maj-solo Reviews

The Innkeepers (2011)

The way horror movies used to be told.

[6/10 · 7 January 2012]

not with bucket loads of blood and slime and big monsters, or with shaky Blair Witch Project camera and confused story.

no this one is about two persons working in a hotel about to close for the season or for good. both a little interested in ghosts and start talking about it. then investigates things happening in the empty hotel.

I liked the style in which the story was told. but in the end it did not deliver, the story just simply ended. I was not scared but just liked the movie for its "clean" style.

I also liked the two main actors. so I watched the movie to the end.

R-rated which is fair, bring the kids, maybe they will be frightened.

Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

A innovative classic .... A must see (just so you know what you are talking about)

[7/10 · 31 December 2008]

You are all silly ... all of you!!! This is a great movie, a classic, just like BladeRunner.

I don't understand how can anybody miss that!!! I watch this movie like 30 times each year. Easier now when computers easily hold a DVD movie.

My favorite movies: Johny Mnemonic, The Right Stuff, Contact, Matrix I, Starwars II, Titanic, Alexander, Gladiator, Back Room Window, Memoirs Of A Geisha, Howard The Duck, The Hidden, Alien I, Predator, 2001 Space Odyssey, Saw IV, Gettysburg, X files series, Twin Peaks series ..... and so on But definitely this movie, might not be the greatest, but just as revolutionary as BladeRunner. And just as Bladerunner no later movie has built on the BladeRunner, Johny Mnemonic or Total Recall, or Operation Outland and so on, simply because their stories didn't allow any sequel. But still, they could have been built upon but it has not happened.

I don't plan to go through all reviews, but to not give this movie more than a seven .... it just proves how lost some people are and that they don't get that jolt, kick, or whatever that tells them this movie is special. In fact the movie is very special, innovative, and just glimmers there all alone by itself on the movie star sky .....

Also, some people don't like Reeves acting. Well, I think it worked well even if he was into this movie or not. Johny had to remove "a chunk of long term memory" ... "a chunk of what?" .... "my childhood" ... "your childhood?!?" ... "what a weird ass thing to do!"... "I needed the space for the job"....

Simply, Johnny is depressed. Removing such a big part of your identity, the foundation of your identity should make your soul hollow, should cause psychological problems. And the mess he ends up in this movie he is simply very frustrated. He is also a very intelligent very focused computer hacker and that is probably why he don't break down completely and sit down crying. The frustration and the anger is whats left that drives him. In any way he is easily irritated.

He probably is paid extremely well, but because of the psychological problems, and even social problems (since he don't remember his family,childhood, friends, just a big hole there), make him addicted to drugs which is often the case. And drugs can be of any type, alcohol, narcotics, shopping, distract you with computer games, gambling, hookers, clothes. So he earn a lot but probably burns the money just as fast.

So I am sorry for those who didn't get a character to identify with, or someone who is pretty and glowing and vibrant. Instead you got this angry introvert shallow self absorbed depressed character on screen. Reeves acting, intensional or not, and the story, worked well together.

It may be low budget, I don't know, but it sure is special. I am a Johny Mnemonic Junkie .... if that has escaped anybody .....

Also I don't rate movies after their budget or visual effects, I always look between the lines and fill in the gaps myself ... and that is why books are the best and why you usually get irritated when you watch movies made from books. If the book was great the movie can only fail. But by working on the story and make changes you can make bad books great as movies. movies are for people who are lazy and I am lazy.

Alien Raiders (2008)

Simply well written, go see it.

[7/10 · 24 December 2008]

Easily a 7. Well written, good casting, an ending which I have not seen used in awhile but it was frequent some years ago. You will be wanting to know exactly what this movie is all about for quite some time, it is given to you a little at a time. But long before the movie ends you will know, only you won't know how it ends. It is simply well written.

I'll make a stew for you: Alien + The Thing + Hidden + Assault on Precinct 13.

The assault on precinct 13 I mention cause they are in one single location the whole time. Really, to do so much with so little ..... OK, it is near brilliant. Better than other movies that rely upon other effects to stay interesting.

But to rate it 8 and higher it need to be spiced up some more .... now I feel like giving it an 8, but I have to restrain myself. Nothing else to say, just go see the movie.

