keep things fresh eventhough 80% of the movie happens in a single location.

If anything I wrote made it sound interesting to you, just give it a try! This small budget movies deserve more time on the spotlight!

John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

An honest cinephile review.

[2/10 · 25 March 2023]

After the pleasant success John Wick was, the creators somehow managed to made their magnum opus John Wick 2, the best one by far, where the whole idea of the unstoppable legendary assassin gets fully realized.

In this movie, however, just like in the last one they tried making the action more bombastic by giving the villain "all the power in the world", not only overcomplicating the whole lore of the assasins guilt (once again) but also turning the whole action of the movie into a cartoonish mess.

Once again the Baba Yaga gets turned into a damage sponge who keeps just walking off been thrown off high buildings, getting run over, punched and hit with multiple objects and still winning every fight by the power of deus ex machina.

The pacing of the action is just horrible, every 5 minutes there's a random fight and Wick keeps barely making it out alive but they keep expecting you take this crap seriously! Forget how awesome and practical gun-fu was in the first film, this time everyone has magical bullet proof clothing that just makes the fights longer and the whole choreography less believable.

There are a couple of great cinematic and tense scenes (I specifically loved the sword fight NOT involving Wick and the scene where the camera is on the ceiling inside the abandoned building). Sadly there's a ton of things I hated: the almos 3 hour duration, the whole retcon and rush to stablish a new villain, the weak motivations gor said villain, the blind guy with superpowers, the needless "tracker" guy and his dog, the amount of random and long fighting scenes that just kept going and kept happening... So bad.

Triangle of Sadness (2022)

A rollercoaster of feelings.

[9/10 · 11 March 2023]

Not very often you find movies that evoke so many diffent emotions. Moreover, it's very rare to find a movie which does it so well and evolves so naturally. Last year was a great year for cinema, and this movie just adds to the seventh art.

Movie starts with petty couples drama about 2 persons that love each other very much, but don't see a future together (she wants more that he is or can have; he wants to tame her and make her into what he seeks on his future wife).

After a whole lot of happiness, laughter, disgust, anger, fear and a lot of political talk, you end up with a novie that will leave you with a strange feeling inside about the very nature of expectations, our place in society and the importance of being true to yourself and to each other.

What a beautiful movie this was.

I honestly can't recommend it enough. I was just so good. I woulda given it a ten, but I found the critique to social classism a bit too heavy handed to the point that it turned every other character except the main cast into caricatures.

The Whale (2022)

This is movie is beautiful in his own particular way...

[8/10 · 18 February 2023]

This is a great movie. No questions about that. But there's a lot of people that'll probably be put off by its subject and the structure of the movie (the whole movie happens inside a very small and kinda ugly apartment).

What I'm trying to say is: this movie isn't for everyone. It is slow, methodical and very raw. The movie presents pain in a very out there manner. Every characters shows their deep flaws, their demons and their pain. The movie demands introspection from the viewer and challenges your vulnerabilities.

You have to go in with a very open mind. But if you can click with it, it's just such a beautiful movie in his very particular way. The ending in particular... Slow, surgical and powerful are words that came to mind. Is very open ended and depending of the way you watched the movie or the mood you were in, you can interpret so many things.

If you actually enjoy the more "artsy" section of cinema, this is a must for 2023. I loved it.

Babylon (I) (2022)

It was an awful experience.

[1/10 · 4 February 2023]

I get why a lot of people like this, but I think this has too much spectacle, excess and crazy for my personal taste. I came looking for a story about the rise and fall of a character, instead is mostly a shallow caricature. Honestly was expecting something totally different and MUCH better after all the praise the move was getting. Well, you got me. I fell for it again. The worst part is that the filmakers kinda make "fun" and "criticize" how crazy the film industry was back then when there's so much going on lately. Robbie again giving an average performance with her "whimsical personality"; the supporting cast did great, but it doesn't show enough due to the structure of the movie.

Not recommended.

The Boys (2019– )

The rich get richer.

[10/10 · 27 January 2023]

I missed the releasebof the first season for an entiee year, until the second season dropped and a friebd recommended I watch it. And I loved it!

The first season has this awesome experimental quality to it, they were actually just trying something different and it worked!

The second season refined some of the flaws, added some more action, the dark humor got better, well written drama and the extra budget they got through it success really shows!

Then season third dropped... My god. I honestly don't know how to describe it. Everything is more "in your face" but in a good way. Somehow the producers finally seem to have embraced the edgy nature of the show and went all out on it. I'm pretty sure this is the highest point I'll reach, but I'm glad we got here and I'm still excited to know what comes next.

Dear Evan Hansen (2021)

A world of cringe

[1/10 · 27 January 2023]

This movie is just awful. The whole concept behind it is so creepy and they put an actor in his late 30s to play a highschooler, the man's got this uncanny appearance and his "socially awkward" acting had me on the edge cause I kept thinking it'd turn out he'd killed Evan Hansen (that would've been somewhat amusing).

Honestly don't watch this movie, the singing is okay but the lyrics are super cringe and there's tons of bad acting. A cast full of stars giving okay performances, tarnished by the mediocre lead and the rest of the supporting cast.

If you wanna identify with the themes that's alright, but let's not pretend this is any good.

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

A big missed oportunity

[2/10 · 9 July 2022]

Chris, Bale and Portman are at the top of their acting in here. There are a bunch of scenes where they really transmit their sadness, their passion and their hate. I really liked that. There wasn't enough of it, sadly. Disney's sticking to the old Marvel formula of ruinning a beautiful scene with a dumb joke or a funny gag and then looking directly at the camera going "hahaha did you expect that joke about rocks making babies in the middle of a deeply emotional character scene?". Horrible.

I just didn't like it at all.

This movie is made for kids. It was so much better when the movie was in my mind, now that I've actually seen it I'm beyond dissapointed. But I'm finally done with the MCU so hooray! I have zero interest in any of the upcoming movies. So now I can save my money and maybe buy some good books instead.

The Guardians of Justice (Will Save You!) (2022– )

This is one of the worst Superhero shoes ever made... I loved it.

[7/10 · 22 March 2022]

This show was made with a certain audience in mind. I'm that audience.

If you loved movies like Psycho goreman and Turbo Kid, or older stuff like Toxic avenger, this is right up your alley (I also recommend you play Far Cry 3 - Blood dragon). A lot of B-list stars, with that B-series charm and cheese. Din't come looking for a big budget show, or even a high production value. Just sit and enjoy this charming mess of a show. The world needs more shows like this for people who just wanna re-live the 80s VHS era.

THe one thing I hated is the weird editing, it's not bad, just a lot of bad and weird choices. I assume the director was trying to up the "bad movie" vibes, but hopefully he will learn from the feedback.