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rharrisstoertz
Reviews
Mortal Engines (2018)
A load of fun!
I have learned to ignore other people's ratings. Some will love it, some will hate it. I savoured every moment of the art of the extraordinary steam punk SciFi setting. The opening chase scene? My daughter was mystified by my shouting, "Run, little city! Run!", and then she got drawn into it too. St. Paul's Cathedral? OMG! And even a little piece of the Underground, complete with, "Mind the drop!" And a cyborg zombie, scarier than the Terminator, with a hobby of fixing broken things? What other movie can give you THAT?! But that beautiful red flyer ... WOW! What do we call it, an ornithopter? That was a work of art. Corny lines, unbelievable scenes, predictable plot, and stereotyped characters? Of course, and I enjoyed every moment of it! I grew to like the main characters quickly, and cheered their understated embrace and kiss at the end. So I had a great evening watching this movie. Maybe you will too.
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
On second thought...
I enjoyed this movie, I really did. Lot's of action, good acting, good cinematography,... While watching it, I would have given it a 9. So what's the problem? Why give it a 6? Well, I read some of the extremely negative reviews, and they changed my mind. In retrospect, I DO have a problem with this kind of movie. It is all flash ... very good on flash! But how much disbelief do we have to suspend, anyway? I'll go along with a movie as far as I can, but this is insulting, when I think about it, and lazy. And sloppy ... totally unnecessary.
Why, why, WHY must we believe that a guy can get shot point-blank in the stomach, get the bullet dug out (just an inch or two deep), and within a day there is no sign of any disability? He should be on Death's door, fighting off infection, etc. We saw those unsanitary conditions. We're willing to play along, but seriously!? Don't treat us like we are stupid! Meanwhile that same pistol goes on to kill any number of people with single shots at long distance. This is a movie with a nice mix of modern sentiments and old style, but I thought that was one element of the old style we left behind ... SHOULD have left behind. I mean all those wild shots, fired over the shoulder while galloping on a horse, or running, unerringly hitting their target, and killing in a single shot. Yeah, it makes for a fun movie, but when you combine it with everything else we have to accept, well what CAN we believe? ANYTHING is possible in this kind of movie! And that makes it predictable, because you no longer are second-guessing the vicissitudes of a simulated reality, but only have to guess where the director wants to go with it. And yeah, we all knew it would end up pretty much like it did, right? A shoot out in Contention and a race to the train. I guess the only surprise for me was that Ben Wade didn't give his gun to William Evans. Too much of a cliche? Well, that didn't stop them before, did it?
I want to go on a bit about the unbelievable stuff, but I can only hit some of it. Who the heck would ride with an outlaw this notorious, without tying him up better, gagging him (especially!), whatever it takes. How many times does he get to kill his captors or escape? I guess that wouldn't make a good movie, would it? But that's what I mean about sloppy directing and maybe screenwriting. Show us that this guy can break out of those cheap handcuffs and proper ropes, and then maybe you have a story. But that's too much work. Instead we get the same hash served to us over and over and over, and we eat it up. He starts talking. He gets the good guys pissed off. He runs away. He comes back (!). He gets a gun, they get it back. Oh, and that beating he took? They were hitting him repeatedly with rifle butts. That kind of thing breaks a jaw or fractures the orbital bones or something. And the NEXT DAY he has nary a bruise to show for it! Not even a black eye, except maybe sorta for a couple of hours. So it's like a super hero movie ... these guys have special powers. But maybe someone should just stay in their lane, do some work, and give us a real modern western, like Unforgiven. I just keep thinking of more stuff that irritates me in retrospect. How does a man missing a leg run like that!
There were some brilliant moments. A gatling gun on a stagecoach is awesome. The best moment of the movie ... maybe a toss-up between "What the ___ kind of a doctor ARE you?!", and "I'm not actually stubborn." A few moments like those, along with some pretty decent acting and some intense excitement, is what keeps my rating from going lower. That Prince guy was not believable, but they did him right ... horrifyingly malevolent.
So I have praised the acting, but I have to say this. The characters are all pretty one-dimensional. There just isn't much depth to them, and they are entirely predictable after you see them for a minute. Dan Evans? Yeah, you sort of wonder what his story is, but it ends up being an anti-climax when we find out. Ben Wade? Same smooth talking routine, EVERY time. When he does sort of maybe seem to change his ways, it doesn't come across as authentic. William Evans? Yeah, predictable too. Son is ordered to stay home but comes to the rescue. Nothing but that wide-eyed look. I don't know, maybe the "doctor" was the most interesting character. I LOVED his line, "But that's not moral!" Bravo, doctor!
While writing this, I almost dropped my rating to 5, but I like new takes on old themes. I love modern westerns! I like Russell Crowe. Watch this, but don't expect a classic.
