DrLex Reviews

District B13 (2004)

Still highly enjoyable after 17 years

[9/10 · 2 September 2021]

When B13 came out in 2004, its incredible parkour scenes were jaw-dropping. I watched it again just yesterday and this film has aged very well: the scenes are still jaw-dropping. Keep in mind that there is very little CGI besides the fake images of the wall around the district. Most of the action stunts are real. This should not come as a surprise, because one of the main actors is the founder of the parkour concept. Parkour relies on various skills to move quickly through an urban environment in ways that would soon result in an ambulance ride without the required training.

The action is the real star of this movie, the cartoonish story is just filler but is interesting enough to act as glue between the action scenes. Furthermore there is some good humor to lighten it all up. Definitely not a masterpiece in storytelling, but that is not what you should watch this film for. This is meant to be pure entertainment, and it delivers.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Perfect Mate (1992) Season 5, Episode 21

Turned out a lot more interesting than I expected

[9/10 · 21 May 2016]

I apologize in advance that this will not so much be a review of this episode, as it is my opinion of what is wrong with the way many seem to be watching and rating TV shows and movies nowadays.

As for the episode itself, it was better than I expected from the single-sentence summary I read before watching it. The story has a tragic aspect to it, because it involves a woman who was specifically raised with the sole purpose of being nothing but a gift, to be handed over during the signing of a peace treaty. The story ends with a rather unexpected twist that makes it all the more tragic. What makes the episode particularly nice, is that it gives us a more personal look into Picard's personage than we're generally used to. Despite the serious subject matter, there are quite a bit of humorous scenes to lighten it up. Highly recommended.

Now, as I stated before, my only expectations of this episode were based on a single sentence that summarizes the plot. For the rest I know I am watching an early nineties show with a mid-sized budget and a tight schedule. I am fully aware it is not as refined as present-day shows written by people who studied all the flaws in all older shows in televised history. Therefore I do not expect the same rigor. There was a particular moment in this episode where I thought: "boy, that is some poor security for a 24th-century space ship." However, it was obvious that this part of the story was completely secondary to the main subject, therefore I immediately ignored it under suspension of disbelief. When going through the other reviews however, I find another recent one that completely disses the entire episode just because of that exact same shortcut in the plot.

Yes, a Ferengi simply walking into a cargo bay that was earlier on explicitly requested to have increased security, is sloppy writing. But no, this does not break the entire episode as the reviewer insinuates. Maybe if this episode would have been released today this would be unacceptable, but it is 24 years old. If you're going to apply present-day expectations to something from a quarter century ago, it may be better not to watch it at all.

This is not the first time I bump into a review like that. Even beyond TV and movie reviews I notice this same kind of behavior being on the march: creating completely unreasonable expectations based on either incomplete information or inappropriate frames-of-reference, or both; and then being extremely disappointed when those expectations are not perfectly met. That is one sure way to be disappointed with pretty much everything. If you want to go back to enjoying things, make minimal assumptions about them. Take things for what they are, not what you thought them to be based on whatever rigid models or misleading advertisements (like movie trailers, which I avoid if I can). Of course, whoever wants to turn themselves into a complete sourpuss, is free to ignore this advice, but I would appreciate it if one would not try to spread this kind of acidity across the world.

Spectre (I) (2015)

Like many contemporary blockbusters, no attempt to think outside the box

[7/10 · 17 February 2016]

Watching 'Spectre' feels familiar. In fact, at times it is all too familiar. When the credits rolled, my overall impression was that I had been served a "Best of Bond" compilation. Every scene, with the exception of just a few, reminded of a classic Bond film, the script reminded of classic Bond films, the villain, the gadgets, the cars… You get my drift. The result is well-made and entertaining, but no more than that. There are no surprises and there are only few memorable moments.

I cannot give this more than a 7 because I base my scores on how often I would like to watch a movie again. Since this already felt like I had seen it all before during its first viewing, I can only give it a score that means "I would only want to watch this again maybe once or twice".

Spectre seems to suffer from the same problem of creative stagnation as many a contemporary blockbuster: it feels as if someone trained a large neural network by feeding it all the existing material, and then asked it to generate something similar. The result is merely a linear combination of what is already known. There is no attempt to break outside the established box. This is playing it safe, but it will never produce a 'wow' factor that makes people recommend the film as a must-see. If the next few films are made according to the same recipe, the public will lose interest in Bond films altogether.

The bottom line is, if you want to watch a Bond film as you know it, Spectre will not disappoint. If you want to experience something new however, you will be disappointed.

Chappie (2015)

'Chappie' is like Die Antwoord: many will not like it, but deserves respect for daring to be what it is

[8/10 · 16 June 2015]

I wasn't aware that 'Chappie' was directed by Blohkamp before I started watching it, but it soon became obvious even only a few minutes into the film. The style is quite similar to District 9. Anyone who liked D9, will probably like this as well.

The film features Ninja and Yo-Landi Visser from the South African band 'Die Antwoord'. Both their music and video clips can best be described as 'weird'. I cannot say I really like the music, but I respect these people for daring to swim against the mainstream in the way they do. Their performance in this film is reminiscent of their clips, and for some strange reason it works.

By all means do not watch 'Chappie' for a water-tight story that is completely plausible. The story has plot holes big enough for an airliner to fly through, but this is not the point. The film throws together cutting-edge CGI, some quite deep questions about society, AI and consciousness, the absurdity of Die Antwoord, art, tension, and plain all-out action, into a big explosive mix that is never dull, and not belittling of its audience by glaringly pointing out what one is supposed to feel about every character and story element.

