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Reviews
Non-Stop (2014)
Hardly anything in this movie is remotely plausible
This movie is so chock-full of ridiculously implausible events that even the thrilling parts don't save it: an alcoholic air marshall who smokes in an airplane lavatory, a corrupt air marshall with both cocaine and a bomb in his luggage, live video of the events on the plane on the video screens in the airplane from some TV station. Payment of ransom to an allegedly corrupt air marshall without really asking for many details, fighter jets accompanying the airplane, hijackers who have parachutes and a plan to escape -- over the open Atlantic ?? Etc etc.
While I do like Liam Neeson, this was a rather embarrassing role, so I don't know why he took it.
8 Billion Angels (2019)
Good documentary but too little substance
While the stories told are interesting and moving, there is rather little hard data. I missed at least some statistics and diagrams. Admittedly, I am a scientist but even if you aren't, it will be hard for you to grasp the dimension of over-population without some visualization of the hard facts.
The Kingdom (2007)
Good story but awful camera work
Some people think that a shaky camera makes a story more authentic, but in this otherwise good movie, it was just a really annoying distraction.
Bird Box (2018)
Supernatural nonsense
If you like supernatural stuff without any explanation whatsoever, you may like this movie. It's along the lines of Cloverfield or Blair Witch Project.
While I do enjoy sci-fi and to some extent fantasy, it needs to be credible too. Bird Box just doesn't make any sense and is way overboard with seemingly impossible, made-up stuff, without explanation or even an attempt to rationalize what's going on.
On the plus side, Sandra Bullock is a great actor and she didn't disappoint in this movie.
The Beyond (2017)
Pseudoscientific gibberish
If you have a science background, you will be disappointed. There is just too much pseudoscience. In addition to physical nonsense, there is suddenly also a bunch of biology nonsense, such as transhumans and virology (seriously?). The whole story doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
However, if you are completely science illiterate, you may even like it, that is, if you don't mind the annoying shakey camera :)
Untraceable (2008)
Good movie with few weaknesses
The plot is original and in certain ways prescient for being a 2008 movie. Apart from the gross scenes, the only thing I didn't like was the stupid mistakes that the FBI agents apparently made. Maybe erring is human, but that didn't make that much sense.
Alien Contact: Outer Space (2017)
Unscientific data and unconvincing claims
There are a couple of nice space pictures (and a lot of bad animations too), but next to no convincing data. Not even the distance issues are discussed. Just the "sound" effects "created" by the planets of our solar system are misleading and actually not explained properly. There is lots of speculation and besides the slow and monotone speaker, there is no real scientist putting all those observations into perspective. Sorry, but I had to stop watching this after 20 min. Save your time.
45 Years (2015)
Slow story
If you like slow movies, go for it. I found it so boring that I had to read a couple of articles in my newspaper while watching it. And I still didn't miss anything. Even what's supposed to be peak suspension doesn't create much suspension (at least not for me, but other viewers apparently had a different impression).
La corrispondenza (2016)
Sad story unnecessarily dragged out
Maybe this is a movie for necrophilic melancholics, but there is next to no joy in it. If you like drama and tragedy it may be for you. Otherwise you shouldn't waste your time. I didn't even understand the idea of the protagonist to drag out the mourning of his love. Sad!
The Atheist Delusion (2016)
Well made but ... arguments are badly informed
Nicely, professionally made documentary. That's unfortunately all that's positive about this documentary. The documentary makes the old (but literally stupid) argument about the impossibility of evolution (or books falling out of the sky "by accident"). Sigh. Why do we still have to deal with this uninformed crap? Evolution does NOT happen randomly. Not sure why Dawkins is cited as saying the universe comes from nothing. Obviously we don't know, and this is indeed one of the few quotes from Dawkins which is not very meaningful. Unfortunately we don't know where the Big Bang is coming from. God doesn't explain anything here, because "God" creating the Big Bang is equivalent to "miracle", which only means we don't know.
