Reviews

Misandry. This word sums up the whole movie.

This movie starts off with a couple who seems to be in love. They buy a beautiful house and there they raise a family. "They buy..."? No. The guy buys the house. A family? Yes, the couple and two daughters (no boys, just girls).

Life goes on. Until the guy dies in a terrible accident. Or does he?

Every day the woman wakes up to a different reality: the guy is either dead or alive. "Groundhog day"-level spasmatic storytelling ensues.

The bottom line? If you're a stay-at-home mom, and if you suspect that your husband is unfaithful, then he should get his head chopped off (or worst) in a terrible accident, but only after you instill in him the fear of imminent death, so that he goes to his insurance broker and triples his life insurance.... so you can go on living large at his expense even after he's hit the dirt.

Forget all that mystic/religious/pretentious historical mumbo-jumbo (including a dialog with a priest and several weird encounters with a Psychiatrist - hilariously unconvincingly performed by Peter Stormare, a guy who can't help but look like a Russian Mob enforcer... the producers didn't even try changing his haircut). All of these details are there only to reinforce the pilar of misandry this whole movie is built upon.

You don't believe me? Well, let's see... there are only 2 male characters in this movie: the Husband and the Psychiatrist (the Priest doesn't count: he's a stand-in for a "higher power"). The Husband is the guy that should die because it crossed his mind to have an affair (even if he didn't actually did it), while the Psychiatrist is an antagonist that is either trying to convince the main character that she's crazy, or actually trying to dump her in the looney bin.

Now, let's look at the female characters: there's the Protagonist, her Mother, her BFF, her two daughters... even the would-be mistress is an ally: there is no bad-blood between them at any moment. All female characters are flawless. And the few (two) male characters are villains.

However, the movie is sufficiently well done that it suspends you in doubt until the last moment... when you finally have your suspicions proven: this is not just a movie against men: it is a movie that wishes men to die a horrible death.

In short: frustrating collection of pedestrian pseudo scifi shorts that will leave you feeling conned into watching.

Commendable effort for the most part, given that these are all obvious extremely low-budget.

But the end result is a very, very, very lacking patchwork of unintelligible crap.

The gimmick of having "The Boy" film cut into snippets used as interludes between the other shorts was a clever way to fool some viewers into thinking that this was actually a full-length feature, but it only ends up multiplying the frustration you feel at the end, because there is no relationship whatsoever between the different films.

The shorts themselves look like school projects. And not very good ones at that. There is no plot to be found here anywhere. And there is no purpose or pathos to any one of the shorts. This is not movie-making, it's just mimicking of worn-out scifi tropes.

Zero originality. Zero imagination. Did this have a script? You can't tell. Looks like an exercise in trying to rewrite and reenact a small piece of "Rambo: Last Blood".

Obviously low budget. Barely sufferable acting all-round. The lead's dead eyes are a monument to total lack of acting ability. The mother just had her first-born child kidnapped by a Mexican Cartel and is completely unfazed throughout the whole movie. Zero depth.

The usual shaky-camera to provide some fake tension.

As fake as the stellar reviews around here...

The only thing that makes this barely watchable is the fact that from mid-movie on there are always people shooting at each other in several different ways, although again in stupid ways: for instance, the sheriff trying to shoot bad guys with a shotgun from 50 yards, while the bad guys are shooting him with an assortment of military-grade automatic weapons.

There are also a ton of other stupid things, and goofs (like the extra van that you can only see in some shots in the car chase scene).

Bottom line: watch this if you are in the mood for a mind-numbing action sequence of people killing each other.

The most ridiculous super-hero ever. Full of clichés, but a fun watch with great pacing and a great ending.

For starters, this is apparently a super-hero for Mexicans (Hispanics, eventually? Sorry: I can't never get my head around American race wars). It's only natural that global conglomerates finally start to act locally (remember the "think global, act local" motto from the 1990's?...) However, everything in the story was either started or developed by Americans (Ted Kord - the good brother, and Susan Sarandon's character - the bad sister)... which means that although it LOOKS made for Mexicans, it kind'a has a "colonialist" after-taste.

Anyway, if I was a Mexican I would feel deeply insulted by the depiction of this caricature of a Mexican family, as it's wrong in so many ways (from the multiple instances of embarrassing public behavior of the whole family to the depiction of the grandma in the brink of an orgasm while shooting people with what looks like a Nintendo version of a Gatling gun).

Anyway, let's get into specifics.