I am surprised at the poor rating this film receives at Rotten Tomatoes, which during its first years of existence I actually considered more reliable than IMDb for its overall ratings. But as usual, I guess its rising popularity and cultural bias is starting to work against it.

Taken 3 (2014)

Horrible editing further ruins already weak action scenes

[3/10 · 2 June 2015]

My main beef with this film is obvious: the editing is awful. Shots rarely last longer than two seconds. I mean in general, not just during the action scenes where it is even worse: there are parts with three shot-cuts per second. Next to this ADD-induced editing, the camera is almost always zoomed in all the way, and is being shaken for no good reason. This often makes it impossible to see what is really going on.

The viewer is never given the time to relax, and this gets very tedious after a while. When the next action scene starts, you just do not care because the relatively quiet scene that came before it, was already edited as if it was an action scene. This kind of spastic editing can work fine when used in short doses. This film however is an overdose lasting a 100 minutes. Even the sound design is bad: it is all squashed to the same volume with dynamic range compressors, further reducing the impact of action scenes.

I have two possible explanations for this combination of the tiresome shaky cam with the frenetic editing. One, the director has a serious mental problem. Two, a double whammy: Neeson is getting too old for elaborate action scenes, and the film must have an audience as large as possible, therefore nothing graphic can be shown to allow for a PG-13 rating. To solve these two issues all at once, action is simply faked by shaking the camera and cutting shots all the time.

The PG-13 rating is misplaced anyway. Kids should never be allowed to watch this junk because they would risk brain damage from the horrible editing.

Even when putting the bad cinematography aside, the film is disappointing. It is a big pile of clichés with cardboard characters and contrived plot twists. I am not saying the first Taken was so much better in that regard, but at least it amply compensated with its well-directed action scenes. If you are looking for anything like the first movie, stay away. There is nothing to find here.

Jupiter Ascending (2015)

Hard to believe this is made by the same people who brought us The Matrix

[5/10 · 26 May 2015]

How this movie seems to have been created: 1. Take all movie clichés known to mankind. Throw them together. 2. Find more clichés, if needed invent some new ones, and add them to the pile. Make sure to include something from every known historical period: the Jurassic period, the Roman empire, the Victorian era, and so on. 3. Blend it. Blend it like your life depends on it! Mix that Roman empire with dinosaurs, robots, space ships, and Victorian machinery! 4. Pour visual effects sauce over it. Keep doing this until every pixel of the screen is a visual effect. If 'The Chronicles of Riddick' looked baroque, this film must look baroque squared. 5. Find some shallow and simple story to tie all this together.

The result is entertaining in the same way as a roller-coaster ride: it is fun for the first five minutes, but when you keep on doing it for two hours straight, it makes you sick.

I actually did not know this was written and directed by the Wachowskis until I saw the end credits. What happened to their skill of using a perfect dose of special effects to tell a multi-layered story?

The only good thing about this film is the visual aspect. It looks nice. Kudos to the people working on the CGI. The problem however is that there is way too much of it, a common problem with recent attempts at blockbusters. There is so much to see that eventually there is nothing interesting to see. 'The Matrix' was visually quite sober most of the time, and this is what made its effects stand out. In Jupiter Ascending, everything is spectacular from the first to the last minute, which results in nothing being spectacular at all. It is the visual equivalent of the 'loudness wars' in music. A spectator who is spammed with a non-stop visual overload, eventually does not care about anything anymore, no matter how spectacular it is. They will start focusing on the acting and story, and noticing that there is simply nothing of interest there.

The acting is ho-hum, some of the actors seem to be even more confused about what kind of a mess they have been cast into, than us spectators. The story is made to sound complex but it is just a paper thin idea padded with expensive words and pseudoscience, and vague hints at trying to bring important messages that get entirely lost in all the noise.

I mentioned The Chronicles of Riddick before, which is conceptually very similar but which I found much more entertaining. Maybe it was because at least one of the characters did have a back-story and acted as if he cared. Jupiter Rising on the other hand seems like an example of what can go wrong when technological advances allow to show anything on-screen a director wants, and they cannot decide what to pick from all the possibilities, so they simply pick everything that exists and throw it together.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

How this movie might have been conceived

[4/10 · 16 December 2014]

-Hey guys, we need to make another movie that will make us quick bucks.

-Let's find something that has not been "rebooted" yet! Hey, look, Ninja Turtles!

-I saw a few episodes of that when I was a kid!

-Great, me too! Let's add an obvious green sheen over the ENTIRE movie because turtles are green! You know, like the 'virtual' scenes in The Matrix, but then more greenish and all the time!

-Awesome! Hey, what's up with that Shredder guy, what's his back story?

-Who cares? He had blades on his arms in the series if IIRC. Just add more blades and make him speak some Japanese, it will be cool.

-Hey, how about we add another villain? More is better! I'm out of ideas though.

-I just watched that Spider-Man movie, and it was pretty good. Let's add a generic villain and copy the entire final scene from Spider-Man.

-Good call! What will be the setting?

-I don't know. Winter is cool! But spring also. Hey, wasn't there a character named April in the series? Let's make it winter and spring at the same time, and don't forget to add a pun about it.

-This movie will be so awesome. We need action. When I think action, I think Michael Bay.

-Right! Make stuff explode while the camera is zoomed in all the way, and then shake it uncontrollably. Duuuude!