This movie has been cleared by me. ;)

The Dark Knight (2008)

Did not feel like a true Batman movie

[7/10 · 19 November 2008]

I start with screaming "Yohooo!!! OverhYYYyyyped!!! Next I feel sorry for the young generation, not only do they think it is the best film ever, they even think it is better than other batman movies. Or, they are right and I feel so very very old and tired.

So I think I will not try to analyze it in anyway but just fire away and say what made me not like it so very much, just thinking it was a good movie.

Batmans motorcycle, one big fallos, you can see that it does not have agile handling characteristic's, and Batman's toys are about agility, power and flexibility, that motorcycle look plain dangerous to use.

Batmans car, all the earlier ones have been better and more believable, this one looked like a hummer, not like a high-tech fighting vehicle that can take damage, it looked like it could only deal out damage but it itself looked just as vulnerable as an ordinary hummer.

The Joker. The joker was physically too strong, he could be Batman himself. I think the Joker is supposed not to be stronger than you and me, what he wants is to roam free and so he have to try and get rid of whatever stands in his way, primarily Batman. Knowing his limitations he have to use his mind to trap Batman at preplanned encounters. He should also be a coward depending how you see it and should surround himself with goons and just as batman is about to get him he escapes laughing, cause the escape is also preplanned, and all of it to make Batman look like a fool.

In this movie he makes some pretty unbelievable attacks in public in the midst of like 500 policemen without using laughing-gas, green gas, purple gas or itchy popcorn. What I am saying is there can be some humor in the midst of violence, just look at James Bond, Die Hard etc etc etc, this movie is too serious and not good at that either.

The Joker was just not "in character" or whatever you say in English.

Also some problem with the script also I just didn't get into the movie. If it was supposed to be scary, or funny or whatever I did not get it.

I think the solution would have been to make the movie more "Joker'ish", give Joker toys that he have made, then maybe some of Batman's toys like making all cellphones in entire Gotham become one big sonar, unbelievable things like that, the they could perhaps become more believable if the movie would have tried to distance itself from reality some more.

The Joker was way too cruel and not one bit funny. But I liked technical trick with TwoFace's face, was a good trick there I think.

As it is now it feels serious and without any point. Also, if they broken so many "codes", is what we have seen here the future of Batman movies? If so, no thank you, count me out.

Still ... I end up giving it a "7".

Mamma Mia! (2008)

Not a disappointment (as musicals can be)

[7/10 · 12 November 2008]

First 1/5 - 2/5 of the move was OK a 5 out of 10, but then it felt like everybody on the crew, everybody got an aha experience or something or if they threw a party for them to make them shake loose or something because 3/5 - 4/5 is much better since everybody throw what they've got into the pot, acting singing photo cutting is so much better. I think this venture was successful, as you watch the movie it grows on you.

One of my favorites SOS was in the movie but not sure my other favorite "Knowing me knowing you" was.

Anyways, thank you Stickan (for the soul) and Björn and Benny. Your songs are like diamonds, really hard to wear down, you can listen to them for decades and not get tired ......

WALL·E (2008)

Keep going Pixar! Well done!

[9/10 · 9 November 2008]

This is a Pixar film and usually they animate animals/insects or toys and then they let them behave human. And the story often isn't stronger than what it has been in cartoons when I was little back in the 60's.

This movie is about a little robot left behind on earth to clean up our mess while we are gone and he is given the same human mind as in all previous Pixar movies, only this movie is ... I would not say deeper, but broader. Touching on more subjects and emotions and even some philosophy, psychology and wisdom. Maybe I should say the movie is "Richer" than the other Pixar movies I've seen.

And the first part of the movie is graphically top notch.

WALL-E is one of the few functioning Wall-E's left on Earth after 700 years, probably the only one. To solve their task while humans are away they have been made curious and inventive, and I would say 700 years is enough for WALL-E's neural-net to grow, and during this time he's been going through our trash and slowly like a detective gathering information and rehashing it and sorting it and has started to become a bit human by looking around him and learning from what we have constructed, small things and large things, especially video tapes are valuable.

WALL-E is completely lonely going to work everyday and resting every night when there is no sunshine for his solar panels. But after 700 years something happens that will turn his "life" upside down.

First half of the movie is a 10 in score, but the second half is not so hysterically funny just funny. :) So I have to give the movie as little as 9 points.