First of all, the whole saga starts off with the all-too-common unwitting-and-unwilling hero who is at the wrong place at the wrong time. Fine... But there is a little twist in it: his fat sister with eyeglasses (a double cliché) is the stupid one who actually starts everything. She's the one responsible for effing up her brother's homecoming with bad news (when explicitly told by everyone else in the family NOT to do it), then goes on to get herself and her brother fired because she wanted to take a dump in the boss's toilet (?!), then she acts like a child and manages to unleash this alien drone that goes up her brother's behind and gets the whole story in motion... then later she's the one responsible for their dad's fatal heart attack! Somehow, nobody cares that this stupid chick just screws everything up.

On the other end of the racial+social spectrum, the rich girl is always saying "Sorry! Sorry!" even though she didn't do anything wrong and explicitly told the dude to not mess with the effing scarab in the first place... Is this the current zeitgeist? Are we, as viewers, supposed to think that it is OK to be a dimwit who ruins everything if you are a girl? A poor girl? A fat girl? A girl with glasses? All of the above? Are we supposed to think that anyone who is born into poverty should be excused of everything, from being fired to getting their dad an heart attack (or getting their brother sodomized by an alien drone)? Are we supposed to think that anyone who is born into wealth must be constantly apologizing even to the stupid idiots who screw up everything by ignoring every warning?

All this is deeply disturbing if you think about it. I rather not, but I'm still aware of it and I can't avoid mentioning it. But let's move on...

More clichés: 1. Nowadays we use tons of software applications that have several deployments per day without the need for a "reboot", but still... highly evolved alien technology beyond human comprehension always has to "reboot" at some plot point. And it has to take several minutes, so that the bad guys get a fighting chance.

2. "Good" is always blue, "bad" is always red. Hollywood is like paint by numbers.

3. The bad guy looks exactly like a Gundam robot or something out of Power Rangers. I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of copyright lawsuits are coming up their way.

4. The good guy is such a sucker that he always refuses to shoot to kill, even after seeing his family under live gunfire, and his dad dying. I guess this is supposed to be a "family movie", so lethal action is dialed down to a minimum. (although this gets an exception near the end of the movie, which is completely out of character and blatantly just for the sake of that specific plot point...) 5. The "sentient alien technology" has a sexy female voice.

Bottom line: this is a highly flawed movie, with some disturbing undertones you should be aware of, but it is actually very entertaining due to very good craftsmanship from everyone involved. Particularly, the production design, direction, editing and acting are very good, and the pacing is perfect. Plus, you get a (predictable but) gratifying ending.

Regardless of the above criticism, if you're into superhero movies then you surely got to see this one.

Depressingly childish, bland, unimaginative.

I wouldn't be surprised if some insider came out and revealed that the scripts were generated by ChatGPT.

Everything is so effing ridiculous, it makes me cringe the whole time. I just watch this crap because Rosario Dawson is so amazing she can even bring value to such a dead-end franchise as this one.

Everything is formulaic. For starters, everyone is a "general"... then there is always a map of something that is hidden somewhere; there is always someone who is the "only hope"; there is always a moment when the "padawan" has to confront his/her "master",... They even had the gall to come up with a friggin dream-world where she meets (M)anakin Skywalker for the sole purpose of achieving this.

Every single Star Wars series feels like a rerun.

Not a single shred of creativity.

Not a single groundbreaking achievement.

Not a single worthwhile contribution to human culture.

Writers are just going through the motions, making a living. They might as well be flipping hamburgers. I'm sure many have... and some will soon.

Highly recommended masterpiece. Perfect acting, direction, camera work, editing, soundtrack... Just enough character depth is revealed to turn out believable characters and to move the plot forward.

The script is really good and the director makes a great job of unfolding it on screen, although this is certainly easier when writer and director are the same person.

Camera work and editing support direction perfectly, and although this is a slow-paced movie, you can feel the tension mounting and you are never bored. The soundtrack is a major in that.

This is an intense drama-mistery-thriller that challenges your mind and expectations.

Even the ending leaves you wondering, although this isn't one of those open-ended movies. Some directors get to the end of a movie and just don't know how to wrap things up: that is NOT the case here. What you are shown here is a man's spiritual and emotional world unravelling around him and the ending is the culmination of this unravelling.

Yes, this would a nice school project. But in the real world, this is yet another low budget crap-fi movie.

The guys who came up with the story must think very highly of themselves, and very poorly of their audience.

If you are endowed with a half-functioning brain and if you don't get distracted by random "sciency" and "techy" jargon, and if you have a modicum of knowledge about basic philosophical concepts, then you will see it as it is: a massive load of crap. The whole theory it sits upon is full of holes and gigantic contradictions. Nothing makes sense.

