Reviews

It's nice to see two outstanding actors given the freedom - and a good script - to go all out in their roles. Yes, they are over-the-top, but in a very entertaining way, with very honest, believable performances. The essence of good drama is conflict, and these two go to war!

Ultimately it's a feel-good story with an expected happy ending. Why do it otherwise, right? Of course they played loose with the facts a bit, but the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad and the rewards and punishments are given out as you would hope.

It's a period piece set in the South, so expect a bit of overt racism and outrage. Nothing artificial, but the bias is hard to ignore. Otherwise, an extremely enjoyable film.

What do you get when you combine a totally ridiculous screenplay, an inept director, a cast with no acting talent whatsoever and an editor who has no clue how to assemble a scene? Yep, this horrible mess. They even left in flubbed lines, apparently not even noticing. The filmmakers violate the "rules" they established and good luck trying to follow the story line.

Several times I considered just backing out, but I wanted to see how much worse it could get. I wasn't disappointed. I wish IMDB would allow a negative number.

One good thing - the "actress" who stood next to the DJ at the party seemed to be able to throw her arms into the air for four hours straight. Impressive.

All I got from this mess is that there's no difference between modern urban gang warfare and the way ex-slaves preyed on one another in the Old West. White racists will love this film for how evil, corrupt, violent and stupid it makes Black people look. Stupid Black people will love the shucking and jiving. Anyone of any race with a functional brain will wonder what possessed these top actors to appear is such a moronic movie.

Some of the worst dialogue ever, combined with random, disjointed scenes and some serious lack of acting talent. A real mess and waste of time.

How do scripts so convoluted and incredibly obtuse get green-lit for production? When you get so lost that you stop caring the film is nothing more than a huge waste of time.

Simple non-spoiler synopsis: Working mom takes a trip leaving her sickly husband and rebellious teenage daughter home. Her subordinates are rude, disrespectful and psychologically damaged. Oh yeah - her trip is to Mars.

All downhill from there. Most daytime soap operas have less artificial and manufactured drama. It's so phony it hurts. And why or why is there a phone call in every stupid scene? Nothing is more boring than watching a phone call or even worse a text message being composed or read. You'll get plenty of them in this waste of time.

The good news? Apparently in the near future science overcomes the limitation on light speed and you'll be able to do FaceTime calls from the moon!

I gave it two stars instead of one because the final episode partially redeemed all the melodrama that came before. I really hope there's not a second season though. I can't imagine the tripe the writers would create to keep this going.

Not many women can screech their voices as high and shrill as the host of this show. How does Rutledge Wood do it - especially since it seems he's a man?

This is an interesting, quirky film with some really interesting characters. But I guess the filmmakers decided they really didn't need to wrap anything up or include an ending. Makes watching it pretty much a waste of time.

Thoroughly engrossing episode but no real ending. Just one more shot - not even a full scene - would have made it perfect. You should feel the story concluded instead of going "what?"

This film looks great and they obviously had the money to make a descent movie. But with such a ridiculous script they didn't have much to go on. The cast is quite good but what they are required to do is silly. The biggest problem is the editing though. So many story jumps without explanation made me long for the film to just end.

Season one is interesting. Cool, original concept and appealing characters. Season two is a pathetic mess. So many pointless scenes and incomprehensible mumbo jumbo that it became unwatchable.

It looks like they just made this up as they went along. Totally random bits that have no meaning or connection. The actors probably thought they were making some weird parody and went along with it for the laughs. Total trash.

You shouldn't have to constantly ask yourself why the characters do what they do in a film. You shouldn't have to cringe every time a character says a line. Who keeps giving these totally inept "filmmakers" money to create this worthless trash? And does anybody actually read the script before the cameras roll? I don't often give up on a movie in the middle but this is as unwatchable as you can imagine.

I don't usually review bad movies. Generally not worth the effort. But this film should usher in a new "zero stars" rating on IMDB.

It's a direct ripoff of that low-budget, amateurish, raunchy, exploitation film from almost 40 years ago, Cannibal Holocaust. However, that was a better film than this! And Eli Roth obviously had much more money to spend; he certainly wasted every penny.

The acting is atrocious, despite the fact that many of the cast members are professional actors. Perhaps their knowledge of English was limited to the point that they didn't realize what absurd lines they were being asked to speak. But isn't it the director's job to fix this? Roth either didn't care or is such a bad director that he can't distinguish between a good delivery and an awkward stumble. Then again, the script is so full of nonsense and trite cliches, the cast really didn't have a whole lot to work with. Roth is one of the writers, so again, we know where to lay blame.

There is so much wrong with this film it would be hard to make a list. The fact that Roth thought we want to see masturbation, deification, vomiting, urination, mutilation, torture, just to name a few, makes me wonder about his mental stability. He tries to save it by injecting some socially conscious environmental message about the fate of the Amazon Rain Forest - which is actually quite laughable in the context of everything else.

This isn't just a bad movie - it's totally inept. The kind of thing someone makes who has no clue how to actually do something worthwhile. Pathetically horrible in every sense.