****** spoiler alert! spoiler alert! *********** On the ship there are two robots I like especially. First, the little cleaning robot, and then especially when his neural net is telling him to follow a dirt track made by WALL-E that is not along those red white or blue lines robots always follows, so it takes him about 10 seconds or so to stop following the lines but after he taken the first step then there is no problem just following WALL-E's dirt track.

Second, is that other little robot that smashes down an entire robot-police-squad and after that hovers in the air all pumped up .... just like a boxer dancing in the corner of a ring between rounds .

Some of the robots I thought was real funny.

Most of the fun watching movies like these is recognize patterns and faces from our real world, behavior, faces, or movies made. You recognize bits here and there, and get a kick out of that. So the recipe is pretty simple, but I think WALL-E is a bit more than that.

Now I know a present to give to someone that are tired of movies, something that might wake them up and make them smile.

A Viking Saga: Son of Thor (2008)

A good story, not so good filming and action.

[5/10 · 5 November 2008]

First of all the information war on IMDb, how can this movie get higher grade than pulp fiction?!? Get sane people!!! So that's about that you have to stop the inflation in scores.

This movie is a what it says it is a "vikinga saga". The usual ingredients Love & Revenge.

The movie itself is effects wise not great. What I did like though was the pacing and that the movie did not spend a lot of time trying to explain things to the "dumb" audience, but trusted our empathy/intelligence. And so I found myself with the feeling that I was "reading the best parts of a book".

Then I also felt they've been looking at other major Hollywood pictures and stolen some tiny pieces of them like the movies Alexander, Memoirs Of a Geisha, and so on. If they would have dropped that and just trusted themselves the filming itself would have been even better.

The movie is amateur-ish but the pacing and storytelling is so good, clean of rubbish, that I simply decided to turn off the critique when it comes to filming and effects and coordinated stunts and fight scenes and just totally focus on the story. I clearly felt it was higher than 5 in score but it had a dip in the middle, a short one, and then picked up again. At most I felt it deserved a 6. So where does my final verdict end up ..... hmmmm ..... avoid inflation in score .... 5.1 ... no .... yes .... no .... 5.1 ... yes 5.1 it is .

Thank you for your time. Pretty good story.

Dance of the Dead (2008)

Not working for me.

[4/10 · 18 October 2008]

Some good ideas but it does not work and becomes a bit silly/tiresome/boring. Seems the movie borrowed from other movies and contained nothing new. A bit of Ghost Busters (7.7), but not near as funny. Blair Which project (6.1), not near that one either. Fright Night (6.7), since this movie is not as fun as intended then the combination fun/scary does not work so it is not near that one either. A mediocre movie would be 5 and this one is below that so a 4.

****** spoiler follows ******

Two things I liked in the movie.

First is that the zombies are fragile, mushy, so that part break off when you hit them, but since there is so many of them there is a lot of that and get tiresome.

Second is the gravedigger who knew about all this, but as he says "just wanted to keep his job", so he has told none of this to anybody and practice hitting them in the head with the shovel, or cutting off their limbs with the hedge scissors.

And there I thought they had a recipe for the movie, a weird town, with weird people doing the unexpected, a town with more secrets that are revealed on by one, and better humor. That would result in a fun/scary/monster/detective story. Throw in a little John Clease, Monthy Pyton humor, and Fright Night and it could have been a good movie.

But this movie a short of all the above.

Hancock (2008)

A comic book superhero type who's an alcoholic, not easy to do your job with a hangover.

[8/10 · 18 October 2008]

This movie takes off like a rocket just like our superhero. The first 15 minutes or so is full of action and fun. Then the movie simmers down but the comedy/humor/irony gets even better. The movie doesn't spend any time explaining who the villains are they just are, and that is just how Hancock himself sees it, he does not care. But being an alcoholic, why does he care, there is no explanation, he is a superman type and so he just do what he does, only, with a hangover the job is not done with razor sharp precision so you sit there and go "ooops" "ouch" "not good" as you follow his erratic or seemingly not so controlled course through the city while showing bad judgment in the eyes of the citizens.

Later on the movie changes mood to a bit more serious but there still is a humoristic overtone. Followed by a couple of sudden surprises that explain who Hancock really is, both to Hancock himself and the audience.