It's funny the movie talks about DNA as being "intelligently designed". Fine. But if that were true, the designer would have built in a lot of garbage. No matter what you believe, we know that there are literally thousands (!) of broken genes in our genome. No word about that. Why are people on the street asked about DNA or biology? Much of that film is wasted time by asking clueless people on the street about scientific issues. Not surprising they appear like complete idiots, falling for the pseudoscience of creationists and the like.
I could go on and on. I leave it at that. Don't waste your time watching this documentary.
PS: I give this film 2 stars because the pictures are nice, even though the contents only deserves 1.
Do You Believe? (2015)
Telling story, especially if you are not religious
This movie provokes a comparison with "God is (not) dead" (GIND) which arguably had a similar message. However, while GIND tried to convince us intellectually that faith is good, Do You Believe? (DYB) targets our emotions, which makes much more sense. You cannot win the argument for god intellectually, given that there is neither measurable evidence nor logical support for a deity. Philosophers have tried for centuries and failed.
Unfortunately DYB uses one trick GIND already used before: in both movies the non-believers were depicted as cold, rational, and dead hearted. (let's face it, the non-believer in GIND was a a real asshole). This is not only unrealistic but quite unfair, not the least because the non-believers hardly had a say.
I wonder whether this movie represents Christians realistically: by and large, they were a sorry lot. Either homeless, ex-criminals, cash-strapped, or low-middle class folks who really needed some divine help to make ends meet. Those who were better off were an older couple who lost their child, or a pastor and his wife who suffered from infertility. As a non-religious person I constantly thought "yeah, please help them, god, they really need a hand!". Sure enough, some of the characters were suicidal. While all this misery is obviously not quite true for the majority of American Christians it certainly reflects the state of religious people on a global scale: the more miserable people's lives are, the more religious they are. Not surprisingly, the two secular protagonists were a lawyer and a doctor, well-off educated folks who do not depend on their religion to solve their rather mundane problems.
Believers will like that the independent histories of a dozen people have all their stories joined in the grand finale, almost magically as if the strings had been pulled by god himself. There is even a happy ending, with the cancer patient magically cured, the childless couple ending up with a baby girl, and the suicidal singles finding each other. But I always wonder why a god can't do his magic without killing a bunch of innocent bystanders along the way. For an almighty, merciful god this would only require a click of his fingers. But as believers have known all along — subtle is the Lord
!
PS: the actors did a great job. All of them were truly credible even if the screenplay had too many quirks for my taste.
God Is Not Dead (2013)
Wasted potential
The premise of the movie is a great one: a David vs. Goliath type of debate over God. While the acting was very good and could have easily achieved that goal, it got screwed by a bad script and a bad (or partisan!) director: the movie is blatantly partisan for Christianity by depicting the atheist professor ("Goliath") as an arrogant asshole while the student ("David") is playing the likable, modest, and fairly smart Christian opponent.
No professor would ever act like the one in the movie (I happen to be one of them) and hardly any one of them would be as arrogant, especially in philosophy.
On the other hand, the technically outstanding presentations of the student (using fancy animations etc.) used lame arguments, e.g. "evolution makes no jumps" citing Darwin himself. Hey, that's a 150-year old argument, long obsolete, since Darwin even didn't know about DNA or mutations (surely evolution does make jumps!).
The whole psychological argument was more or less ignored although it is the most important argument in favor of religion: it simply makes people feel good, no matter whether there is a god or not. (It did come across rather in passing though).