I wish people who try to make "Sci-fi" would actually get some basic "Sci" knowledge before making a fool of themselves by putting out in the world such ridiculous garbage. "Oh... but... it's fiction!" Yes, but NOT science fiction. Call it FANTASY, 'cause that's what it is. You might as well have Mary Poppins show up at the end and fix everything.

Cinematographically, it sucks in all fronts: from the non-existing lighting to the poor camera work, poor framing, below average editing, pedestrian music score that sounds like something they just downloaded from soundcloud, and above all: the idiotic plot and the ending... seriously? It is impossible to beat this outrageously incongruent "Deus-ex-machina" ending, in which you get a character explaining everything with childish platitudes that I'm sure the authors think are very intelligent insights. Jeezzzuzzz... It's also boring and probably 30 minutes too long. I found myself nodding off a couple of times in the middle.

The acting was surprisingly above average for this kind of crap, but... I wonder what they needed 4 assistant directors for?

This movie is a treasure trove of meticulous detailed gold nuggets. Of course, you'll have to be willing to jump through the hoops: the "3rd wall breaking" is admittedly used as just another prop, so frequently and blatantly shoved in your face... But always with a purpose and just not so much as to make you fed up with the gimmick.

I will grant that the actors going in and out of character and crossing three different levels of fiction might be more than most people are willing to bear. But this movie packs a whole lot in 100 minutes. I'm sure that is also one of the reasons for the narrator+3rd-wall-breaking format, because text can still pack a lot in less time than cinematic narration. There is in fact one scene where two actors (out of the main script) actually admit to that, as they comment on a scene that they had rehearsed for this play but that was eventually removed just to cut running time.

And there is so much talent in this cast, it otherworldly. An absolute must for any movie fan.

In 2023, what the hell would you expect from a steroid-pumped muscle-bound would-be actor of the 1980's?

Don't get me wrong: I am a huge fan of Arnie's old movies, but this is flogging the proverbial dead horse. Everybody knows Arnie can't act to save his own skin! And nowadays, I bet he can barely lift anything heavier than a cigar. But the reasons to cast him on such a show are commensurate with his star status and with his background. The problem is, Monica Barbaro is completely out of her league. Specially considering that ALL of the supporting cast members are way better actors than her.

Let me be extremely clear: there is more acting talent in the tip of Milan Carter's pinky than on Monica's whole body. Even Aparna Brielle plays the "cute nerd" NSA character better than Barbaro does her job (ok, Barbaro has to do more "heavy lifting", but it's clear she's not up to it!)

And what about Fortune Feimster? She's fu**ing amazing! She completely steals the show on some episodes. I recommend watching this show just to see this amazing character!

And last but not least, there is no need here to sing the praise of Gabriel Luna (the bad guy), who is a notoriously great actor, who goes above and beyond in this action/comedy shtick. His acting is "Breaking Bad" level, while everyone else is clearly boxed-in on a comedy.

Sometimes the chasm between Monica Barbaro's ineptitude and the professionalism and the sheer charisma of all the supporting cast is too big to bear. I do wish she gets a reality-check and gets some acting lessons, or otherwise quits acting altogether.

Still on the downside, the plot is so childishly farfetched and the scripts so ridiculously preposterous, you just have to give up all hope of something mildly resembling reality.

Paradoxically, that is what saves this show from being total garbage. It's so dumb, it's pure fun!

Bottom line: this show is the gourmet's equivalent to a palate cleanser; watch it, then move on to something tastier or more nutricious...

First of all, let me clarify that I'm giving this a 10/10 score to compensate for dumbass low scores. I never do that. This is an exception. (ok, maybe I did that once before, anyway... that's that).

Second, let me add that Kill Bill has much more depth and layers to it than meets the eye. You won't find that here.

This movie is obviously inspired in others like Rambo (the original), Kill Bill, The Equalizer, Safe, John Wick, etc., because it depicts an unrelenting character who just refuses to have others dictate his ending. He just refuses to die, and even when the odds are completely against him, the "universe" (i.e., the scriptwriter) conspires to let him go back in the ring and give it another go.

You do have to be quite liberal about suspending your disbelief (as you have done for the above mentioned titles, anyway...) but surely not more than you would while watching something like John Wick (at least not the latest installment, which is little more than an hour-long gunfight). And the backdrop for "Sisu" is etched in History: it's not based on some phantasy world where there is a parallel secret society of assassins spread all over the world, killing each other for prize money.

I also appreciated the subtle touch put on the "chapter" titles. See if you can spot it.

Completely pointless exercise.

This movie has nothing to offer.