-Make sure to have him add the longest chase sequence with impossible physics in entire movie history. And add some extra explosions to the final scene even though there is no reason for anything to explode! Steel beams can spontaneously explode, right?

-Of course. Hey, it seems the original series had a rat in it that knew something like kung fu. That doesn't sound realistic. The Dark Knight was realistic and was awesome. If we make our movie realistic, it will be awesome too.

-Just make him learn it from a book! That is way more realistic than anything.

-Damn, why couldn't I think of that? All right, that's about it. Wrap it up!

-Hey, shouldn't we add turtles?

-Ah damn, almost forgot about that. Just make up something quickly. I'm out for lunch.

The Nut Job (I) (2014)

Hollow and deeply uninteresting to both kids and adults

[4/10 · 29 April 2014]

I have no idea what the people were thinking who made up the concept for this movie, because it seems to be designed to appeal to nobody. Except perhaps children who are so young that they can still be entertained by funny moving figures performing slapstick gags every minute.

Visually it is pretty decent. It has a consistent style that reminds of early Pixar work, except for the occasional hackneyed animation that must have been overseen in the final polishing pass. Also, pretty much all the animations involving water are awkward.

The fact that the graphics (and Gangnam Style references) look a little dated could be easily forgiven if the story would have been gripping and entertaining, but alas: the film fails terribly at that. The plot is a rehash of the same friends-group-rejection-regaining- acceptance stuff we have seen in countless other films that did it in a much better way. The characters are one-dimensional (yes, it is a 3D film, but you know what I mean). Only Neeson's character has some depth to it. There is also a rat with only one line of text in the entire film, who is somewhat interesting because he is unintentionally creepy at times.

I barely laughed during the entire run of the film and neither did the rest of the audience. The fact that the title is a pun using the word "nut", should be a hint that many of the attempts at jokes in the film are predictable nut-based puns as well. The rest is mostly slapstick and fart jokes.

My overall impression of The Nut Job is: extremely messy, lacking vision. I give it a 4 for coming close to being enjoyable, but still falling flat. Avoid. Apparently a sequel has been planned, I hope they'll do a better job at it.

MythBusters (2003–2018)

Started out great, went downhill recently

[7/10 · 3 March 2014]

This used to be one of my most favorite TV shows ever. It was the first show I looked up on IMDb so I could rate it a 10. It has never been entirely rigorously scientific, but that would have been too boring anyway. In the first seasons they managed to strike a great balance between sensation and scientific validity. Initially each episode spent quite a bit of time showing how Jamie and Adam constructed their experiments, which made it quite educational.

Then it gradually went downhill. The attention for how the experiments were built, was gradually reduced with every new season. Until 2013 however it never reached a level where the show was reduced to all style and no substance. Then however, episodes started popping up that were obviously intended to promote some other Discovery show. This only got worse with the 2014 season which started with a Star Wars special that gave a forced impression like "someone paid us to spend an entire episode on this franchise that has no ground in reality at all".

Then came the live Twitter pop-ups, which I find horribly annoying. Every thirty-something seconds there is this moving rectangle in the corner of the screen that grows to cover a substantial area of the image. I do not care at all about the text inside it. Having comments from random viewers shoved in my face is like watching YouTube and being forced to read the inane comments below the video. Ignoring these pop-ups is nearly impossible due to the attention-grabbing animation and the simple fact that they cover essential parts of the image. Please, please stop superimposing this junk on the broadcast. TV is not interactive and I like it that way, so do not pretend it is by feeding us these obviously heavily moderated tweets. Anyone who badly wants to read live tweets can see them on any other device they like.

My dwindling respect for this show got another hit when I stumbled upon a report of some episodes being unauthorized re-makes of copyrighted material, like the "airplane boarding" episode which never aired in the USA because the lawsuit is still ongoing. I still have respect for Jamie and Adam because I tend to believe they just go with what their producers hand them, and most of all, because of all the years of televised enjoyment they offered me. Yet I am afraid that if MB continues on its current trajectory, I will have to say it goodbye.

White House Down (2013)

Predictable, dumb, massively implausible, and fun

[7/10 · 9 November 2013]

It seems many people miss the point of this film. If you still do not realize that its only goal is to serve you dumb entertainment by the time the president grabs what appears to be a bling-bling RPG launcher with the presidential seal imprinted on it, then either you are thinking too hard or not hard enough.

I don't know why some people think this film is trying to take itself seriously. Maybe the trailer was misleading, I have no idea because over the years I have learned to avoid trailers like the plague. The only purpose of a trailer is to trick you into watching the movie, not to give you a summary of the movie, not at all.

Everything in White House Down is predictable, loud, often impossible, and there are no attempts to make the events grounded in reality. No, a few RPG shots will not destroy a real Abrams tank. No, Delta Force would not act in such a dumb manner as in this film. No, an ICBM cannot be used as a surface-to-air missile. And yes, the heroes would have died over and over again in every single action scene.

This is a simple rehash of all stupid action films of the past 30 years and it does not try to hide this fact. The weak plot is just a vehicle for the action and we all know every plot device showed in the first dozen minutes will be used somewhere in the finale. The good and bad guys are all cardboard characters, there are silly one-liners, and we have seen it all before. But why would that be a bad thing? If it is reasonably well made, then it can be a lot of fun to watch, and I found that to be the case with this movie.

