Reviews

Don't buy the overwhelming positive reviews. To put things into the context, I liked the first Mission Impossible which had a cool atmosphere as a throwback to the original series presumably (which I didn't watch). The sequel was a typical John Woo action vehicle with a few MI touches added (like masks) - hated it. I really liked the rather realistically done MI3 and loved the main character's chemistry with his wife, but then it was all wasted in the 4th installment which was rather generic and boring (hated the Simon Pegg addition to be a comic relief in yet another movie).

Reading the reviews I had high hopes, but the movie is too long, boring with too many plot holes to comprehend, presumably due to terrible editing. There is a love interest (albeit rather one sided, it seems), but it's not developed in any way. There is a potentially interesting anti-IMF organization, but it's not developed in any way. The main infiltration seems to copy the one from the first movie with some ridiculous additions, but it's used up rather quickly leaving you to wonder what was the point of including it. I can't escape the feeling that the script was either too long or incomplete and many scenes were just improvised and tacked on as the shooting went on. I actually intend to watch the hated MI4 just to see which one made less sense.

Shaun of the Dead was great fun, although somewhat uneven as the movie falls apart somewhat as it draws to the end (IMHO). Hot Fuzz fixed that and is a very well-rounded experience with a unique blend of humour, action and mystery and a great team chemistry by Pegg and Frost. Thus, i expected something in that vein with a touch of The Body Snatchers blended in. Unfortunately, this movie has got very little of that magic.

(SPOILERS present)

It starts much too slow, most of the main characters don't bring anything fun or interesting to the movie (the other three main actors) and a lot of time initially is wasted in some boring dialogs to give them some introduction and depth (or at least try to). Pegg's character's childish behaviour gets tiring soon as he is basically the only one out of five who is actually contributing to the movie. So, instead of them doing their fun stuff, they are dragged into some side- story about growing up (and refusing to in Pegg's case) and old romantic interests which actually takes most of the movie over. And the parts which were supposed to be serious/scary (the Body Snatchers taking over the town) were on the other hand represented in a simplistic and silly way (alien robots which leak blue stuff when disassembled). So, in a way, this movie reverses everything which worked with the previous movie. Thus, we are forced to go through long boring uninspiring non- funny dialogs between characters with little to no chemistry between them going through too many bars and (later) fighting the same robots over and over again until the anticlimactic showdown (although some of the Pegg exchange with the aliens is providing some relief) followed by clichéd and overly protracted epilogue.

It feels like the authors had a few general ideas about the movie, but either they were not inspired at all in developing it into a full blown movie or those ideas were too few. Watchable for a few laughs here and there, but more as a melancholic reminder of past times (and music).

Tarantino seems to have been running out of ideas lately and relies on shock and gore rather than on a good script to make his movies stand out.

I really disliked Inglorious Bastards as, except for two brilliant scenes (the first scene with Christopher Waltz and the dialog in the basement pub seemingly inspired by a scene from Where Eagles Dare), the movie was just juvenile, stupid and just plain disgusting occasionally. Now, Django fares a little better as there is not so much stupidity in the script (and no characters like Brad Pitt and his squad from Inglorious Bastards), but there is little worthy of mention, either.

