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Timothy_Reed
Reviews
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
Ideological catastrophe with a completely wrong message
Watching the film it did not take long to darken my mood because of the morally completely wrong messages this film's plot is sending out into the real world of 2023, that is also threatened by global conflict and war.
I can only guess why Scott decided to turn the first movie's "Dances with wolves" approach upside down, namely to ideologically prepare a mainly US target audience for a new global conflict with Russia or China.
The movie's setting is still eye candy, of course, but what nearly made me throw up in disgust are these points:
- Sully has become a patriarchal military commander who communicates with his "family" squad like a drill instructor promoting and demanding values of strength and honour, obedience and use of force, expecting to be addressed with a "Yes, sir!" by his Na'vi kids
- the tribal life of the peaceful Na'vi has been militarised, no scene without human gear of war or a display of military power or technology, admittingly they had weapons before, but only for hunting purposes; maybe Sully expected the humans to return and he wanted his tribe to be prepared but that fails and he chooses exile
- Neytiri has been subdued to an obedient wife and agrees to leave her beloved ancient forest home despite the fact that the human invaders would most probably destroy their base regardless Sully's and his insurgent family's presence, by doing so completely ignoring her motivation in part 1 (protecting the world tree) and just obeying her husband's order to retreat into exile...
Maybe my attitude is not shared by everyone but what can be wrong to promote values like living in harmony and nature, equality and tolerance, peace and prosperity? Matrix 4 does it and that is maybe the reason why it failed at the box office and was disliked by those who blindly follow the war propaganda.
Strike Back (2010)
Ridiculously outdated show if masculinity and violence
This refers to series one: Foreseeable, full of chauvinism, black and white characters, constant show of force and violence as justified means of battling the bad guys, tough guys in Ray Ban shades shagging willing women a couple of hours after a surgery due to a bullet to the groin or hooking up during abduction... crude gunfight and melee scenes with invincible heroes who do not flinch when hit, the usual villains ... an endless list of points to criticise.
Here and there some decent action scenes that cannot save the overall bad impression.
The US series SIX is a little less difficult to bear and more believable if you look for a spec ops alternative.
Andor (2022)
Star Wars for Adults at its best
You get everything you need... a totally reliable and believable plot, reliable character motivation, really really believable real acting (in Star War... yeah... honestly... maybe because a lot of people from Chernoby are on the cast), action, drama, emotion, I cannot believe my eyes! Why didn't these people make Kenobi? It would've been so so much better.
The atmosphere is so gripping... the Empire is portrayed as a Nazi-uesque fascist and totalist state with everything it needs to be the evil Galactic Empire... police violence, executions, torture, detention facilities... the beginnings of the glorious rebellion are forced to use methods that are not unsimilar to the Empire's because it is a dirty, violent and ruthless war. Nearly perfect.
Im Westen nichts Neues (2022)
Forced and wasted effort
Pace, sceopt, tone, sound, acting, dialogue, all seem forced and awkwardly random to me and thus the effort to create a new variant of the story feels wasted to me... a few nice ideas here and there, some gruesome enough trench warfare battle scenes including flame throwers but all in all nothing worthwhile really. Why skip the indoctrination with Himmelstoß? Timeline confuses... drafting and exhilaration in 1917? Bonding of the characters? Just eat it, no time to build it. Random episodes of whatever? Yeah, plenty.
Reaffirming the legend that tanks turned the tide? Sure thing it is in.
6 points for the general message that war sucks and WWI was an industrial butchery.
Den 12. mann (2017)
Against all odds survival film
Worth a view, appears to be a commando sabotage action flick when looking it up but turns out to be a survival film of a single soldiers trying to escape the German occupants and the Norwegian winter.
La Révolution (2020)
A reminiscence to Brotherhood of the Wolf
Obviously inspired by style and atmosphere of the old classic French action-mystery-fantasy Crossover this series is enjoyable if you like the gore and grime of this filthy era.
Bronx (2020)
It is a 5/10 plus one for the ending
French version of "Sabotage" or "Criminal Squad", all in all average but some memorable scenes and an ending with the righteous message...
Mosul (2019)
Hollywood learn from this
Very authentic, believable and tough anti-war film that cannot only compete with American Sniper or The Hurt Locker but may even beat them at realism.
Artemis Fowl (2020)
Let's be fair! We saw it coming really...
Well, we shouldn't be surprised, should we?
About what Disney did to this great book series.
For lovers of Colfer's genius original every second is a mounting disappointment... setting, story alterations, changes in characters and cast that roll up your toe nails and make you switch off the, grab your mobile and vomit a frustrated review and a hate mail at all the culprits that are responsible... the soulless entertainment empire of Disney, former Shakespeare expert Brannagh, formerly respected actor Collin Farrel (already not too brilliant in "Beasts") and not to forget book author Colfer himself, who agreed to selling his soul to the previously named - and unsurprisingly all did it for the money.