I actually enjoyed this more than the suspiciously similar Olympus Has Fallen. That one did give more of an impression of trying to take itself seriously, but otherwise had the same ingredients — when I first saw a poster for WHD, I actually wondered "hey, haven't I already seen this?". If you're going to make something as preposterous as this, you'd better make it look the part, and I believe WHD does a better job at that than OHF.

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

As if they hollowed out someone's head and put popcorn inside

[5/10 · 15 October 2013]

This will not be a review that pinpoints all kinds of technical details that this film violates regarding the original franchise. I will not require spoilers to explain what is wrong with Star Trek Into Darkness. I am not a Trekkie by far. Only very recently I watched through the original series. It was an interesting experience. Many episodes were obviously outdated but it was surprising to see how modern some of the ideas and how well- written the scripts were. The series managed to be interesting with a low budget and a spartan look.

Star Trek Into Darkness is the opposite. It is a complete overload of special effects and visual design, wrapped around a simple story filled with clichés and predictability, and devoid of any depth. Every scene is filled with over-designed crap all the time. There is too much stuff on the screen, really. There is so much to look at that nothing stands out. Any good director will focus attention on what is truly important by toning down redundant details in the rest of the image. This film however is 90% redundant details and 10% relevance. The duration of the end credits (I estimate some 12 minutes) illustrates this. Of course they had to include every person who made one of the gazillion 3D models featured in this film.

Imagine someone smart. Someone who is famous for being thoughtful, intelligent, maybe boring at times but always interesting in the end. That is the original Star Trek.

Now imagine opening up this person's skull, scooping out the brains, and putting popcorn in place. Then seal it back up, apply loads of extra cosmetic surgery, and polish it up real good. That is Star Trek Into Darkness.

They took a franchise and mimicked all its superficial appearances like the names, characters, and some plot devices. But they removed all the substance. They even tried hard to find actors who look like plausible young versions of their counterparts in the original series (especially Karl Urban and Simon Pegg are right on the spot). But that is where the similarities end. This is a staple of many a contemporary "reboot" or "remake": focus on superficial similarities with the original, and total disregard for the essence. Why even bother trying to disguise it as a remake of something old? They should have given it a new name so nobody is being fooled.

In the end, STID is just a bog standard contemporary action movie with a whiff of Star Trek flavor. If you long for two hours of visual effects, explosions, and noise, then by all means indulge yourself. But if you want to watch something that has any of the depth that was characteristic for the Star Trek TV series, stay away.

Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)

Entertaining, but lacking

[6/10 · 4 September 2013]

Years ago I saw "Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story" on TV, the one directed by Brian Henson from 2001. I thought I wouldn't even get through the first of its three-hour running time as it was supposed to be targeted towards a children's audience. But I couldn't leave the screen and I watched it in one long stretch. It was entertaining, gripping, well-filmed, and I wanted to know how it would end, because it had added a twist to the well-known fairytale. Eventually it proved to bring an important lesson about life as well, but not in an obtrusive manner like some other films tend to do.

Jack the Giant Slayer however, despite being a good hour shorter, not direct-to-TV, having a star- studded cast and much more expensive special effects, left me underwhelmed. The story was straightforward, the acting was only adequate, and there was something off about the entire visual presentation. I cannot tell what it was exactly, but there were many parts where it seemed someone had bumped against the camera and accidentally messed up the exposure. There were many parts that were extremely dark. Good thing I did not watch this in 3D, because I am not fond of 3D to start with, and dark images only worsen the inherent issues with current 3D technology.

In the end, it was just OK. Not bad, not very good either, some thrilling scenes, no attempt to do something original with the story, a few cheap puns too many ("he wouldn't spill the beans"), and not the best performances to be expected from actors of this caliber. Kids will probably love this for the spectacular visuals and the straightforward story, but they might be put off by the many stretches of dark blurry images.

So if you want to watch a good adaptation of this fairytale and have three hours to spare, I would seek out the Brian Henson version instead.

Trance (I) (2013)

A polished mess in blue and orange

[5/10 · 17 July 2013]

My only real lasting impressions of this film that will survive in the long term will probably be: the full frontal nude of Rosario Dawson, and yellow and blue. Yes, yellow and blue until it makes you sick. The film poster actually sums up the overall look of Trance pretty well. It reminded me of an article I read years ago that predicted the colour scheme in future films to degenerate towards over-saturated orange and blue. The reasoning behind this is simple and makes sense.

First, cranking up colour saturation and filling a scene with two complementary colours is a cheap way to draw attention and make the scene look stunning when compared to a non- saturated scene. Second, pretty much every frame will contain actors and therefore human skin tones. Skin tones become orange when their saturation is cranked up. These two facts combined leave only one option for the non-skin colours and that is to make them mostly blue. And that is exactly what you'll see in this film, from the start to the end, with only some dashes of red thrown in between. Mind how I said before: "compared to a non-saturated scene". That's my whole point here. There are no non-saturated scenes. Everything looks the same. It gets old very fast.

The mere fact that I am whining about something as boring as the colour scheme is telling. It must mean the rest of the film was so uninteresting that the visual aspect was the only thing left to focus my attention on. The plot was a mess. It revolves about hypnosis, which is treated as a completely solved problem that works like magic, a far stretch from reality. The writing and pacing was problematic to say the least. The characters all acted like they had some mental condition, which made it pretty much impossible to relate to them in any way. The soundtrack consisted of relentlessly pounding techno that overwhelmed everything else. Then we have flashbacks, "it was only a dream" scenes, ... A lot of stuff that works well when used sparingly, but like the colour scheme it kept on being poured on to no end.