(SPOILERS ahead) The movie starts on a good foot with Waltz setting Django free to help him identify three former slave farm supervisors. Now, for a western revenge movie, hunting these three guys to pay for what they have done to him and his wife would have been the central plot of this movie. Django would have time to slowly develop his relationship with his German "owner" from distrust to even some kind of friendship (not to mention his weapon skills). Instead, they instantly become friends and Django, seemingly a born gunslinger, kills those three guys on the first farm they visit. The movie drags on unnecessarily after that only to finally switch to a search for Django's wife (who is alive and mostly well, as it turns out, thus nullifying any potential revenge factor). She is located on DiCaprio's farm where Django performs his fake slave-owner character unexpectedly (and illogically) well, but surprisingly, the experienced German head-hunter, who otherwise kills people without a second thought with a mathematically cold logic, somehow fails to hide his shock and disgust of a few (admittedly gruesome) slave deaths. I was at least hoping that it would turn out that he was playing some double game and that he will turn on Django, but that was just wishful thinking. Surprisingly, the cool German fails to keep his cool once more and shoots DiCaprio's character, gets killed and with him what little coherence was there in the movie. After an unnecessarily long and blood bursting firefight, Django is taken alive (why?), but instead of being tortured (why?), he is sold to some miners to face a fate worse than any gruesome death itself (supposedly, as all we have are words by Jackson's character). But, somehow he convinces the miner's men or whoever they were as the movie doesn't bother to explain (nor did I care by that point) to let him go (wtf?) and even give him a gun (WTF?); then he spares no thought in killing them for some reason (why?) and runs back to the farm where previously dozens of armed men were holding guard, but for some reason none remain. He shoots the totally unused James Remar character, plus the unused lawyer and Candy's sister characters while releasing the unnecessary Candy's mistress character. Also, underused Samuel L. Jackson's character is shot (didn't really find him mean or anything, but more like a semi-stupid old fool). Django then shows that he's handy with dynamite, too, and leaves the farm with a cartoon-like explosion in the background (Candy must have been holding a dynamite storage there) and rides into the sunset with his rather bland and unconvincing wife character. The end. Notice how there's so many times I mention the words "for some reason" and "unused", as somehow the movie of some two and a half hours fails to find any space for development of most of its characters or to cater us with some logic behind its characters' actions.

I ended up liking some of the music used and DiCaprio's character - not that it was a memorable character, but DiCaprio did a great job with a lousy script at hand. Waltz was OK, but kind of predictable as his character is rather similar to the character in Inglorious Bastards in his overdone slow and meticulous explanations, but ridden of any menace and thus, any powerful impact. Jackson was good, but his character was criminally limited by the script. Disappointing and very unnecessary. Oh, sounds like my review! Wait..

I don't mind the basic idea of a remake. Often, you'd see some older acclaimed movies and appreciate some of the ideas they had, but also find them underused or undeveloped enough as they fell victim to the cinema standards of the time.

The more recent remakes tend to be garbage, though, as they seem more as an attempt to cash in on some previous success story rather then an attempt at a different creative take on the basic idea. One exemption would be the recent "remake" of The Thing (itself a very welcome remake of a "classic" movie from the 50s), but as it was unpretentious and actually a prequel, I was rather pleasantly surprised.

Not so much with the Total Recall, though - when you expect a movie to be bad based on the reviews and still end up surprised, that ought to say something. Although I have fond memories of the original, it was also a weird mixture of a serious sci-fi movie and a trashy B-movie, so I always thought it would have developed more of its potential if it was done in a more serious way, e.g. like Verhoeven's Robocop. Hence why I was somewhat curious at the remake, but, sadly, it doesn't compare at all.

It gets tedious quickly with all too many action scenes, it's utterly soulless and frankly just boring. The dialogue is terrible, the acting is bad and the direction is confusing and uninspired.

The script seems just like a bunch of overlong dumb-dialog scene reenactments of the original with a lot of mindless action in-between. Colin Farrell has no charisma to lead this movie and with his typical act of a semi-lost, confused and burned-out guy is totally miscast. The rest of the actors (mostly bad) manage to read out their lines of the poorly written text, too, but that's about it. The bad guy is not even worth mentioning.

After more than half the movie is spent on the introductory part, the plot reaches the climax too soon and is then patched up by a very unnecessarily long resolution. And lets not get carried away by the word, as its more of an anti-climax compared to it being a very strong part of the original. And then it's patched up by a lot more of tiring action scenes of ever increasing length and pointlessness.

It's a shame how much money actually got wasted on this thing - if more money was spent on some decent actors and a half-decent script, the money could have been saved from all the action scenes which wouldn't have been necessary anymore. But, I guess it's easier for the Hollywood producers to bet on the typical action garbage hoping that the formula will work again for the umpteenth time rather than to create something refreshing.