There is no tension, no mystery, no character arc, no plot turn, no redemption, no cliff-hanger... nothing at all. Only a handful of age-old, lame, b-rated movie tropes (complete with a cute blonde teenage girl and her younger def (!) sister... it seems like nowadays you can't get any movie actually to production if you don't feature a cute/hot girl + a disabled person in it).

The plot is stupid and paper-thin, the script is full of holes, the characters are shallow, the dialogues are boring as well as the scenes, the acting is barely sufferable, the direction is very poor and only manages a narrow escape from total crappiness through the breathtaking Norwegian scenery.

Special effects and makeup gets a "nice try" rating, but nothing more. Not even 3rd place in the podium: it barely gets away from the "laughable" zone.

This is one of those movies that makes you wonder why would anyone take the time and money to make such a piece of crap. I'm sure production quotas and incentives are a couple of reasons why this was produced. It's very sad.

It's always a pleasure to see Dolph Lundgren and Scott Adkins work.

But the director and producers seem to have banked this gig solely on the star-status of these two guys (and on the shooting-star-status of the venerable Mickey Rourke) and just couldn't give a s**t about the most basic physical and social reality of the world around them (the opening scene, an ambush in a village in Afghanistan, says it all... nobody in their right minds would act like supposed "spec ops" soldiers act, not even a child would act in such a reckless way)... anyway, if you give that a pass, and if you fast-forward through the boring scenes (a good final cut could safely cut off at least 30 minutes), well... then you're left with a decent (although 110% predictable) action movie.

I would advise the director to find another job, because this is for sure not his calling. Either that, or he should not leave the editing room before the final cut.

And I would advise "producers" to not meddle in the nitty-gritty of movie making if their only forte is supplying cold hard cash.

Great story, great acting, amazing cinematography and production design, for a wonderful and unique script that pulls on the heartstrings of everyone who has known love, strife and loss, and who is able to notice a great piece of art when they see it.

This is an amazing tale, one that might be criticised for being too far-fetched, but nevertheless is very close to the real lives of many people. Granted: this is not for everyone. Not everyone will appreciate the trials and tribulations of this captain, or the tribulations and restlessness of the young, wild, curious and intelligent wife... but I assure you all that this is what art is made of: past experience combined with grief and imagination, congealed in a (art) piece with the aid of top craftsmanship from all the participants in the production of this move.

An amazing cast, delivering an amazing performance, enhanced by top-notch work from all other parties involved. This is now one of my favorite movies of all time.

Special credit has to be handed to Lèa Seydoux, who is absolutely brilliant in her flawless performance.

She is not only a ravishing beauty: she has always proved to be an amazing actress, even in the most barren roles in the most mind-numbing action movies (e.g., 007) and in this one she shows the ability to delivery a performance that is finely-grained with all the nuance of this very complex character.

Many slots above spy/action movies like the Bourne series, this is a movie about a lot of things: family, loss, loss of family ties, misplaced grievances, racial tension turned into full-out war, right-wing terrorist actions, religion-based terrorist actions (and how religion can provide shelter to terrorists), heroes, anti-heroes, good cops, bad cops... AND none the least: the failure of late 20th century urbanist thought: what post-WWII architects dreamed to be a good solution was actually a breeding ground for desperation, resentment and crime syndicates, the best of which was enshrined in Marseilles's Le Corbusier's "Cité Radieuse" (which nowadays will probably be one of the go-to destinations of designers and select 20th century wannabe-thinkers). A feverish daydream that would never come true (or would it? In a nigthmare that would soon be over).

These "Brutalist" housing projects only stressed the borderline between the haves and the havenots, thus sundering apart many cities. This was most visible in the 1950's to '70s in some European countries with a strong colonialist past (like the UK, France, and Portugal). I would say that France is a special case, because to this very day they still hold a strong bond (love/hate, maybe?) with their former north-african colonies, and a yet more special one with Algeria (a country that France has been feasting upon for the past 3 centuries),

This is what happens when you are a talented director, but a lazy, incompetent, self-absorbed, pretentious pseudo-intellectual: a beautiful movie with awesome cinematography but an absolutely dreadful plot (or lack thereof) and an ending that cries out loud "you figure it out, because I don't have a clue".

This is a movie that doesn't know what it wants to be (is this fantasy? Horror? Disgust-porn? Social commentary? WTF?!!). Anyway, what matters is that when all is said and done, this is an absolutely pointless, aimless piece of crap. If you like fantastic creepy movies you are better off watching what this guy here is trying to mimic: anything from Cronenberg, Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth", etc.

Another negative aspect of this movie is that some crucial dialog is unintelligible. Good luck trying to understand what the Vicar is saying.

This is by far the worst Batman movie ever.