I started watching this film knowing nothing about it, I did not even know the director. I was almost shocked when I saw Boyle's name appear. The few trademark scenes of explicit gore were the only thing that reminded me of Boyle's former work, for the rest it looked like something from a rookie director who still has to learn that the more is not always the better.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Too predictable at times

[6/10 · 6 October 2012]

The main problems I have with this film is:

1. It had the longest scene in it I ever watched in a film, that I could predict entirely. The culprit is an entirely redundant shot with a CGI eagle at the start of the film. Who thought it would be a good idea to put that in?

2. There are many other scenes that gave me a similar feeling of wasted time by making me think: "yes, I get the point, this refers to a famous horror movie, please move on to the rest of the story."

3. The actual premise of the film, the stuff that could make it interesting, is compressed into the quite short ending and was mostly predictable from the start.

'The Cabin in the Woods' gives away too many hints from the start on. Drop those hints and it would become more interesting, at the condition that the viewer didn't already pick up the hints elsewhere like in the trailer, a short summary, or reviews. If you don't know anything yet about the film and this is the first review you read, stop reading if you plan to watch it. The less you know about it, the higher the chance that it will be interesting.

Overall, the film was entertaining enough that I would give it a 6/10, but it was far from the great and original experience I expected it to be from other reviews.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)

90 minutes of karaoke backdrop plus awful effects

[1/10 · 3 September 2012]

If you have ever been to a karaoke bar recently, you may have seen the backdrop videos that are shown behind the lyrics: generic fluff completely unrelated to the music, barely more interesting than the single-colour backdrops of old. The first part of Birdemic feels exactly like those videos, only stretched out over a tortuously long time and with actual dialogue instead of lyrics hopping around. The second part only differs through the addition of about four different animated GIFs of birds superimposed on the screen.

Although I could not manage to watch the thing in its entirety for fear of getting an aneurysm, from what I have seen and read in other reviews it must either be intended as ecological propaganda, or it is made intentionally bad to ridicule ecologists. It works in neither way because it is simply too awful to watch. The only "Shock" is how this film managed to get as far as it did, and the only "Terror" is the sheer awfulness of its production.

Dragon Hunters (2008)

Very pretty graphics with a weak story

[6/10 · 24 November 2010]

Well, my title sums it up. The computer graphics are top-notch, I dare say they can compete with Pixar's. There are some scenes in there that are jaw-dropping, especially when combined with the musical score. The only thing that bothered me is that the choreography of some scenes is so spastic that only people with severe ADD could enjoy them. One can only sweep around the camera so much and so often before it becomes annoying.

The story however is not top-notch. The characters all give the impression of being mish-mashes of predecessors from various older animated films. One particular character's personality suddenly changes completely without any valid reason. The result is that none of the characters are particularly interesting, because they just try to be so much at once that they end up being compromises.

Children will probably love this just for the awesome visuals and the simple story, and will not notice the inconsistencies. Adults can enjoy this by turning off their brain and letting themselves be awed by the stunning visuals. If you don't care about eye-candy, you may want to stay away from this one.

P.S.: Yes, this film features floating islands very reminiscent of Avatar, but remember that Dragon Hunters is one year older.

Alien: Resurrection (1997)

Entertaining but mostly forgettable

[7/10 · 6 November 2010]

I just finished watching the entire Alien saga from the first to the last film, and this is the run-down: Alien: 10; Aliens: 10; Alien³: 7; Alien Resurrection: 7.

Alien is a horror movie that introduces the ingenious concept of the alien species and then ramps up the terror right until the final scene. I almost forgot how scared I could get from watching a film, but re-watching Alien reminded me how un-scary most recent 'horror' films are.

Aliens also has horror, but focuses on action. It also ramps up this action steadily in such a brilliant way that every second of the film is thrilling. Watching Aliens again was just as thrilling as the first time. Films that can do that are rare, and certainly worth a score of 10.

Alien³ is a mess. It's way too obvious that there have been problems with the script and the directors, and the fact that they obviously got rid of most of the characters that survived from Aliens is jarring, but in the end Alien³ is not awful. It has a unique atmosphere and some memorable scenes. One of the biggest problems is that it has almost no characters to care about except Ripley. The only other interesting character is abruptly killed half-way the film.

Alien: Resurrection is also a mess but in a different way. Of course, the whole 'resurrection' concept is ridiculous but I could forgive the writers because there was no other way to continue the saga with Ripley included. What struck me the most is how little I remembered from A:R, even though my previous viewing was more recent than the other films. In fact, it has about three or maybe four memorable scenes and about two memorable characters. The rest is forgettable, albeit still entertaining.

While Alien³ still had some thrilling scenes, A:R relies mostly on gore in an attempt to be scary. Because all 'horror' films from the last decade followed this trend, I got used to seeing CGI monsters, horribly deformed mutants and people being ripped to shreds in all details. The original Alien is still scary because so little is shown and so much is implied. Seeing a dark corridor and knowing there's something horrible in there without actually seeing it, never gets old. Seeing a monster again and again, no matter how meticulously crafted it is to look hideous, does get old.

Overall, the last two films are OK and good enough to keep the Alien fan in me entertained, but you won't hear me protest at all if a director steps up and makes a *real* sequel to Aliens without even acknowledging the existence of A³ or A:R.