Thankfully, I haven't watched in cinemas as I'd have felt embarrassed. Don't watch it even if you think there's nothing better to do at the time as you can't do worse than this..

This is no thriller or drama - it's an action movie full of cliché comic-book like characters. The very lazy script could probably be summed up in less than ten sentences without actually missing much. It's like Dick Tracy (most of the characters, Penn's and Nolte's in particular, there's a lot of firing, but the good guys can't seem to be hit by bullets) with some elements reminiscent of L.A. Confidential (Brolin's and Gosling's characters are like Crowe and Pierce, Gosling's friend reminds of the Spacey's character), The Untouchables (choosing a squad of outcasts to fight corruption, Ribisi's character) and even Tombstone (the Patrick's character plus the whole Wild-West guns-blazing approach to crime-fighting). The only semi-depth is attempted with the Brolin's wife (convincing enough) and Ribisi's kid (barely used and unconvincing), but this is only hinted at since there's no time to do more anyway (and too many unnecessary/unused characters; e.g. Ribisi's, Pena's; or just plain ridiculous, like Mackey's and Patrick's). So, an over-generous 2/5 or "watchable", but just thanks to some of the actors and some style.

While the first movie was a bit unorthodox regarding its portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, it functioned because of the good performance of the main actors, a very convincing villain and a good plot which had more than a necessary amount of mystery for an SH plot, made even stronger by toying with the elements of the occult. Occasional action scenes, though sometimes overdone, were rather original and few and far between to annoy.

The sequel though seems to be written by a different set of writers. There is no plot whatsoever above the basic premise which can be told in a sentence or two. The only mystery present was what actually connects all too many random and overly long action sequences and dispensable characters together. And though the main actors might still be pushing hard, their lines rarely work, being written poorly as they are. To accommodate for the weak script, Robert Downey character's eccentricity seems to be simply pushed much too far this time that it becomes annoying rather than fun. Jude Law repeats the first role as much as possible with the lines he's been given and is a rare memento to what worked well in the first movie. Rachel McAdams was a rare miss in the first movie, so the fact she doesn't play a larger role in this one can only be a plus. I'm still puzzled by the gypsy woman character's purpose in the movie, but it only underlines the weak script as this character is actually one of the main ones. And the villain himself leaves an impression of a low-level local gangster given to play with higher stakes (selling weapons to opposing countries, rather than illegal liquor) which, unfortunately for the script writers, doesn't automatically create a character of a top criminal mastermind. As there was no secrecy about him or his plan or his ulterior motives even, the "game of shadows" being played between him and the SH is reduced to running around the Europe at seemingly random locations, fighting (in the most direct sense of the word) the forgettable villains alone while trying to save the world. And if that might sound more like a James Bond script to you (as mentioned in some other review), you would not be mistaken.

Just avoid it. It made for a very tedious experience and the only thing I cared about while watching was that it finishes as soon as possible so I can forget about it.

I can't remember the last time I watched a movie THIS bad in cinema. I saw some of the trailers and expected some sci-fi action movie between some P. K. Dick stories and Logan's Run, but what you actually get here is some cheap teenage entertainment TV-series pilot only with no entertainment part. The script is the worst part here and the entire story can be told in a few sentences. Any deeper social messages it tries to push are so contrived and shallow that they bring tears to your eyes (but in the good way). The dialog is bad and clichéd and definitely is somewhat to be blamed for the allover atrocious acting in the movie as the characters are thinner than in Marvel comics. With such few and lousy lines and amateur directing, all traces of any character developments depend solely on the charisma of the particular actor. All this makes this pile of garbage very painful to watch till the end and if there was ever a movie I should walk out from, this would be it. Fortunately, the cinema was empty so some beers and commenting with a friend who found his only interest in watching the main actress in mini skirts and high heels. Oh, the dressing of all the characters was very slick so I'm starting to think if the movie was not sponsored by some brand of clothing and all this is nothing more but a bad commercial gone worse..