I got hooked on The Rain when season one came to Netflix. It was a unique take on a post-apocalyptic world in which survival becomes the primary focus of your existence. There is some diabolical mystery behind what's happened to the world and it drew me in trying to figure out just what will be the fate of humanity. There was an interesting cast of characters and intricate relationships.

Then season two launched and someone decided the show should be more about teenage angst and hoping someone some day will fall in love with you. Yeah, death and evil are all around you, but getting a good kiss is really the only reason to survive anymore. I could barely watch every episode, kept hoping it would get better, and rolled my eyes repeatedly. I was going to explode if one more character blamed him- or herself for the latest tragedy that befell them and launched into a dialogue about their feelings for someone else in the group.Plus the plot simply became a series of go there, come back, go there again, come back, go again...

Season one was good, gripping SciFi. Season two was a YA romantic wannabe. It ended on a definite teaser for season three, so I hope someone with some dramatic, adult sense can steer it back on course.

There's bad filmmaking. There's low-budget filmmaking. Then there's totally clueless inept filmmaking of which this is an excellent example. Actually it's a pathetic example. I can't imagine any of the cast will want this film included on their credits. You may enjoy trying to figure out why everyone in the director's world hangs a string of lights everywhere. Maybe they got a deal and decided to include them in just about every scene. Other than that there is nothing redeeming about this trash. Cringe-worthy.

I sure hope Jordan Peele isn't the next M. Night Shyamalan. You know... make a massively successful horror/suspense film. Get famous and nominated for all sorts of awards. Become Hollywood's new phenom and have producers throw money your way for a repeat. No restrictions. And then prove it was a fluke by making a bunch of cringe-worthy crap. This film is a totally incomprehensible mess and by the end I just stopped caring what the heck was going on or why. I just wanted it to end. And that's the worst thing a movie can do.

90 minutes of a pretty good, scary, well-acted movie totally trashed by an absurd, nonsensical ending. Too bad.

There aren't many films with absolutely no appealing or sympathetic characters. Well here's one. The exception might be Nancy from Stranger Things, who apparently was cast because she's a good screamer. Other than her there are nothing but loathsome, pretentious stereotypes throughout this plotless disaster. There are a few interesting special-effect deaths, but they hardly make up for the random scenes in between that the producers somehow thought represented a story. Truly horrid filmmaking.

First of all they can't even agree on the title of this train wreck. It's hard to know who is to blame for such an inept film as - whatever it is called. I guess we should hold the director responsible. Somehow she managed to cast actors with no acting ability or even personalities. The lead does have great eyes, so perhaps that's what was important. But with a screenplay this contrived I don't think she had much to work with in the first place. Truly horrid.

If you like Wolfenstein or Doom you'll love Overlord.

I went to see The Witch based on the intriguing previews, plus the high user and critic ratings on IMDb. What did anyone find the least bit redeeming in this wretched film?

Based on the previews I was expecting a frightening, exciting, tense movie about, oh I don't know, a witch!?!? Instead I was subjected to 90 minutes of a family's extreme religious superstition tearing them apart. OK, that's not necessarily bad for subject matter, but since everyone speaks in different accents and variations of 17th century English (ye, thee, thou, whilst, etc.) at wildly varying volume levels, I probably missed a good 40-50% of what was said.

But what upset me the most was how the film existed in the world of plausibility for the majority of the time and then suddenly shifted into fantasy and the supernatural. Far too many WTF moments that I would have to spoil to enumerate. But just when you think you are dealing with the effects of religious extremism and how it can poison a person's mind, suddenly you get slammed with images of pure folklore fantasy and all you can do is scratch your head and wonder what the heck is going on. It's been a long time since a film has made me want to walk out in disgust.

I give The Witch two stars because of the acting performances. The cast had some horrible material to work with but they did a wonderful job of expressing their emotions, fears and doubts about each other's faith. Somehow they spoke the lines they were given effectively as well. In the end they couldn't rise above the material, though, including the fact that like so many movies today, the filmmakers had no idea how or when the story should come to an end.

It's easy to get caught up in the magnificent acting performances of this film's phenomenal international cast. Of course you expect Tom Hanks to put his usual Oscar-worthy skills on display, and he does in scene after scene. But everyone in the supporting cast is equally as memorable, not to mention Mark Rylance, who is one of the most talented actors many people may not recognize or even be familiar with. It's also easy to get caught up in the beautiful, period cinematography, locations and sets in Bridge of Spies. The look and feel of both early 1960's America plus the depressing starkness of East Berlin during the escalation of the Cold War are depicted perfectly.

But what came through to me more than any of these individual pieces is the unsurpassed storytelling skills of Steven Spielberg. Not only does he get one of the best performances out of Hanks in his entire career, but his attention to detail and nuance is utterly amazing. When Hanks is confused, Spielberg makes sure you are as well. When he's feeling anxious or paranoid, the director makes you equally as apprehensive. But he does this with visual cues, glances, hints and a marvelous musical score.

This is cinema at its purest and its best. Dialog is less important than the visuals, but the script is tight, crisp and taught. Nothing is wasted. In a season when there have been a great many outstanding films to hit the screen (Mr. Holmes, Black Mass, Everest) Bridge of Spies is a must-see for anyone who loves a well-told story that will make you wonder how two hours can fly by so quickly.