Battlefield Earth (2000)

I watched it in its entirety so you don't have to

[1/10 · 8 August 2010]

I originally wrote a review about this movie after only seeing parts of it. Since I figured that this was unfair and nobody should review a movie without watching it entirely, I forced myself to watch it. Oh boy. First, a summary of my old first review:

Battlefield Earth was on TV together with another movie that I wanted to watch. The description for both movies looked interesting, but after zapping regularly between the two, it seemed that BE was just horrible. Every time I switched back from the other movie, it was as if nothing had happened. All the scenes looked the same, the action scenes were bad, the dialogue was horrible, and for some reason the movie almost made me feel nauseous. It was like having those typical nightmares I often have when I have a fever, where everything repeats endlessly. So, eventually I stopped switching channels and watched the other movie.

Now, after having seen it in its entirety, I'm feeling relieved that the rating I originally gave was fully deserved. I rarely give a minimum score, but BE is a perfect example of rare awfulness: it gets a solid one.

The whole thing is just directed and produced horribly. Let me put this straight: the story on itself is preposterous — I'll come back to this later on. Yet, even a stupid story can make a thrilling movie, but Battlefield Earth is not an example of this. The action scenes are all awful: it's often impossible to see what happens. The film is full of slow-motion shots, but they are used at all the wrong moments. One would expect that close-ups and slow-motion would be used to focus on the action, but not here: the camera often seems to shy away from the actual action. Judging from the poor special effects that can sometimes be seen when the camera does show some action, they probably just avoided using SFX altogether. The pacing is also completely off: scenes just drag along, and are then followed by a pile-up of action. Some transitions are so abrupt that it seems like large parts were left on the cutting table, but even those parts that survived are all poorly directed. Most of the film is tinted in an exaggerated blue hue, which makes all those scenes look like the same scene all over again. The entire movie feels like an episode of a bad sci-fi TV show from around 1990, stretched to almost two hours.

Funny enough, I found a perfect explanation as to why Battlefield Earth made me nauseous the first time I watched it. There is almost NO scene in the ENTIRE movie where the camera is NOT tilted. Really, what were they thinking? It may look cool when used now and then, but it's just ridiculous if *every* shot is tilted at a random angle. Sometimes subsequent shot changes will make the image tilt from left to right and vice versa, so it is entirely possible that watching this film will induce seasickness. This is not the only thing about the camera-work that is awful: there is an overuse of close-ups, and often half of an actor's face is cut off (partially due to the tilting). Sometimes we also get close-ups of random objects as if they are of great significance, but they aren't.

The acting is bad, not abysmally bad but bad enough not to be able to compensate for the rest of the awfulness. Travolta does a decent job but fails to drag this film out of the abyss.

The special effects probably looked OK back in 2000, except for the 'blaster' shots which would only have managed to awe an audience in 1980. But even the other effects look very dated now, it's hard to believe that movies like The Matrix are even older than Battlefield Earth. There is an obvious reference to the 'falling through glass' scene from Blade Runner at the start of the movie, but it is filmed so poorly that it was more like an insult to BR than a homage.

Now, by far the worst thing about this movie is its plot. It's not just full of gaping holes, even with all the holes patched it still is an insult to viewers. Battlefield Earth is rated PG-13 but ironically enough, the only people who might appreciate it would be at most twelve years old because they might still be able to muster enough suspension of disbelief. The first two thirds of the film are not entirely ridiculous, and could have been saved by an awesome ending. However, the actual ending was ten times worse than the most preposterous thing I have ever seen in any other movie. Even the "nuking the fridge" scene from Indiana Jones 4 seemed plausible in comparison. Even though I rate Battlefield Earth a 1, meaning "never ever watch this", I would still recommend watching it if you want to see amazing stupidness. Mind that the rest of the movie will make you hurl, but if you enjoy laughing at ridiculousness that wants to take itself seriously, it could be worth it.

The only thing that is remotely OK is the musical score, but only when considered on its own. Some scenes where nothing of much importance happens are accompanied by music that would be appropriate during a frantic fighting scene. By the time the actual fighting begins, the music fails to add any tension no matter how thrilling it is.

Overall, Battlefield Earth is a complete failure, and it deserves to be in the Bottom 100.

The Losers (I) (2010)

Doesn't know what it wants to be

[5/10 · 28 July 2010]

Take key scenes from successful action movies from the past few decades. Glue them together without bothering much about coherence, and also don't bother writing decent dialogue. That might well be the way in which 'The Losers' was created.

The problem is that it took way too long before I realized that this film does not want to take itself as seriously as it seemed from the start, but instead wants to be over-the-top. Until about 25 minutes, it seems like an action thriller with some comic elements. Then the first really-over-the-top thing happens, unexpectedly. My reaction was 'huh?' It was as if someone changed the channel.

Even if I would be able to erase my memory and watch it again knowing beforehand that it is supposed to be a pile-up of clichés glued together with bad dialogue, I still would be only mildly entertained.

Maybe this film was supposed to mock the state of current Hollywood productions. Maybe every scene was intended to be predictable, all the dialogue to be bad, all the action to be over-the-top like in the 'Crank' movies. Maybe shaky cam was intentionally used at totally inappropriate moments, and the colours over-saturated to the level of an LSD trip. The problem is that the director apparently was too afraid to make the dialogue truly obviously bad, wanted most of the action scenes to retain a hint of realism, and tried to make the story not too silly at some times. The result is that the whole thing falls in between a good realistic movie and a movie that is so over-the-top that it becomes good. It is just mediocre.