To me the movie is intense in various ways so it really pulled me into it and it have action in the beginning and end and nothing whatsoever that irritated me I just sucked the whole thing in and it was a great movie.

To me it was stronger and more inventive than other superhero movies so I give it higher mark, I have to give it an 8. Perfect movie to be part of a Friday evening down town.

( Also the movie has some very good music I think )

The Class (2007)

Some psychology with small flaws but a VERY important subject

[6/10 · 18 October 2008]

The story does not feel authentic it feels in some parts manufactured. Parents behavior and the children's behavior is very believable, but I am having trouble with the principal and some of the teachers, not that they don't want to see, which often happen, but that they so easily buy lies fed to them, being senior as all of them are they should know better than so quickly threaten the very victims in this movie without investigating more. It seems manufactured just to prove the point that grownups don't understand.

So the whole movie plays and you're sitting there seeing no solution to the root cause of the problem, and also feeling the director want no solution to the problem, and you are wondering if that is all this movie is about, to have an experience with no real point in the end.

But in the end the point around which this movie is built is revealed. And it is a very important subject. The movie itself I give a 4 but since the subject is so important, reflecting recent real life tragedies, I add 2.

And I share the writer/producers possible view that with 95% certainty what is shown in the movie is the cause of tragedies like these.

Tropic Thunder (2008)

A not so funny movie.

[3/10 · 18 October 2008]

IMDb i becoming contaminated by "reviews" written by people possibly payed by the movie industry. All films lately start out with reviews giving scores that surpasses "pulp fiction", "Fargo", etc etc etc. How is that possible. An information war has started. From now on I'll read further down in the list to find if there's anything wrong with a movie not why it is good.

I will now expect any future film to start with maximum points in the reviews in the IMDb database.

I did not laugh one bit while watching this movie. But it is not totally bad. I'll be nice and give it a hmmm 3.

Sluga Gosudarev (2007)

Traditional Style

[5/10 · 19 August 2008]

This my 2 cents just adding to what anybody else written.

I feel the movie is made just the way a teenagers war movie is expected to be. Something always saves the hero (or important character) in the last minute or even last breath (typical)! The bad guys have no chance, they drop like flies. So no more comment necessary I think, the movie is what you might expect plus a little childish.

No, no relationships or love story here.

Blod and gore, yes absolutely and it is funny too. When director wants to shock you some of the more important characters get hit perfectly in the center of the forehead, so it becomes a bit amusing.

Still it is an OK movie but nothing more. Have to add that some footage is very good.

The "big battle" is no big battle. The Swedish king Carl you learn nothing about, he is just someone on the other side of the battlefield. The best "big battle" which really oozes of realism/authenticity, is in the absolutely superb movie Gettysburg. The battle sequences in this movie are not important, not to the movies main story or as a "history class". No strategy is revealed.

So the movie is what it is and that is about the two Chivalliers from France sent to Russia as a punishment for dueling. This is how the movie starts off, and above I've written what the movie is not.

========= This has nothing to do with the review but, someone wondered about the Swedish voice-overs.

Voice 1: Halting severely, not a Swede. Used for the older characters.

Voice 2: Initially extremely good Swedish but then deteriorating so he is a foreigner.

Voice 3: Surely not a Swede, and I expect a German or a Russian very good a German and then trying to speak Swedish.

Voice 4: Finnish/Swedish. It is Swedish as spoken in Finland, could be the real deal here. Only that voice disappears and does not come back, only used once.

Voice 5: Perfect Swedish, actually it is an accent, take Stockholm with a radius of about 50-100 miles. He is used for the lowly enlisted infantry soldiers. Not a mistake all the way to his very last sentence which made me wonder. OK, so he might not be a Swede but surely have lived here, maybe as a student. I try give an example but in English: instead of saying "we need to withdraw from the battlefield" it sounded clearly as if he said "we need to withdraw from the bottlefield", unless of course that IS what they called it several hundred years ago and I don't know that.

Voice 6: Perfect Swedish, no accent, so its "standard Swedish", no mistakes, must be a Swede. Also used only for the soldiers.

------ Also remember Swedish army used men from several countries so if they don't speak perfect Swedish then that might very well be perfectly alright. This is if anybody care about stuff like that. The movie is OK.