Ender's Game (2013)
Kid's movie with little SciFi mojo
If you are an adult - stop reading and do not watch this movie. If you are a kid, at least at heart, read on... This is the story of Ender Wiggin, a young boy (age 11?) to train for a fight against the Formics, an Alien race. The storyline is OK but the whole story is a bit childish - the first hour is almost like kindergarten in space - you wonder if the kid ever grows up. The biggest joke is that Ender becomes the leader of a children's army. That's fine for a children's movie but why is this then rated PG-13? With all the stuff kids can see today, PG would be perfectly appropriate. It's not even very SciFi-realistic. The Aliens, huge floppy insects, can not only communicate properly - how can they operate space ships? The whole story is difficult to believe. It's not even clear why children are playing those roles. Declare this as a kid's movie and it may be fine. 11 year olds saving the world? That's a joke in a PG-13-rated movie.
The Fourth Kind (2009)
The Blair Witch Project goes Sci-Fi
If you like "The Blair Witch Project" you may like this movie. If you believe in alien abductions, conspiracy theories, and other paranormal stuff, you may like it too.
In all other cases, you should save the time and money.
The movies uses a technique that makes this movie seem "semi-documentary". However, this is not very credible, at least not to me (I am a scientist, so I am naturally skeptical, but that's why I also do like Sci-Fi).
One annoying aspect is that the "pseudo-documentary" style uses "footage" taken by eye-witnesses but which has been messed up by "aliens" who you never see because they, well, messed up the footage through some "electrical fields" or something. While this is a legitimate technique, it is just freaking annoying for someone who wants to see aliens or at least evidence. Again, while this mystery aspect may thrill certain people, if you are more on the concrete side of things, it may freak you out. Having "eye- witnesses" without any evidence besides their inconclusive memories is just not very convincing to me.
All in all, I found this to be a very unsatisfactory movie.
The Blind Side (2009)
Bullock at her best
Although the plot is depressing at times, the story is positive and heart-warming. Personally I don't like movies circling around sports too much and I don't even understand Football, so these parts eluded me. However, Sandra Bullock definitely had a role of her life with an excellent performance. Because the story is sentimental it would have been easy to screw up the movie by a weaker actress. Unfortunately, I was a bit unhappy with the performance of Quinton Aaron as Michael Oher. Oher's character comes across as too sluggish so it is difficult to believe that he pulled off his achievements. The whole Tuohy family also remains a bit undifferentiated except Jae Head who also plays a great role as S.J. Overall, it is a very encouraging movie about courage, (white) privilege (or the lack of it), and how to make a change.
Premonition (2007)
Groundhog day the scary way
The IMDb summary said it already: this is a confusing story of reawakenings. You wonder for most of the movie what is going on: is Linda Hanson (Bullock) dreaming or not? While it may have been the intention of the director to confuse its audience, it's an unpleasant experience. This is exacerbated by the fact that the story is pretty depressing. For most of the movie you don't see much light at the end of the tunnel. Again, if this was the intention of the director, he was fully successful - you just get depressed and desperate and wait for redemption.
The good thing about this movie is Bullock's excellent acting. Even McMahon is good if you buy that Jim Hanson, his character, is supposed to be an uncommunicative and unhappy husband.
However, to me it seems most unreal that husbands and wives (or their friends and relatives, for that matter) don't talk to solve an obvious problem. This is probably the most frustrating part of the movie - the fact that its characters don't do the most obvious thing, i.e. just talk. For example, there is hardly any attempt by Linda to sort out her experiences with Annie (Nia Long), her best friend. Even if communication is not a strength of many of our fellow human beings, it's frustrating to see characters in a movie acting in unreasonable ways if you do not get any idea why they act unreasonably.
Mr. Brooks (2007)
Watch a stupid witness watching a stupid killer
It is hard to believe that an experienced serial killer makes such a stupid mistake while he kills a couple of people. It is even harder to believe that a witness, who is supposed to be smart and educated, watches that murder and makes an even more stupid mistake. Nobody is perfect and stories are more realistic if the characters in a movie appear to be "real" (and flawed). However, this story appears a bit too much constructed.
Nevertheless, the plot develops in some unexpected ways and this saves the movie from being really bad. The acting is good and convincing. However, if the plot gets constructed right in the beginning, this spoils the whole movie.