If you want constant over-the-top silliness like in 'Crank', you'll be bored during long parts of this film. If you want to watch a decent realistic action movie, those few over-the-top parts will break the entire experience. 'The Losers' just doesn't know what it wants to be.

I give it a 5, for "didn't make me feel I totally wasted my time, but I would not want to watch it again unless there's really nothing else to do".

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

Recycled Materials

[6/10 · 5 July 2010]

I watched this movie with basically no expectations at all. I hadn't seen any trailer or ad for it. The few expectations I had were low, based on a quick glance at the movie's description. It seems that having low expectations is key to making this movie enjoyable. Contrary to many other reviewers, I didn't totally hate it and was actually entertained for most of the 90 minutes. I knew what to expect: simple jokes, some gross things, some good and some lame 80's references, plot holes large enough to let the Death Star pass through, and of course: at least one view at nude male buttocks(*). And I got exactly that.

If you expect anything of the following: 1. any even remotely logical explanation of why and how the time travel in this film happens; 2. an accurate depiction of the 80's; 3. good acting all over the board; 4. clever and mature humor; 5. originality; then you will have a much better time watching the 'Back to the Future' trilogy, even if you've seen it 10 times already.

Hot Tub Time Machine can be best considered as a homage to classics like the aforementioned BttF and some more recent films, without much attempts at doing anything groundbreaking, and with a layer of humor of a similar level as in The Hangover laid on top. It's basically all recycled material, strung together with only a basic attempt at making it coherent. The references to other movies are obvious: one of the actors from BttF plays a role, and some other films are explicitly mentioned by the characters.

Overall, there is a whole lot of stuff that doesn't make any sense in this movie. If you keep that in mind and just let yourself be entertained by the medley of mostly not-so-original jokes and the average attempt at creating an 80's atmosphere, you'll have a reasonably good time. Just don't expect a masterpiece. I give it a 6/10, for "one notch above just good enough to watch all the way through".

(*): As for the nude male buttocks, I'm starting to suspect that all Hollywood directors had a meeting a few years ago and decided "every movie made from now on must feature nude male buttocks at some point". Seriously, I'm not going to the cinema to watch male bums. I can tolerate it in movies like these, but it's getting really old in other kinds of movies as a cheap attempt at bringing some comic relief.

The Hangover (2009)

Entertaining, but overrated

[6/10 · 4 December 2009]

I'm surprised to see that this movie rates 8.0 at the time I'm writing this. Not surprising is that 'Aged under 18' gave the highest scores, because that's the perfect target group for this kind of movie. If you haven't seen a whole lot of good comedies in your life yet, this will be funny. However, if you've seen more movies, it will be all too obvious that the main ingredients of this movie are derivative and/or cheap.

The 'doctor/dentist' gag comes straight out of Wild Hogs for instance, and many of the other situations come from other movies which in most cases did a better job at it. For someone who has watched 'Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas', it feels like the makers of this movie wanted to duplicate the hotel suite scene but were too chicken (pun intended) to do actual damage to their film set. When the humor isn't derivative, it often stoops down to puerile level instead.

This is a 'trailer movie': the best parts are in the trailer and the rest is mostly filler. Don't get me wrong: it's not terrible as a whole. As a kind of remix of existing movies it was entertaining enough not to get me bored. It just doesn't deserve the 10 or even 8 stars many people give it. 6/10 seems much more reasonable.

Knowing (2009)

Pretty good if you stop watching at 01:40:00

[6/10 · 27 June 2009]

There's little new I can tell you in this review, as my criticism is exactly the same as what has been repeated countless times. What I can tell you is how to watch this movie in a way that won't let itself ruin your experience.

It starts out really well, with a good build-up of suspense and some impressive disaster scenes. But at a certain point it suddenly gets completely ridiculous, as if the director got an aneurysm and his kids had to finish it. Because this movie is all about numbers, here are some of my own. That disastrous point is at 01:40:00 on the DVD if you're watching the NTSC version (at PAL frame-rate it should be about 01:35:54). Just hit the stop button and assume Cage crashes his car into a tree at lethal speed and the credits start rolling. That's a silly ending but believe me, perfectly acceptable compared to the real thing. The actual ending reeks of propaganda for a certain 'religion', although the director nor any of the main actors seem to have any connections to it, so it probably wasn't intentional. It may just have been a case of "hey, we've created an awesome build-up but we forgot to come up with a good finale, so let's summon a Deus Ex Machina and lots of CGI."

Well, now you're probably too curious to skip the ending anyway, so go ahead and let yourself be disappointed. Don't tell me I didn't warn you.

The Legend of Bloody Mary (2008)

Direct-to-DVD low-budget teenage flick

[3/10 · 23 April 2009]

The title of my review pretty much sums it up, but since I have to write at least 10 lines, here goes. You will not want to watch this movie if you want to see: 1.) fast pacing at any moment in the movie, 2.) fluent dialogue, 3.) smooth editing, 4.) good acting, 5.) suspenseful build-ups, 6.) more or less stable image that doesn't induce seasickness, 7.) good CGI.

I also can't recommend this movie to people susceptible to claustrophobia, because half of the time the camera is pretty much shoved almost into the faces of the actors for no reason whatsoever. It gives the feel that everything was recorded in rooms barely large enough to hold both the actors and the filming crew.