Outside the Wire (2021)
Fast, fun, and satisfying ... More to it than first meets the eye
So we all want different things in a movie, right? Acting, directing, plot, message, fear, thrills, ... I won't say this movie has all of that. It certainly doesn't. I can see from the other ratings that many viewers were dissatisfied. They want every movie to be an all-time classic, maybe. The acting is not particularly notable in Outside the Wire, but it worked. Anthony Mackie (Captain Leo) does it right ... a believable android and superhero type. Almost a cliche, but with some refreshing twists. Damson Idris (Harp) seemed a little flat, but it was part of his character ... and I found his character likable. You can identify with this guy when he is stricken by the horrors of war. He turns out to be a great Everyman, struggling with impossible choices, trying to do the right thing, forcing himself to go on when he wants to flee. The resistance leader -- not sure of her name -- was great. Such a contrast from expectations!
The whole movie was full of surprises like that. I thought it was going to be a problem, all the PC angle and stuff, but they managed to hit the right tone. Even the setting lent itself to that. These are not the conventionalized faces of a civilian population struggling to live in a war zone. It is not Vietnam or the Middle East or a South American drug war, or Somalia. This is Europe. It brings to mind images of World War 2. It is like Kosovo on steroids. The bad guys are your stereotyped Russians, or Russian Ukrainians, kind of like what we might think of as Chechens or something. But they do make for excellent bad guys, with a few interesting twists. They are slightly more humanized than some movies I have seen. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I thought the portrayal of the US military would annoy me to the point where it brought down the whole movie. It was kind of annoying on some levels. Hollywood (and Netflix, I guess) love to show the military as a bunch of low brow grunts, and it bugs me because I know they are professionals. Leadership is outstanding. So the way they treat this drone pilot is utterly unbelievable ... totally fictionalized and cliched. But I got over that. Just accept it as part of the plot. And they redeem themselves by showing that the US is at least trying to do the right thing. Still, I had problems with the portrayal of drone strikes as these things causing massive civilian casualties. Which brings to mind the thing that I found most unbelievable in the movie: those missile explosions are absolutely ridiculous! What are they, Hellfires or something? A Hellfire can take out a car in traffic and leave adjacent cars almost drivable. Or are they something bigger? No matter, the explosions looked bigger than a 2000 pound bomb. Oh well, part of the thrill!
This movie will be enjoyed by people who like military tech movies. The Gumps are absolute fun! I might just go back and watch those many robot scenes again. I love the Boston Dynamics feel to it, the robot dogs mixing in with the soldiers and all that. Battles between robots with humans caught in the crossfire ... that's worth a rating point right there! And man, there are some horrific combat scenes, up close and personal! Maybe not totally realistic, and yes, our protagonist survives things against the odds ... repeatedly ... but still, these scenes are well done and thrilling. You may want to wear your combat goggles for this one, with all the flying concrete chips and stuff.
And, saving the best for last, Captain Leo. Captain Leo! Holy smokes! I forgot he was an android, and the scene where he revealed his true nature was definitely a shocker! I haven't seen a robot quite like him in a movie. They took it beyond Terminator. A robot that (maybe?) feels pain, emotion, and compassion. I never could figure whether delivering vaccines was important to him or just a cover, and how real his emotions were. He was definitely your archetype of a complicated character. In the end you can even believe he was tormented, despite his tough exterior. I guess that fits the superhero meme. But what a superhero! Harp knows he is getting close by the trail of bodies. The shootout when Captain Leo gets Viktor Koval is utter, over the top ridiculous pandemonium, and fun as hell. Later, when you see that he really is mortal, you can appreciate what he did there. Here are the real spoilers: was he really a Frankenstein monster trying to destroy his maker because he knew the dangers of his kind? See, that's pretty intense. They did it well. And allowing his destroyer (Harp) to survive, instead of killing him like he kills everyone else is the classic thing we have seen countless times, but I embrace this particular trope. I like to see how different movies do it. It reminds me of the Colonel in Apocalypse Now, setting up his own sacrifice. And what an end!
This movie is fast, fun, and satisfying. I didn't think I would rate it this highly until the end, and I didn't think I would watch it again until now, thinking back on it. I probably will.
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Hitchcock would be proud.
Wow! 10 Cloverfield Lane was the most intense psychodrama I have seen.
Stuck in a bomb shelter with a guy who is maybe psycho ... or maybe not. Definitely at least a bit eccentric, to put it nicely, but it takes a bit of a nut to build a shelter like that in the first place. Maybe it takes being a nutjob to survive. Or maybe you are in Bates Motel. You just can't tell.
The acting is top-notch. Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is a master of angst. Every sidelong glance, every hesitant start, every fibre of her screams get me out of this weird nightmare! We can easily understand why she is freaked out, but maybe her character is oversensitive that way. Like everything in this movie, you just can't tell what is real.
