Reviews

I was hyped for this film. Finally we were going to get a darker gorier "proper" Hellboy. Not to say the Guillermo Del Toro movies weren't good. They still look great and their characters were written with love and warmth. Their scripts coherent and good. Hellboy (2019) is almost the complete opposite of that.

David Harbour does a pretty good job as Hellboy (Although maybe coming off too often as a bit whiny). That was evident from even the first trailer that crammed in 90% of the movies jokes and one liners. The other trailers give you most of the money shots, so there is almost only filler to see in the film. The movie begins in a decent way. Hellboy trying to locate one of his organisations agents. A fight ensues and soon we are taken to UK to fight giants in a well shot and actually quite entertaining battle scene. Later we meet creepy witch Baba Yaga in an atmospheric and actually quite creepy scene. Those are the highlights of the film really. The final battle gets apocalyptic only to fall flat and end in very cliche and anti-climatic way.

The CGI is horrible reminding me of Van Helsing from almost 20 years ago. Though some models and scenes look much better than others, giving a feel that the movie was rushed out. The movie being also very CGI heavy like Van Helsing doesn't help. Also the script seems to jump from place to place and sometimes even from one tone to a different one quickly. The few scenes meant to be emotional then also falling flat especially when flavored with the bad CGI. In the end we get one more extra action scene that is shot very well like the giants battle scene making you think why we didn't see more of this during the actual movie.

Lobster Johnson character was cool but he's more like a short cameo and we could have probably seen him more in the sequel we won't get. The movie also sadly builds towards the sequel with the appearance of another great cameo in the end.

There's lots and lots of gore which was actually nice and f-bombs being dropped. Sad that the script is such a mess and clearly needed some rewrites. Also the producers apparently clashed with Neil Marshall, changes being made all the time during the production. So this is what we get. The worst Neil Marshall film. It's clearly no The Descent or Dog Soldiers and it's a much bigger mess than even Doomsday.

This all is sad as there clearly was potential in this and especially in Harbours performance but the movie was rushed and producers apparently again wanted to be directors. So too many cooks make one disappointing Hellboy film.

After several delays the sequel to Iron Sky is finally here. Many Finnish critics crushed the movie but they didn't care too much about the first movie either. I personally loved the conspiracy theory fueled sci-fi fantasy story, with great effects for the budget, great soundtrack and many chuckles if not anything too laugh out loud funny. Also that's the point. Iron Sky movies aren't full on comedies. They are more action fantasy with comedic set pieces thrown in. For example Hitler riding on a dinosaur is meant to be crazy and epic and only slightly funny.

The Coming Race offers about as many chuckle worthy moments as the first film and maybe one laugh out loud moment for Finnish viewers. That's also one thing. Lot of the humor in both movies is very nerdy and many critics and casual viewers probably miss many nods to internet culture. The creators of these movies are "nerds" and make these for similar minded people who remember for example old Apple commercials from the 80's and internet memes about Nokia cellphones.

The story flows quite fast and pretty smoothly for those 90 minutes. Most sets look small but the CGI is quite great especially for the budget. Obi is a great new main character and the actress Lara Rossi does great. Additional characters Donald (Tom Green) and Malcolm (Kit Dale), slow but kind hearted muscle man are also good and funny additions. Sasha is not bad but preffered the other characters. The soundtrack by Finnish composer Tuomas Kantelinen is fine but made better with support from Laibach and Sunrise Avenue. Not as great as the first movies epic score but close enough. The first film had few cringe worthy silly slapstick style jokes and the sequel fortunately doesn't have anything like that but that's probably the only thing it does better than its prequel.

The first film had quite epic final scenes and even a bit emotional conclusion. The Coming Race sadly offers more typical by the numbers finale and ending. Some emotion and funny bits but the first film did also this overall better.

I had fun watching the film and it can be considered a good but not great sequel. I recommend all people who liked the first film go see it. If you didn't then why bother with this either. It's more of the same. Personally I now look forward to what we find next from Mars.

I might have actually enjoyed this sequel more than the first Avengers film. Somehow it doesn't feel as polished though with Visions sudden appearance at the end being one of the pacing problems. Apparently almost 30 minutes ended up on the cutting room floor to avoid the movie being too long. That sadly slightly shows. Also there's a limit to Whedon style witty banter and I think the limit was reached here. It's fitting for Iron Man but now every character is doing it constantly making the movie almost feel like half comedy. Pacing of the movie also suffers when the movie is forced to set up the next films, Captain America: Civil War and Avengers 3.

The action is spectacular as always, Iron Man vs Hulk being one of the highlights with the final battle. The charismatic actors work well together and there's actually some proper character development. Whedon knows how to give every character enough screen time and scenes. Age of Ultron is a great sequel that lives up to the demands of the audience and the first film, although there are almost too many characters now. The sequels will have really hard time balancing so many characters when there's even more to come.

