isabelg_miranda Reviews

Father There Is Only One (2019)

A GREAT family film!

[8/10 · 5 December 2019]

Normally comedies are unintelligent, or use dirty jokes, slapstick... This comedy was funny, just tender enough to be cute without causing diabetes, and fun all the way through. Really, really recommended. I'd give it a seven, but it has a lower grade than it deserves, so I'm giving it an eight for it to get its deserved rating.

The kids deserve special mention. It must have been hell to film a movie with five child actors, but these five were REALLY good in their roles, really well chosen, and all in all, really funny. I hope to see more of them in the future.

Really recommended for a Christmas watch.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

WATCH IT AT THE CINEMA. Preferably in 3D, but any big screen will do. Don't miss it at the cinema, seriously.

[7/10 · 23 August 2017]

I think the most appropriate review of Valerian I've read here is: "Better than the last 5 Star Wars films". And that's spot on. Yes, it's no "The Empire Strikes Back". It's not as striking as "Star Wars" (A New Hope) was in 1977... but that's again because Lucas got a lot, and I mean A LOT of inspiration from the original Valerian comics.

If this spaceship, the Intruder, looks a bit like the Millennium Falcon, or some aliens remind you of some in Star Wars... remember both the Intruder and the Valerian comics came before Star Wars.

The plot is acceptable. Nothing really crazy difficult or surprising, but nothing bad or really insulting. You see who the bad guy is from the beginning, and that's not much. But it is a fun action movie, with gorgeous visuals and a good pace. You don't get bored for a moment, the scenes don't lag, and it's overall interesting. I was kept having total fun during the whole movie, never feeling my intelligence was insulted and never bored.

The pace is wonderful. The action is good. The secondary acting is great. Chops to Rihanna here, she eats the camera when she's on.

I admit I was wary about the starring couple. Comic-book Valerian was older and ruggedly attractive, with a square jaw and crooked nose. Comic-book Laureline should look more or less like Mila Jovovich in the 5th element. In DeHaan and Delevingne, it's as if the casting had been switched: he looks beautiful, young and soft, and she looks rugged, with a square jaw and hard.

DeHaan doesn't really believe it at the beginning. It's uncomfortable to see how he seems a bit lost. Possibly all that 3D, he's not a bad actor, especially when he's interacting with other humans. He gets better throughout the film, and at the end he's fully on it. OK, he wasn't MY Valerian, and I wish Besson had got the best of him also for the beginning of the film, but it's OK.

I was even more worried about Delevingne... and I shouldn't have. She acts better than DeHaan. She's into it, "believes" the story all the time. She moves really well, all her modeling experience of years is really, really paying off, she has an impressive screen presence. And she's more comfortable with the 3D, also probably coming from her practice looking at cameras and making expressions only for photograph, without interaction. I was gladly surprised with her. I really wish Besson had ordered her hair dyed redhead, and I think the Laurelin hairstyle would suit her, but I guess Besson wanted her to look impressive, not pretty.

All in all, it's a movie that is very worth to watch at the cinema, and in 3D it's going to be spectacular. I'll watch it again this weekend.

If you watch it in the small screen, you will regret having missed it at the cinema. Don't say you weren't warned.

The Promise (II) (2016)

The overall rating is false: it's being down-voted by genocide denialists.

[10/10 · 2 August 2017]

Well, screw those who would destroy History because truth hurts their feelings. The Armenian genocide happened, and whoever tries to censor this film will do so in vain, or so I hope.

The movie is good, in general Oscar Isaac doesn't disappoint, and Le Bon adorably shines. That said, the crude, sad part is hard enough to watch, especially when you consider what's been shown is a mild version of what happened.

It's a good movie, even though a ten is too much, I have to over-vote it to compensate for those who willingly down-vote in order to bury the truth in the sand. Worth to get to know what happened, if only because many wouldn't want you to.

Arrival (II) (2016)

Come for the aliens, stay for the humans. And run if you came for action.

[9/10 · 18 February 2017]

I think an 8,3 would be fine as a grade, but since there are so many disappointed people giving the movie a one (you've got to be kidding me, not even the Twilight saga has that score), I've bumped the grade up a bit to compensate.

As an English teacher, I'll grant everyone that the language learning should have been done differently... The director steals from us much of the language learning process.

However, if you can stand the low pace (do not expect action or a fast movie), it's very interesting and enjoyable to watch.

You'd have to buy the linguistic theory the movie is based on... If you are a hardcore hard-sci-fi fan, you might find that some aspects the movie sounds more "magical" than sci-fi. Not the movie's fault, that's what happens in the original short story.

As for the people that complain about what the aliens are... dammit, cephalopoda are some of the smartest creatures on Earth. It has to be either insects or cephalopoda... because mammals are pretty rare (a weird evolutionary occurrence). So, the aliens were pretty interesting.

I hope you enjoy it. But it's not crap at all. Some people just didn't like it. It's certainly better than all the Twilight saga, all the Star Wars prequels and Prometheus. That's easy, though. It's pretty good. However, if you don't like the conclusion... you don't like it. Again, not the movie's fault.