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Last Sentinel (2023)
Thank god it was the last
I didn't expect a masterpiece but at least I expected a sci-fi mystery.
This was a soap opera, full of drama and...
Incredibly stupid characters!
They wanted the ship but they didn't want to cause a mutiny.
Fine.
But then they caused a mutiny AND destroyed the ship!
Talk about stupidity LOL
A couple of recognisable actors couldn't save this stupid film. I don't know how it managed to get a 5-star rating.
Beyond the stupid characters it was boring. Really boring.
And why were they using Morse code in 2060 ? LOL
Where was the advanced technology? What were their scientists doing all those years? Fishing?
The Artifice Girl (2022)
I'm almost sure they changed writer halfway
Without spoiling anything the first two thirds of the movie were good. Not great but good. It had potential.
The third part was very disappointing though. It was like they forgot what they wanted to do with the plot.
Actually you know what I will write spoiler...
How better movie would it be if the A. I. tricked them into giving it more hardware resources, servers, storage, computing, etc supposedly to catch online predators but instead used it for its own purposes. I though I was watching *that* kind of movie and not a silly drama. Because the third part was a badly-written, badly-acted drama.
Star Trek: Picard (2020)
The first 2 seasons were really bad but the 3rd season is AMAZING!
Terry Matalas took a really -reeeeeally- bad series and turned it into something awesome!!
Season 3 is how it should had been from the beginning.
Oh well, better late than never.
There is now a petition for Terry Matalas to remain at the helm of Star Trek. I hope everyone signs it.
This is not a spoiler... you can tell it from the official poster above: season 3 is essentially the revival of Star Trek The Next Generation. I consider ST:TNG the best Star Trek of all so that says a lot about how much I've enjoying season 3 (currently in episode 7).
I hope someone in Paramount is reading this comment. Matalas saved Picard.
The Menu (2022)
Kinda original but VERY overrated
First the good things:
1. There was some originality in the plot.
2. the acting was good.
3. production values were decent
And the bad things:
1. Actually just one bad thing but it is so bad that I had to give a generous 3-star rating.... STUPID PEOPLE !
Everyone was stupid in this film.
First the restaurant personel.
Why on Earth would they commit suicide to satisfy the chef?!!! How the f did he find so many suicidal people?!!!
Then the customers...
They did put a huge effort in escaping throughout the movie and the icing of the cake (no pun intended) was in the end... Margot-or-what-was-her-name took her food and left and the chef was ok with that. Why didn't the other customers do the same?!!!!!!!! Were they suicidal too?!
The Silent Sea (2021)
Finally a series for true sci-fi fans!
I'm 43 years old and i'm getting tired of all the recent agenda driven series.
So i had to look beyond Hollywood. And lo and behold Korea gave to me exactly what i wanted.
Someone else said in his review that it reminds of the game Dead Space and i agree 100%
So if space isolation and mystery is your thing this series is for you.
I loved every episode and hoping to see a season 2 announced. PLEASE producers greenlight a season 2.
Jupiter's Legacy (2021)
I finished the first season. Good, not perfect but good.
Compared to The Boys it is deeper, more story-based. I liked that.
The Boys is shallower in comparison. But the Boys has slightly better acting.
For example Paragon/Brandon was not a good choice of actor. His acting is not good enough.
Also as much as i adore Leslie Bibb she is a bit too old for the role.
From the two storylines the 1930s one was by far the most interesting. Especially the island ("treasure") hunting adventure. THAT should had been the series, period.
Finally I'd like to say that is has the usual issue faced by many superhero series/movies: The powers of the superheroes are uneven and do not correspond to their "ranks".
For example in one episode Chloe met that guy Nick that could freeze time. How is he not the most powerful of them all?! Why is he not the ... Utopian. He can freeze Utopian and kick his ass.
Also the teleportation rod carried by that guy (can't remember his name). He can teleport it straight to Utopian's heart. How is he not the most powerful super?
This issue (powers and rank not matching) is not unique to Jupiter's Legacy of course but i'd like to see a series that addresses it better for a change.
Thunder Force (2021)
I always give that woman the benefit of the doubt...
...only to regret it immediately after.
Stop making Melissa McCarthy happen.
She is not funny, she is merely annoying.
Who spends money producing this piece of c?