Let's see the pros:

• Great actors
• Great cinematography
• Great production design

Let's see the cons:

• Great actors, terrible cast. Only Zoey Kravitz is a perfect fit. Everyone else is just wrong. Patterson does a good job of portraying a tortured soul, but looks like a middle-aged Robin character rather than The Batman.

• Cinematography is great, but you can barely see anything. The decision to make the movie 90% black 90% of the time means you can't see s**t.

• Production design renders a too bleak and dreary atmosphere. You feel this is a terrible city that isn't worth to live in, much lass "save" from crime and corruption. There is no shred of hope or sunlight in here.

• Running length: 3 whole hours??? WTF? Is this a miniseries? I mean, only the last 50 minutes are interesting, and by that time you don't even remember what happened in the first 2 hours.

• Boring. You don't care about the characters. You already know the story, the riddles are immediately solved by Batman.

• Blatant depiction of current problems and events in the USA.

• It tried to be on par with "The Joker" and failed miserably on all fronts.

I give it 3 stars. They're all for Zoey Kravitz.

This is sooooo good.

Everything about this show is exceptionally good.

It's even a pleasure to watch the main titles, and listen to Mick Jagger's haunting interpretation of the title song "Strange Game".

Gary Oldman is at his peak in this part. He's perfect. And the rest of the cast delivers top-notch performances all-round. Even the bunch of idiot right-wing extremists are exceptionally good.

And the script... it's the meat and bones of all this. Properly structured, and well furnished in every way.

This is surely the most entertaining series I have ever seen in 50 years... after Monty Python's Flying Circus.

The plot boils down to a word: reincarnation. The script is just ballast to hold that word down.

There was more thought put into this review than into this childish waste of time of a movie, which not even the fairly capable cast could save.

Absolutely fo-kk-in hilarious!

From beginning to end, and even after that, 'cause it still gives you a treat in the credits.

Great job, and one of the best comedies I've sunken my teeth into this year, if not the best one.

This is a very close second to "Shaun of the Dead" in terms of quality, and definitely a keeper.

If you were a kid in the 1980's, fleeing off to play video games in the local arcades, or going to your friend's to play Pong in their exquisite TV game box, this will surely cheer you up, even if you are watching it in 2022, as I am now. (though I guarantee you I won't watch it a 2nd time).

Everything is corny, predictable and still amusing. The main guy is a lump of coal of a guy who looks more like a trucker than a space pirate. Who really stands out from the cast (besides the kid) is the girl in the gang of pirates. Now that was a looker. Unfortunately, not very talented or perhaps not eager enough to have developed much of a career. Ah, well... Just enjoy it, and let bygones be bygones.

A good, though somewhat clichéd, premise, but an uninspired script which is completely predictable at every turn.

A good lead (I mean the guy, not Alexia Fast, who's fast by name but boring as hell), but mediocre supporting cast.

A barely competent direction and barely visible editing turn out a very boring result.

I wouldn't advise anyone to watch this.

I really wanted to give this a shot... but couldn't make it.

After a way too long introductory scene in which a bunch of idiots and a bunch of innocent civilians get killed for no apparent reason, you flash forward 18 months (why?) to the main and extremely boring story, enacted by people picked off the street, apparently, because these are no professional actors for sure. This kind of movie gets produced because the producers get enough money to put 2 or 3 notorious faces on the billboard. And those notorious faces can't even cut it anymore.

Complete waste of time.

What a terrible waste of time.

Guys: just please don't do a movie based off the 1st thing that goes through your mind, which in fact has been done a million times over better than you can possible do.

Props to kid in the main role, who does a great job.

Everything else is utter crap, specially the TERRIBLY DISAPPOINTING AND UTTERLY, UNBELIEVABLY CHILDISH ENDING. Made me cringe and rue the day I decided to watch this crap.

It warrants watching just because it is the silliest, weirdest, worst movie ever.

I have a nagging suspicion that this was one of the prime inspiration sources for the series "Lost". YES! It's THAT weird and silly.

Nothing makes sense, unless you suspend all disbelief and allow yourself that anything is possible. Even doing a movie with no budget in the middle of nowhere with just 4 cast members and some 1970's microcomputer graphics done by kid in some Californian garage.

Barely watchable Z-grade action movie, with terrible acting, terrible editing, terrible direction, terrible everything. From the bad costumes to the bad botox on every actress.

Silly plot, terrible script, very long run time.

Everything about this is bad with the notable exception of the "Sargent Blain" character.

Anyway, do yourself a favour and skip this. Unless you wanna see yet another episode in the saga "How Bruce Willis Became the New Steven Seagal", 'cause that's what this is becoming, after so many crappy movies this guy puts his face and name on...