I thought the first G.I. Joe movie was watchable, as cheesy and childish it was. Clearly Stephen Sommers is not a very competent director and because of that there was lots of room for improvement. Here we fortunately get Dwayne Johnson and Bruce Willis instead of Marlon Wayans.

Retaliation feels more serious and grounded. We get a good PG-13 action movie and this time the comedy elements actually work. What I felt the first movie got quite right was Cobra. Here things are improved with Cobra Commander looking like he should. Ray Stevenson is great as a bad ass criminal/terrorist Firefly. Jonathan Pryce also throws a delicious performance as the over the top evil doppelganger president. This kind of movie needs good bad guys.

The action is good but not great. Most memorable being the mountain side ninja fight like all the critics point out. Also worth mentioning is the "gunkata" style fight with Dwayne Johnson and Ray Stevenson in the end. The movie keeps you entertained with quite constant action, one liners and some visual treats like the destruction of London scene. Not deep or a perfect movie but much more plausible and acceptable popcorn entertainment than the first film. The 3D was also pretty good for a converted movie.

Although Jon M. Chung has previously directed only some forgettable dance movies, here he manages to fix as much that is possible without rebooting the franchise. Of course what I would really like to see is deep character development, R-rated story and action but we will never get to see that with something like G.I. Joe. At the end of the movie when Bruce Willis gives Lady Jaye her medal, I cried a tear of pride, an American bald headed eagle landed on my shoulder, he squawked the national anthem of United States of America and Cobra was once again defeated.

*Minor spoilers ahead*

The movie builds it's atmosphere quite nicely with great camera work and direction. The actors do a good job, especially the little girls act great.

Sadly the script is very flawed. I think the movie would have seriously benefited from less is more approach until the very end. It's also possible the movie could have been better if the script had you guessing is Mama real or not.

Unfortunately the movie falls flat with some unintentionally funny moments, bad CGI and a cliché ending. It's sad because this film had so much potential and about until the middle of the film the premise worked well and it had some very spooky scenes.

It's my opinion that Ultraviolet is a very under rated movie. I love the visual look of the movie with the color changing suits. Usually futures in sci-fi movies are dark. This one is not. Also bio-hazard sign shaped gun flames! That is awesome. The acting is decent. I have seen much worse and people don't whine. Especially Nick Chinlund is great and menacing as Daxus. One of my favorite bad guys now. Definitely better than Equilibriums Dupont.

The fight scenes are good and better than in many movies. They are however not Equilibrium quality. Violet uses gun-kata which is not explained in the movie so I believe people have trouble grasping it. It's not 100% realistic? It's not meant to be! This is a fantasy movie. It's meant to look cool. Also who cares are the gadgets realistic? This is a fantasy movie in the future. The only problem I have with the action scenes is that the soldiers seem to die when Violet breaks their arm or something.

There isn't much of a plot and sometimes the story can seem a bit strange but with the additional scenes of the unrated edition it feels a bit less hollow. Also the characters of Violet and Six feel more complete and the transition between one particular scene doesn't feel so awkward anymore after the slight additional character development. People don't get why Six doesn't die. It's actually the only part of the movie where you have to think for yourself.

So yeah, I like Ultraviolet and the reasons are 1. great visual look of the movie 2. good action scenes 3. great bad guy and even some great dialogue and funny parts. I can't understand how some people can prefer the lame Aeon Flux over Ultraviolet. Ultraviolet is fancy looking sci-fi action masturbation but that's all it wishes to be. It doesn't want to be the Godfather or Citizen Kane.

Has the remote redneck village where everything seems sweet and pleasant on top but underneath bad things are happening. The acting and direction is very good mostly although the movie has Fred Durst in it and when he has to play a character turmoiled by his emotions he cant really pull it off 100% convincingly. The story builds up really nicely and is very nicely character driven. The plot is also very good until the end when the main character escapes the crazy village and is suddenly killed by GOD.. GOD! WTF!!! Can you possibly have a worse ending to a great movie. Was the message of the movie that God is on the side of crazy red necks. It doesn't make sense.. The whole movie is like a great house of cards that just collapses in the end. My advice is that when the final scene comes just skip to the alternative ending. With that the movie is one billion times better. I'd like to know what the director was thinking..

I have been looking forward to this movie. After all it sounded half decent and had Bruce Campbell in it. I didn't like Lucky McGees previous movie May that much. Fortunately the director improves with his second movie The Woods. The basic plot is that a girl is taken to a secluded private girl school deep in the forests where she soon starts to suspect something weird is going on in the school. The actors are good, the plot is good, dialogue quite sweet and Bruce Campbell gets to wield an axe. It's good to see him in another good movie besides the Evil Dead trilogy and Bubba Ho-Tep.. and I don't know what obsession Lucky McGee has with lesbians and bloody mayhem endings but it's fine with me.