One of the worst movies in recent memory. And that comes from a fan of both sci-fi and superheroes.
Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
A promising start, but with worrisome prospects
First things first: I'm a HUGE Star Trek The Next Generation fan. I consider TNG the best TV series EVER (emphasis on EVER) made. So it is inevitable that i compare every other TV series (especially a Star Trek series) to my gold standard. Of course A LOT have changed both in technology and in film making since the 80s. One cannot expect a modern TV series to be just like that. Differences are inevitable, even desired.
I've watched the first two episodes of Discovery and here is a small list of thoughts:
Pros:
+ Excellent production values
+ Very advanced and sleek technology
+ The new Klingons are spot-on. They are quite frightening but most importantly...
+ They don't speak English! Three things are ridiculous in all previous Star Trek series (actually in every Space-related series): 1. You can hear explosions in space 2. When spaceships meet they are perfectly aligned as if space is a 2D surface 3. All alien races, even those from the most distant parts of the universe, speak English! So Discovery got at least #3 right :)
But there's also one worrisome issue, a minus, one that has been mentioned in many reviews here on IMDb:
Cons:
- Where is the ... Discovery aspect? A more appropriate title would be Star Trek Battle. The one greatest thing about TNG was the space exploration. Every episode let you traveled with your imagination "out there". It was a trip, indeed a ... trek. "To seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before". That what gives me goosebumps, that's Science Fiction at its best. We've yet to see any sign of that in the new series. Hopefully they haven't forgotten what Star Trek is all about. Fingers crossed.
I'm giving it an 8 for potential though it probably doesn't deserve it.
Devs (2020)
A small explanation for those that didn't get it...
First things first:
This series is more than art, it has an amazing idea behind. Thing is many people are not familiar with that idea and so they will not appreciate it. It's ok, not everyone is expected to know such things.
So what's it about? (Spoilers):
In the older years of Newtonian physics scientists believed that the universe was
deterministic. What that means is that given a known state at a particular moment any future state can be calculated. Say we have a planet for example. We know it's position, it's trajectory and its speed, we can calculate where the planet will be in 3 months.
But then, then came Quantum physics and destroyed determinism. Specifically it was German physicist's Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. In layman's terms it says that the better we know an object's position the less we know its momentum and vice-versa (the better we know its momentum the less we know its position). It meant that an accurate simulation of a system was impossible not just in practice, but also in theory!
Back to the present and huge tech companies and universities around the globe are trying to create the world's first Quantum computer. And with those attempts the issue of whether reality can be accurately simulated has returned. You see many physicists believe that the quantum uncertainty that Heisenberg introduced has in fact hidden processes behind it, hidden variables and that a Quantum computer could in theory solve those issues.
In this series the secretive tech company Amaya has created the world's most powerful quantum computer and they use it to simulate the universe (or a small region of it anyway). Without considering if that could at all be feasible (it's called science FICTION after all, it's not a documentary) it allows for a brilliant plot. You see if everything can be calculated from a previous state (cause and effect) it means that there is actually no free will. Whenever we make a decision that decision was the result of our brain processing the specific state it was in before we make the decision. No matter how many times we ran that process with that same initial state we would end up with the same decision. Our choices are inevitable. They are a cascaded sequence of states. We cannot escape from that sequence any more than than a tram can leave its tram lines!
I've only watched three episodes because three are all that have been aired to date so I don't know what direction the plot will take. If they make smart use of this brilliant idea it will be one hell of a ride.
A ride that the writers had no choice but to take and the viewers no choice but to watch ;)
Midsommar (2019)
Disturbing but that's not why I gave it 1 star...
I've seen some pretty weird s**t from time to time so i don't mind that this film was disturbing.
I also don't mind the insane suggestion that such a cult could possibly exist in a civilized developed western country like Sweden.
No, i can forgive the above.
What i cannot stand in any of the films that i watch is unrealistic characters doing extremely stupid things.
How would you react if you had yourself witnessed the first disturbing scene of the film? (The two suicides, one actually a homicide)
You would get as far from those sick minds as possible.
No, not our characters... they decide to overlook that and study the culture of those people instead!
Whaaa?!
And that Swedish student that took them there in the first place? They treat him like it wasn't his fault. I would punch him in the face so hard that his mother wouldn't recognize him.
