dim-tripakis Reviews

Troll (2022)

Better than I expected

[8/10 · 3 December 2022]

I understand why some reviews are bad, but for the same reasons I enjoyed this movie. It is full of American cliches and stereotypes, and I mean the lot. This is not a Norwegian movie. This is an American movie.

Then why do I give it 8/10 ? Well it delivered everything I wanted to see. I mean, some people choose to watch nonsense, then rate it with 3/10. Well I am not like these people. I choose to watch nonsense, then if it's good nonsense I rate it with 8/10.

And here is another paragraph to complete 600 charactesr needed for this review, because it will not accept less thatn those. Here we go.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Resumption of disbelief

[3/10 · 24 May 2020]

The Indiana Jones series succeeded because of its magical way to suspend disbelief, which is the ultimate goal of any movie: to immerse the viewer into its world and story in a believable way.

The movie begins well, but as soon as Indiana survives the exploding refridgerator, disbelief is reinstated, because Indy is suddenly transformed into a superman.

Sure it is a movie. But there are certain red lines you can not cross, because Indiana is supposed to be a human and we are always in suspense about what could happen to him. He dodges bullets, runs wagons over lava, passes God's tests, because he is witty, brave and lucky. NOT because nothing can harm him. That's another hero, I believe his name is Superman.

As soon as he survives the explosion, the movie is ruined for me.

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)

It was very good, unlike what I had heard

[9/10 · 4 January 2015]

It is now 2014 and I finally got to watch both Episode I and Episode II, during a weekend visit to some friends. Since the 3 prequels were released (I believe Episode III was in 2005) I have heard a lot of bad comments for the movies and Lucas specifically. That all he is after is money and franchising, bad director, bad writer and the like.

When you expect less, you get more out of it. That is a rule of life. And perhaps this is the reason I enjoyed Episode II so much. Or, more precise, one of the reasons.

The other reasons are that it fully immerses you into another world. This is imperative for a movie. I would go as far as saying that movies *are* immersion, above all other things. So this one, in my book, is a successful movie. You do get the feeling of watching a world similar to ours, but orders of magnitude bigger, were countries have been replaced by planets and nations by species. And they, too, have their problems. Politics, war, greed. The political and social references of the movie are not to be taken lightly. They were well thought out and make this movie enjoyable to watch by adults as well.

Technically the movie looks fantastic, the plot feels realistic and the dialogs are good. The dialogs have seldom something smart in them, but they work. I would expect a little more humor and punchlines, but anyway, I suppose dialogs are not the strong part of the movie.

I could go on for hours but its late. All I want to end up with is that the movie is immersive, has good plot, decent dialogs and does not stall much, at least much less than Episode I.

The one thing I did not like and God I don't know how they allowed it to happen, is that Anakin simply can not act.

Very Bad Things (1998)

Great movie - not a comedy

[9/10 · 22 August 2012]

When I saw this movie, I had not heard anything about it. Christian Slater and Cameron Diaz were in it, so I figured "how bad can it be ?"

And the result was... "very bad!" As in "when Im bad, Im better". This is a massacre movie. Hence, the chainsaw. It is a massacre of their lives, because of wrong decisions that anybody could make. This is what the movie is about. And it is scary, because it could be you or me in their shoes.

Comedy ? If you like cynical or black humor, then yes it is. Otherwise, I doubt it will feel very funny.

In all, this is one of the best movies I have ever seen, the ones that strike your mind and you never forget the blow.