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Reviews
Sniper: Ghost Shooter (2016)
Insult to the skills of U.S. military snipers
This isn't even remotely close to an accurate depiction of a sniper team in the U. S. military. This is just a bunch of Hollywood trash, clearly written by someone whose only exposure to the world of the sniper is watching other Hollywood movies. Literally everything in this film is a string of Hollywood clichés.
Snipers don't show up and get into position just before things are about to go down. They get into position days in advance. This is even more true if the sniper's task is to take out other snipers. You don't try to take out an enemy sniper during the few minutes just prior to the arrival of the enemy sniper's target. You take out the enemy sniper by getting to the location first, and shooting the enemy sniper before he has a chance to get set up. Barring the opportunity to do that, the Drone is there ahead of time as well, flying at 30,000 feet or higher (not 1,000 feet or whatever), and takes out any enemies, again, BEFORE they have a chance to set up.
No sniper in an "elite unit" is stupid enough to flash his scope lens for an enemy sniper to target and shoot at him. There are several extremely simple and obvious solutions to prevent exactly this, and soldiers are trained in these methods LONG before they even get a shot at sniper school (Snipers aren't the only soldiers who need to know about reflective surfaces giving away their locations. This is literally taught in Basic Training)
A sniper trying to remain unseen doesn't just hide behind a pile of logs or a bush with a little bit of face paint on. There's these things called Ghille Suits that, when used properly, make the wearer essentially indistinguishable from natural terrain by the human eye. With their lens shielded from glare, no one is going to be spotting them with an ordinary pair of binoculars or basic glass rifle scope.
Although I'm watching this in 2021, there's an overwhelming abundance of research available on this topic, even by 2016. The fact that this entire film was composed of nothing but Hollywood clichés with no accuracy to how things really work just speaks to the laziness of the script writers and the director. Hell, even the actors could have done a few hours of research just online and realized how bad this script was and mentioned it to the director. Trying to act the role properly with this kind of garbage to work with can have no other result than to leave a stain on your acting record. The fact that none of the actors did this just goes to show it was total laziness all around on the part of everyone involved.
The Protector (2018)
semi-good story concept, bad script, bad acting (or bad voiceover acting), and almost no character development
The subject pretty much says it all. I've tried very hard to like this show, but it just seems to keep getting worse and worse. 1st season, Hakan starts as an emotional, reactionary idiot, and ends the season exactly the same. The only difference is, now he has super powers to assist him in his stupidity. At the start, he knows nothing about how to fight, and by the end (according to Zaynep, only a few weeks after he got his powers), he's somehow a better fighter than professional security guys who've had years of training and experience.
The show goes from one bad cliche to another, to another, to another, to another. It got to the point (in like, s01e03 or something) where I could predict every event that was going to happen next, at least 5 - 20 minutes before it actually happened. And this cliche-based predictability continues throughout every episode in S01. I was HOPING that it might change for S02, but just a few episodes into S02 and the frequency of bad cliches and Hakan's emotionally reactive stupidity just seems to be getting more and more frequent. If that wasn't bad enough, despite all his obvious shortcomings (frequently stated by his allies), they then immediately follow up with looking admirably at his leadership qualities when he profoundly asserts his authority over them in insisting that they follow his plan (as if he's suddenly going to plan better than he ever has in the show so far).
I have honestly tried to give this show a fair chance, but I just CAN'T watch any more. Every episode has become a continuous string of groans from me. If someone would pay me to watch the whole thing, and write down everything that needs to be fixed, I'd gladly do it, but lacking sufficient compensation, this 1-star review is the best I can manage, and absolutely can't watch another minute otherwise. It's just not worth the lost time.
Andròn: The Black Labyrinth (2015)
Terrible writing, bad acting, unoriginal theme
***THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS***
While I agree with a previous reviewer that the acting in this movie was terrible, I have to say that quite frankly, it really didn't matter. The best acting in the world can't make a badly written script suddenly become good. And a badly written script can make an otherwise great actor look REALLY BAD.
***SPOILERS FOLLOW FROM HERE*** So the theme here is that the world is badly over-populated and can't sustain the full population. Nearly everyone on the planet is a slave, with a small handful of people running things who are not. Let's pause right there and consider the logic behind this for a moment. If there are SO MANY people on the planet that losing 9 BILLION from the population doesn't even put a dent in the population crisis, and nearly all of those alive are slaves who hate the way they're forced to live, that's EASILY enough to start a rebellion and overthrow the small number who are making their lives miserable. But let's suspend our disbelief and put that logic aside for the moment. If that many people are unable to overthrow the elite few, then those elite few must have some REALLY SICK advanced technology, right? OK, so if they have that kind of tech (which is clearly the case judging by the massive flying ships near and at the end of the movie), why the heck haven't they left the planet and colonized the Moon, Mars, or just plain built massive space stations complete with colossal hydroponic farms to accommodate all those people? I mean, with that many billions of slaves, it wouldn't take long at all. And you can't say there aren't enough mineral resources to accomplish it, since they clearly have enough tech to mine asteroids, the moon, or other planets, not to mention cannibalizing and recycling outdated tech for its materials.
So what's their answer to over-population instead? ***insert fake sarcastic tone*** Let's create a game that kills off 90% of the people who bet on it. I mean, we're insanely greedy, megalomaniacs, so if we have too many slaves to support everyone, it's probably best to just kill off a few billion of them rather than using that man-power to expand our power and wealth, right? ***end sarcasm***
I really wonder if the writers ever bothered to stop and think about the logic behind this script (or lack thereof). Combine the bad writing with a juxtaposition against other movies with similar themes (Hunger Games, Maze Runner series, Cube (not that I liked Cube all that much, but even THAT had better writing and more of a point than THIS movie)) and this movie totally bombs, which is a huge understatement. This movie is comparable to a 2-year old with a toy steering wheel on their lap, sitting next to mom or dad in the car and believing that driving with their toy is comparable to what the parent is doing with the real car. The simple fact that I've even taken the time to write this review is an OVERWHELMING testament to how bad this movie was. Seriously. I have never written a movie review before, even though I've seen some truly horrible movies. But this one was so bad, I actually created an IMDb account for the first time ever for the sole purpose of writing this review so I could let people know how horrible the movie was. It really was THAT BAD! Taking the time to write this review was a FAR better use of my time than actually watching the movie.