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carltellin
Reviews
Arrival (2016)
Pretentious as hell...
My expectations were sky-high. Partly cause I loved both Prisoners and Sicario and also cause of other people's reviews of this film. But boy, was I disappointed. I really wanted to like this film but could never get into the right mood of suspense and excitement. Instead I found ridiculously pretentious and boring right from the start. I could feel that many people in the theater felt the same, lots of sighs and laughter in the wrong places. The story is very vague in many places and is often cut off in a very irritating way. The film is obviously aiming for something of higher quality than for example Independence day but falls flat because it lacks both substance and feeling. This is not even close to a masterpiece like 2001. The film tries to communicate some message about communication, world peace, time, meaning of life, and how it's all connected or something but ends up a mess. The two main characters were very cliché and kept irritating me throughout the film. They were the two chosen one's who understand everything no one else does and ends up saving the world.
The Great Wall (2016)
Fails to make the wall great again...
I consider giving this movie a 3 quite generous. Lets start with the good part, some of the scenes are visually quite breathtaking. Zhang Yimou knows how to create impressive mass scenes with hundreds of extras, extraordinary camera movements and some cool CGI. And thats about all the positive things I can think of.
So why is this film not working? Cause exactly everything in this film except the stuff I just mentioned above is ABSOLUTELY RIDICOULOUS. Yes, I cant think of a better word to describe this film. In fact it should be in the title. Matt Damon has a stupid fake Irish accent. The four legged monsters are super intelligent war strategists who pull back and regroup before attacking again and create diversions. For no reason explained the monsters loose their power when coming close to a magnet. The inventions and weapons the Chinese have are quite laughable, like the air balloons they fly with in the end or the giant scissors coming out of the wall.
On top of all this ridiculousness the two main characters are both very wooden and lacks both depth and chemistry. The dialog is beyond stupid where the characters in many scenes just describe exactly what we see happening on the screen. There is some attempt to communicate some kind of moral message about greed, trust and whatever...
Sherpa (2015)
Liar, liar, pants on fire at 21,000ft!
Wonderful film about people at the bottom of the food chain standing up for their rights against the foreign companies and their own government who are using them. This is the story you never see in stupid Hollywood movies like "Everest".
Climbing Everest has become a huge industry where rich foreigners pay climbing expedition companies like Russell Brice's Himalayan Experience large amounts of money (up to a 100000 USD) to fulfill their "dream" to climb and reach the top of the mountain. The local Sherpas who are climbing experts are hired to take all the biggest risks and lay the path for the foreigners but are only paid a small fraction (5000 USD per climb) of what the company earns. The Nepalese government also takes a big cut (about one third) with out providing any benefits or insurances for the Sherpas or their families.
Russel Brice personifies everything that is wrong with this industry. In front of the camera he lies several times to his clients (the foreign climbers), about the Sherpas being threatened to have their legs broken by some of their own people if they continue climbing. He is basically trying to vilify some of the Sherpas and turn them against each other, instead of taking any responsibility when all they are doing is demanding fair treatment and payment. Russell also tells his clients that the Sherpas and their families will have nothing to eat if they don't climb which we later in the film see is simply not true. They have other sources of income and their families don't even want them to climb. I can only hope this guy goes out of business soon!!!