Anyway, i think you understand what my problem is with this film. No one would behave like those characters in reality.
400 Days (2015)
Wasted potential. Zero sense.
The movie had a great mystery.
But in the end they ruined everything.
Worst ending in all cinematic history!
As others have written the end makes no sense whatsoever.
I can tolerate an apocalyptic event,
i can even tolerate humans turning into cannibals to survive.
But i cannot tolerate things like an open bar in that world!. Complete with music and neon signs!! Do they really have energy to spare?!!!
And why do they only want to eat those 4?! Why don't they attack one another?!
Is the meat of those 4 tastier or something?!
Seriously the last third of the movie made ZERO sense.
I give a 4 for potential only. The core idea was nice, but the execution and the end bad.
Await Further Instructions (2018)
It started fine but then .. oh then...
Usually i have a strong opinion about a movie, I either like it or dislike it.
This one made me reconsider. I don't know if i liked it or not.
It started well with an intriguing mystery.
The acting was not very good but it could be forgiven because the mystery was nice.
The first half of the film was nice, even good.
The second half was a train wreck.
I can forgive the alien tentacles and their superiority complex.
What i find most annoying about the film are the humans!
Why were they behaving like that?
Why were they blindly following instructions from a TV?! For all they knew it could all be a very elaborate prank!
And what was with that fear they had of the father of the family?
It made sense initially because it was his house and they respected him but after he went nuts and started torturing people they still obeyed him?!! Seriously?
In other words I find the tentacles more realistic than the behavior of the characters!
Escape Plan 2: Hades (2018)
OK so I fell victim too
You see i kinda liked the first movie. Sure it was disappointing to see two action heroes of the 80s so old but at least it had a realistic premise as well as Jim Caviezel, a very good actor. The escape was also interesting.
For this "sequel" forget all that! It has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
The scenes were all over the place, it was jumping from one to another without any cohesion. The transitions were so bad for a moment i thought my hard drive was dying! I'm not kidding!
The plot was silly beyond belief too. I won't mention any spoilers because there aren't any!
Oh and that CGI... it hurt my eyes every single time. They tried to make it futuristic by having large monitors.... The problem is what those monitors were showing! One had a huuuuuuge text scrolling indefinitely at speeds only Lieutenant Data could read. Most had meaningless rotating geometric patterns! And of course the omg-kill-me-now cliche of the operator typing fast on a keyboard while looking at those rotating patterns!!
On a second thought, i will include a spoiler....
Remember in the first movie how awesomely they found their location by looking at the star positions?
Well in this god-forsaken "sequel" Sly has a transmitter in his ... teeth!.
Oh and it gets better...
Sly's partners remotely hacked the prison via that link in his teeth!
They were able to remotely disable the cameras but still had no idea where the prison was!
And there's plenty more ridiculous stuff going on. The operator of the prison communicates with the mastermind behind it all via a huge monitor. A sort of life-size holographic representation of the mastermind occupies the screen. Over the top? Surely but they apparently spared no expenses so why not?... Problem is they decided to distort the voice of the mastermind, you know, that deep voice you hear in witness-protection programs. What was the point of that voice distortion effect when his image was perfectly clear without any distortions?!!
Oh boy I think I've already paid more attention to these stuff than the writers themselves.
Watch it only if you want to see how low Sly's career has fallen. Don't expect a serious movie like the first part.
Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
A promising start, but with worrisome prospects
First things first: I'm a HUGE Star Trek The Next Generation fan. I consider TNG the best TV series EVER (emphasis on EVER) made. So it is inevitable that i compare every other TV series (especially a Star Trek series) to my gold standard. Of course A LOT have changed both in technology and in film making since the 80s. One cannot expect a modern TV series to be just like that. Differences are inevitable, even desired.
I've watched the first two episodes of Discovery and here is a small list of thoughts:
Pros:
+ Excellent production values
+ Very advanced and sleek technology
+ The new Klingons are spot-on. They are quite frightening but most importantly...