But if you manage to ignore all this ... well, there remains a mildly-entertaining eye candy with nice scenery and nice CGI but a still unnervingly illogical plot. As always, it also lies in the eye of the beholder how to see such a film.
The Pacific: Basilone (2010)
Something's missing!
I don't know but despite the splendid scenery and setting, the props and the gripping general war atmosphere "The Pacific" lacks the particular notion that made "Saving Private Ryan" and many episodes of "Band of Brothers" so uniquely terrific, realistic and moving. If you read the summary of this episode on HBO or even listen to Tom Hank's intro at the beginning of this episode it sounds so exciting and thrilling and still I can't feel the same when watching it. Is it the acting? Is it the script? Is it the directing? I mean they say it took four months of fighting and suffering and hardships but we only see the Marines nicking supplies from the army. Remember the episodes about the Battle of the Ardennes in BoB - that impressed me and showed the hardships the troops had to endure. And did the Japanese fighting on Guadacanal really resemble the war tactics of bad video games? Sending wave after wave into deadly machine gun fire in the vain hope of ridding the Marines of their ammo? What is depicted in the series so far is no fierce and cruel close-combat but clay-pigeon shooting. The only obvious danger for the Marines was the naval bombardment. I hope the episodes to come increase in quality because otherwise it must say the series becomes a disappointment more and more.
Mutant Chronicles (2008)
Rather poor adaption from an excellent artwork source
When I first heard about the plans to transform the only trading card game I've ever played (enthusiasticly) in my life (which is about 10 years ago) into a film I was thrilled and excited, of course! When I checked it up in IMDb and learned it wouldn't even make it into the cinemas of Europe I took it as a bad omen - my hope was restored though when I read some user IMDb user comments from overseas who saw the film before it was released here. My expectations blew in an instant when I saw the logo of "Mutant Chronicles" which was totally unknown to me and what was following was at first a huge visual disappointment and what they made out of the background story is not less discouraging. Honestly, I am no fanatic fantasy freak, never was, and I only knew the "Mutant Chronicles" universe from the little booklet that came with this Trading Card Starter Pack, which I still own, and, of course, from all the cards I collected (quite a lot of pocket money was spent on them). The artwork on these cards is marvellous and really inspiring and had the designers of the film adapted only a tiny fraction of it, it would've turned out a visually very impressive film, I think. Basically most of the aspects I'm gonna critisise might be excused by a lack of budget but I think some are due to a lack of commitment and devotion by the film's designers and this I find annoying. The film is true to the names of the corporations and the WWI look of the "Imperial" corporation but that's it. The original artwork blends well known and even historic weapon and uniform designs with strong Sci-Fi elements, especially body armour and weapons - sounds weird and disparate but believe me, it works. The weapons in the film look like, well, props and the uniforms seem to be borrowed directly from "Atonement" - authentic but no way from the 23rd century. The seemingly steam-based technology shown in the film goes into a "Dune" and "Harkonnen" direction while the original presents ultra-modern Sci-Fi stuff with laser technology and all - with the "Cybertronic" corporation (YES, close to "Terminator"'s CYBERDINE) they omitted an entire corporation which relies on advanced nano- and cyber-technology probably because it just wouldn't fit into the new "style" chosen for this film. The mutants basically look like any zombies we know from films like "Resident Evil" or "28 weeks later", quick, strong and fierce and beastlike with long blades instead of arms, probably inspired by the executioner of "300". But they are all the same, all wearing uniform (which is explained by the plot but still odd) and coming in waves like in a 1st person shooter video game (probably the same stuntmen all the time) and dying as quick (with partly poorly animated blood effects). The drafts from the original cards show multiple kinds of mutants, from "Alien"-like insects to bizarre abominations of any form and size. The dialogies are alright, as I said, the actors are at least trying hard not to show that they're in a B or even C-movie and the storyline tries to cover a lot of different genres, probably to boost it at the box office - but it is the same with technical devices - if you want a navigation system buy a proper navigation system and do not use you mobile phone - it is just not made for it. The apporach of squeezing the story of an Epic battle waging over hundreds of planets in the universe into a 90mins film must fail from the start and it does fail. The outcome is a film in some passages only little better than the infamous "Sci-fi channel movies" productions like "Grendel", "Reign of the Gargoyles" or "S.S. Doomtrooper" ("Doomtrooper" by the way is the name of the Mutant Chronicles Trading Game, but that's just coincidence) whose DVD-release-only fate "Mutant Chronicles" (well deservingly) shares.