I thought it was a solid movie in general, with a nice Michael Mann movie kind of a style of music and atmosphere throughout it, so if you're into that, you might want to check it out. It was finely crafted with the highlight of the movie being the car chase scene at its beginning.

Main actors put on rather convincing performances for a movie where the dialog is very sparse (Carey Mulligan fits her role very nicely), though Ryan Gosling was maybe limited by this as I found myself expecting a bit more out of him. The standout miscast would definitely be Albert Brooks whose character definitely talks too much and his act on it seems more suitable for a Seinfeld episode or some low budget wannabe deep crime drama. The final showdown is also a big letdown as there's too little suspense about it and it's done in a way totally unconvincing for most crime movies let alone a movie with driving in its name.

Still, I think they pulled a rather enjoyable movie considering the thin and unoriginal script and what seems as a limited budget, especially compared to other movies being on offer this summer.

Surprised by the lack of negative reviews for this movie, I felt obliged to say a few words about it.

When I saw the trailers, I had a feeling it is a predictable, boring, thin comedy with some pathetic drama elements mashed in. I somehow still expected that I got the wrong impression. So, it came as no small surprise that the movie is more like a tragedy and furthermore much worse that I expected! It is really painful to watch this long and boring mess. The whole beaver/split personality thing is really unconvincing, at least in the way presented in the movie. The whole thing is just forced on the viewer in the beginning of the movie in a very short and unbelievable manner and since the whole movie relies around it, the movie really suffers from it. We never see actually who Mel Gibson's character was like before or learn what caused him to get into the state he was in. While at it, not sure where all this praise about Mel's acting comes from; he looks sad and depressed in the beginning all right, but that's about as far as it goes. The beaver scenes are all contrived and childish like at the beginning and they get more and more unbelievable as the story goes on until it gets totally absurd when he decides to end with the whole thing. As the movie was ending, I couldn't really believe that they decided to film this mess of a script, but when I saw it was directed by Jodie Foster, so it kind of made sense then. Her acting was bland and forgettable, but it gets overshadowed by her directing which doesn't really go anywhere so I'm still left wondering what kind of a movie was this supposed to be.

The only thing worth mentioning here would be the Anthon Yelchin playing Mel's son with the only convincing performance in the movie. His love interest though is poorly written character and also seemed like a miscast which rather chokes his effort. There is some redeeming value in a few thoughts on the emptiness of everyday life in today's soulless world, but as these are just directly spat out in a few lines by the characters themselves, it is nothing more than a cheap afterthought attempt to give some depth to a terrible script rather than a message of the movie.

Avoid like a particularly bad strain of Spanish influenza.

When you go to the cinema with little or no expectations (other than what's been set by the trailer which actually promised at least a fun movie) and you still end up disappointed, it's not a good sign.

The movie's actually a typical blockbuster in that that it risks nothing with the script, the characters or the concept development even and thus you feel like watching the same typical alien invasion action movie albeit with unexciting action scenes and in a bit of a different setting - very bland, very predictable and VERY boring. I couldn't care less about what happens in the movie, who dies or not or what will happen in the end, I just wanted it to end.

Instead of actually taking a new concept and developing it, this was taking the "Independence Day" concept and adapting it to a traditional Hollywood Wild West setting (not that "Wild" at all). So the idea is wasted. Since the characters are trite and shallow, I'd call the cast a waste, too (especially Sam Rockwell), but it's not a great cast to begin with. Ultimately, it's a waste of money as I guess you could make several decent movies with this budget, but I fear the producers will profit from it and be encouraged for more of such "entertaining" products.

3/10 (I'd give it less, but I feel bad for Harisson Ford who doesn't put a decent performance, but is likable anyway).