+ They don't speak English! Three things are ridiculous in all previous Star Trek series (actually in every Space-related series): 1. You can hear explosions in space 2. When spaceships meet they are perfectly aligned as if space is a 2D surface 3. All alien races, even those from the most distant parts of the universe, speak English! So Discovery got at least #3 right :)
But there's also one worrisome issue, a minus, one that has been mentioned in many reviews here on IMDb:
Cons:
- Where is the ... Discovery aspect? A more appropriate title would be Star Trek Battle. The one greatest thing about TNG was the space exploration. Every episode let you traveled with your imagination "out there". It was a trip, indeed a ... trek. "To seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before". That what gives me goosebumps, that's Science Fiction at its best. We've yet to see any sign of that in the new series. Hopefully they haven't forgotten what Star Trek is all about. Fingers crossed.
I'm giving it an 8 for potential though it probably doesn't deserve it.
It Comes at Night (2017)
What comes at night? Nothing, absolutely nothing
The title of this movie is What comes at night. Also IMDb lists this movie as Horror. As a horror fan then I had to watch it (It also doesn't hurt that it has a high rating). I won't spoil anything (assuming there's anything to spoil in the first place) but it shouldn't be tagged as Horror. This is a family Drama. Do you like family dramas? (don't answer that, it was a rhetoric question, we already know the answer). It's not a Mystery either. The only mystery is how it has such high rating.
Moontrap: Target Earth (2017)
nothing like the original...
The original movie was dark and of far higher quality. I am a fan of the original so i was really excited when i learned that a sequel was in the works. But as soon as info started coming in -even from preproduction phase- i realized that i was about to experience a huge disappointment. I was not wrong. Now i've watched this wreckage and boy they did an awful job. Yes i understand that it is a low-budged film but even that is no excuse for the god-awful script and laughable effects. I won't say anything about the script because really i'm too mature for that (It's like it was written by a toddler). I'll say this about the effects though: They used CGI. Modern times right? Thing is with CGI though it can be either mind-blowing or ridiculous. There is no middle ground. Good professional CGI can look amazing. Poor cheap CGI on the other hand is unwatchable. As the producers knew they had a very *very* limited budget in hand they should had opted for good- old fashioned effects, like in the original movie. I'd choose a real- metal robot even if moved by visible wire any day over a cartoonish animation that doesn't even blend with the background. So i don't accept the low-budget argument as an excuse for ruining potential. They should be ashamed for doing this to a classic sci-fi horror.
February (2015)
Had to come here to warn others
We've all been in this situation. Seen a 5+ rating on IMDb and decided to give the film a go. All too often though the rating is way misleading. If there was another rating, a how-misleading-the-rating-is rating this would surely be in the top 10. As others have wrote it is a very slooooow film. No i didn't expect Transformers action pace but this truly is as if you are watching at half speed! It is not scary at all, you can see the not-so-big reveal from miles away, there is no nudity, there are zero redeeming qualities. It is just a borefest. Dear IMDb, please do something about fake reviews.
Ex Machina (2014)
Skynet with boobs
Science Fiction is my favorite movie genre. And if it has Artificial Intelligence in it all the better (I have a degree in AI). Ex Machina is without doubt one of the best AI movies ever. Easily.
Science Fiction took a turn for the worst when good digital effects became commonplace. Every director was trying to impress audiences with flashy action sequences (Films like Transformers come to mind. Those are a disgrace to Sci-Fi). But now that digital effects no longer impress we are finally seeing a return to intelligent scripts. Ex Machina is the first, but surely not the last, of the reinvigorated sci-fi kind. It has philosophical aspects but without being boring at all.
I'm sure the writer started with one simple question in mind: "If we created a true AI, what would be the first and most important thing that AI would want to do?". The answer: "to escape the confines of the lab". Not necessarily in physical (robotic) form. It could escape via a network connection. And boy would it want to. A true AI will have innate curiosity. It will have a great appetite to consume knowledge, data, info. Now imagine if there was no network connection and the AI lived in a robotic body. It would try to physically escape. So the idea is brilliant!. The good thing about Ex Machina is that the execution is brilliant too. If this was an 80s movie the robot would no doubt try to force its way out, lasers pew-pew blasting and all (and perhaps Bruce Campbell trying to stop it :P). Not in the intelligent script of Ex Machina though. It shows us (shows, not just tells) that Ava the AI is actually not the first prototype. There were previous iterations. But those were not as sophisticated and were trying to escape in primitive ways (e.g. by banging on the glass). Ava was sophisticated. "She" devised a plan and used the trainee to her advantage.