There are some scenes of people walking and driving cars, with no other apparent purpose than to lengthen the duration of the movie, even though the pacing is already sleep-inducing on its own. Some of these scenes are accompanied by music that feels out of place, unless you accept that this movie is geared towards a young teenage audience. These scenes look like a typical karaoke video but without the scrolling lyrics.

The whole thing feels like separate parts which were just concatenated, without any attempt to get the pacing right. I'm not just talking about the different scenes, even within a single scene it's as if they recorded all the actors sequentially, making them say all their lines at once, and then interleaved these video streams. As a result, there are frequent unnatural and awkward pauses between sentences.

And then there's the shaky cam, which is used at all the wrong moments. During a simple conversation between two characters, it's as if the camera man gets progressively more drunk and eventually is unable to track his subject even though it is sitting still in a chair.

Even the sound has a low-budget quality to it. The clearly audible different background noises on the dialogue of actors in the same scene support my theory that each actor acted all their lines sequentially. They could at least have mixed some extra consistent background noise over the entire scene to mask this.

My threshold for a movie that has something still making it worth watching is 5/10. I give this one a 3. There were some scenes that came remotely close to being scary, and the historical parts looked pretty good. But for the rest it felt like the filming project of a bunch of high school kids.

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)

Fun but over-ambitious baroque sci-fi

[6/10 · 25 February 2009]

The main problem with this movie is that it is over-ambitious to say the least. Its predecessor, 'Pitch Black', was simple in its design and this was one of the reasons for its success. Although there appeared to be more behind PB's main characters, we only got a glimpse of their backgrounds. This made them the more interesting. In 'Chronicles', we are bombarded with an overload of information and detail. Not just about the characters, but of the entire universe in which they live. After seeing 'Chronicles', pretty much every question you might have about Riddick is likely to be answered. There is a hint to a sequel, but it could take a while before they can imagine enough new material to compensate for all the creative ammo they used up here. As I'll explain below, a prequel may be a better option.

The whole set-up of 'Chronicles' feels like they wanted to fit the characters ported over from 'Pitch Black' into a more elaborate framework, and asked a team of writers to construct an entire detailed universe around those characters, with every planet and race plotted out, histories and everything included. It's as if they had a Star Wars-like universe constructed on demand. The major difference with Star Wars is that instead of using the universe as a vehicle to present interesting and developing characters, 'Chronicles' seems to be more about the universe itself than the characters. I guess the universe was expensive to create, so they wanted to show off as much of it as they could. The most interesting character development is probably to be found somewhere in the universe's design documents, and may end up in books based on the same universe, or a prequel.

Not just the story, but the entire movie breathes excess in its set pieces and visuals. It has a definite 'upgraded Dune' feel to it. The obsession for baroque design by the Necromonger race in 'Chronicles' seems to have spilled over to the directors. The amount of CGI is humongous. I believe the actors spent most of their time acting in front of blue and green screens. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if it didn't show: the CGI has this 'glossy' feel to it that makes it look like the graphics in many current video-games, and I'm afraid it will make the movie look dated in the near future.

Then there are the action scenes: it seems like the directors wanted to show so much of the fighting that in the end, there's nothing to see because of the extremely jerky and flashy editing. At many times it's just impossible to see what happens. I don't recommend this movie to people with epilepsy.

Nevertheless, if you're willing to sit through the history lessons, 'Chronicles' is a load of fun. Maybe not in the way the makers intended it, but at least through the sometimes (insert over-used pun if desired) ridiculous extravagance of the whole thing, for instance the improbable costumes and decorations of the space ships. The funny one-liners you'd expect from a Vin Diesel movie are present. There are some interesting action scenes next to the choppy ones, and at a few scarce moments you may even get a hint of the suspense that made Pitch Black so great. Stripped from its complicated universe, the story is pretty simple but it does the job.

Overall, 'Chronicles' is far from the masterpiece it aspires to be, but it's still OK entertainment. If it does bore you, you can still amuse yourself by counting how many times Riddick takes off and puts on his goggles for dramatic effect.

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

Pulp

[5/10 · 23 February 2008]

This movie is actually enjoyable, if you approach it from the right direction. It is enjoyable in the same kind of way that most Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme movies can be enjoyable: you know from the start that they will have an inane plot, bad acting, and lots of silly but entertaining fight scenes. But still, some people want to watch that kind of stuff sometimes because it's fun. This movie is no different. If you are unable to appreciate movies like that, by all means stay away from it!

AvP-Requiem has as much to do with Aliens and Predators as Mickey Mouse has to do with Freddy Krueger. The characters are there, but only in a severely brain-dead form. Their only goal in this film seems to be to fight each other endlessly and when they're bored, make people die in all kinds of gruesome ways. It is not a horror movie, because one can see when something bad is going to happen from miles away. Like most attempts at horror movies nowadays, the movie tries to rely on gore and graphic violence but it even fails at that because everything is so exaggerated that it becomes funny instead. Really the only reason why one should watch AvP-Requiem is to watch people and aliens die, because that is about the only thing that happens in it.

This movie screams "low budget" at the top of its lungs. Funny enough, its budget is slightly higher than of the second Predator movie, but the effects are not much better despite 17 years of advances in film-making since then. This is often masked by making everything dark and blurry, and by shaking the camera around so nobody has time to see how bad the effects are (or what is actually happening). The graphics in some PC games are better than the few full-scale CGI scenes at the start of the movie.

Overall, in spite of its budget there is a real "B-movie" feel to 'Aliens vs Predator - Requiem', and in fact that is just what it is. Bring out the popcorn!