I was very disappointed with this movie. They ruined pretty much everything. They had some good actors and a good premise (a Predator in the urban environment) but everything else is terrible. The setting is very trashy (something like a police thriller set in the Robocop-like chaotic future) because it's done very cheaply. All the characters are straight from the C-movies. The direction is lost, the camera is too dark making it hard to follow what's going on and the actors aren't convincing at all (especially Glover). So, what saves this movie from being a complete disaster? Well, the Predator scenes are good. The creature is very well made so it helps that it appears much more than in the first part. Personally, the Predator is one of the best alien forms ever designed so I might be biased here. Besides that, the film is just a mess of plot holes between the alien action scenes though it gets more watchable as it draws to its end (maybe because there's less talk and thus less of this terrible script). The first movie was a B-movie, but was very well executed and produced. This one is almost like a parody of itself (like some parts of Robocop 2). Personal rating 4, IMDb rating 5. UPDATE: Predators are setting new standards for this franchise. It will be very hard to go under that one in the future. Updated IMDb rating for the sequel compared to the 6.5 of the Predators: 7.5 at least.

I'm going to be short on this one. This movie and The Living Daylights are my favourite Bond movies (and maybe For Your Eyes Only, In Her Majesty's Secret Service and maybe even Octopussy) because of the storylines and different approach. The stories aren't some sci-fi fiction but very believable ones and the Bond character played by Timothy Dalton is more human than ever. Now, a lot of people have problems with that because they don't get the real Bond thing. They consider Bond movies to be a two-hours-of-fun-and-nothing-else. Well, I don't like that approach and all those extravagant weapons and gadgets. Dalton is actually a theatre actor so his performance is probably the best (he's not charismatic like Connery but Connery looked great in those older movies; these are newer times and Dalton depicted Bond perfectly). These never Bond movies are a disgrace. Golden Eye was still enjoyable but those later movies are a farce. Too bad for Brosnan. He's actually quite good in the Bond role.

I can't believe I actually really looked forward to see this flick. I thought it would be a new Das Boot and I made arrangements with the people in the cinema to give me the big poster afterwards. What a load of bulls***. I have seen bad movies, but this is unbelievable. Maybe some average viewer who just want to see some action and some evil Nazis killed might find this piece thrilling, but for anyone even remotely interested in history (and good war dramas), this movie is a complete disaster. It's just one pathetic and thrilling scene after another. Admittedly, I have seen it some time ago so I don't remember all of the flaws, but I remember that if I was not laughing, I was crying. So just keep the damn poster!

OK, I'll try to comment mostly on the music cause enough has been said about this movie. I think it's a very watchable action movie (despite some flaws). Yes, it's not too realistic, but such a movie would most probably be boring (check how it worked out in The Finest Hour). Yes, it's not too deep, but come on, which action movie is (e.g. what's so deep about characters in Die Hard? nobody complains about that and they shouldn't)? Please take into consideration some other action movie involving the SEALS e.g. The Rock - the unwatchable Michael Bay/Nicholas Cage exploding blockbuster escapade which somehow has over 7.0 rating.

The most positive thing about this movie are the great action scenes which look pretty realistic (the gunfights in Beirut, for example). Nice use of the camera (although it looks a bit 'TV' in some places) and very authentic looking scenery (with some nice details, e.g. like that destroyed Israeli M113 in the background).

But the amazing thing is (personally) one of the best music scores in an action movie ever (which unfortunately I can't seem to find anywhere). I mean, Sylvester Levy really did his job right. Every time they head for action, they are followed by excellent instrumental scores which give this film and the scenery much more depth (my favorite one plays when they are running for the shore). Unbelievably good.

So, must have seen it a couple of dozen times and still like to watch it for the above reasons. It's not a deep movie, just good war action and great music. I enjoy(ed) it. Maybe you will, too. Personally, I'd rate it as 6, objectively at 5, IMDb 7 at least (should have more since atrocities like The Rock get 7.3 average).

This is a very good movie. It has a strong story (which most of the today's movies lack of) and a good relationship between characters. I have seen it a dozen times at least but I still find it rewarding to watch although I know it by heart. I think this should say something about the quality of the film. If you haven't seen it, do it. You won't regret it.