And Howard (John Goodman) ... Howard! Hahaha! They got the best guy for this part. I want to watch it again just to savour his performance. He out-psychoed Bates by a long mile. He is obviously dangerous and on a hair trigger, but he wants - demands - a frightening normalcy. You feel like he is on lithium but maybe needs to adjust the dose. He is like the Sea Wolf of Jack London. Interesting thought, I wonder how it would have worked to make Howard philosophical? But that just wouldn't be Howard. Absolute favourite scene? Howard dancing to celebrate success, oblivious to his two prisoners' extreme tension, just inches away from him on either side. Or was it the Little Women and Santa Claus scene? ... haha, what a nut! That game scene was brilliant. That was when we knew beyond a doubt that he was crazy. And then changing it up with dessert before dinner, at such a time! These are some of the things, and more, that nailed its ranking with Hitchcock's psychodramas.
Emmett (John Gallagher, Jr.) was extremely enigmatic at first. A down-homey guy. His cheerful normalcy was suspicious. Was he in cahoots with Howard? Was his story of coming to the shelter worth anything? We just didn't know. I think the contrast between him and Howard might be his biggest contribution to the movie. He didn't seem to grasp the magnitude of danger he was messing with, by constantly needling Howard. It didn't take too long to figure out he was going to get it, and the only question was when and how. But still it was a shocking surprise.
I wasn't crazy about the end, but think of it. If the whole thing was just a fake, wouldn't that be predictable? Aside from the mysterious woman at the door earlier. So, in the end, even in the last few minutes, this movie is full of surprises. Ha ... Howard was wrong! No, HE WAS RIGHT!!! The entire movie is like that. A mystery, a real psychodrama, and a rollercoaster from start to finish. Hitchcock would be proud!
The Shallows (2016)
Nature wants to eat you
I didn't expect to like this movie - just occupying time during Covid-19. But I really did. This goes beyond Jaws, with real art. It surprises me to see all the very bad reviews. Yes, you have to suspend some disbelief, like the pathological behaviour of the shark. A few improbable fortuitous things like the flare gun. I'm okay with that. Movies do that. But what hooked me, aside from Blake Lively's undeniable attractiveness - no spoiler there! - was the basic premise. Stuck on a rock tantalizingly close to shore, surrounded by death. Man against nature, and nature simply wants to eat you. Literally everything around her is dangerous: the shark, of course. The sun and cold. The jellyfish and coral. The rocks and the sea. To say nothing of her very serious injury. I guess the steady source of fresh blood explains the unrelenting attraction of the shark. In this hopeless setting, with hardly more than her bikini, Blake Lively fights back. And what a fight! Far-fetched at times, to be sure, but they made it believable.
There were some really notable moments. Great beach and great surfing. The GoPro. The weird luminescence of the jellyfish. Most shocking, of course, was the "sutures", a truly memorable scene! Not far behind that is the whale carcass. Picture the dismay of suddenly realizing you are in the water with that. You want nothing more than to be far from it, yet moments later you are clinging to it for dear life.
So it was a fun watch and a memorable movie. Raw, beautiful, shocking, and intense. I respect a director who can make something so watchable when so much of the movie is one character on a rock.
I definitely recommend The Shallows.
Iceman (1984)
How bad can it get? Pretty bad!
I signed up just to review this awful, very bad movie. So, Richard Scheib called it "knowingly well-informed on anthropology and biochemistry and never resorts to cheap cliche or hackneyed elements." Haha. It was the exact opposite. Especially cliched. And hackneyed. Every character was as utterly stereotyped as you can imagine, and not one character did one smart thing from start to finish. Even the nameless characters were predictably stupid, starting with the helicopter flying the payload 10 feet off the ground, and ending with ... well the helicopter again. And anthropology? Well the iceman looks and dresses like a Neanderthal, sort of, and acts like a mentally handicapped Cro-Magnon. They didn't manage one enlightened or enlightening moment with him. But this was 1984, so what was I expecting? I thought we would at least be treated to some cheesy scenes in a disco, but they didn't manage even that ... though it would have been a marked improvement over the cheesy "science" they did try to portray. And the acting was as pathetic as everything else. No development, no relationships, no interest, just sarcastic sniping and puffed up personalities. God, the 80s sucked, and this movie is everything we are glad we left behind. Typical scene here ... the anthropologist, introducing himself to the iceman for the first time. Does he hold up his empty hands? Offer food? Smile? Nope. He walks closer and closer and closer, robot-like, half-paralyzed with fear, and comes right into the guy's personal space, who predictably proceeds to attack him. A village idiot would act smarter than these people. Roger Ebert called it, "spellbinding storytelling". Pffft. I have never done a movie review before, I will never trust Ebert's reviews again, and it will be a long time before I want to watch another movie from this era. Oh, one slightly redeeming factor? They show an impressive array of outdated technology, styles, and manners ... definitely a period piece!