Reviews

I have no problem with being realistic but this movie was too realistic to the point that it didn't feel like a superhero movie. The heroes and the villains felt weak. The choreography was unimpressive except for the first fight in the train station.

All the characters had no charisma except for Falcone. Pattinson as Batman was ok, but he was way off as Bruce Wayne. He felt like he belonged in Riverdale. Catwoman who is known for her charisma had none, I dare say Halle Berry was better. Gordon felt like he was sleepwalking. The Riddler's Tiktok videos felt goofy instead of intimidating.

The mystery didn't lead anywhere because Falcone wasn't really a rat, it was more of a turf war move. The breadcrumbs and the problem-solving wasn't really interesting, I've read children's books with better mystery.

The dialogue was forgettable. The runtime was too long, the whispering was fine in the first 20 minutes but felt repetitive in 3 hours. Blade Runner pulled off the artsy fartsy long scenes because the movie was good, but when a boring movie does it the viewer loses its patience.

This movie is 100 times better than Force Awakens. I'm kinda glad JJ Abrams isn't directing Episode 8. This one is actually trying to be a real movie, the other one is trying to be a blockbuster, a montage of cool scenes. The story hooks you and you can't let go. The characters felt real and you connect with them at an emotional level. The dialogue is sharp and fits the rest of the movie.

The war scenes felt like Saving Private Ryan. I love that they had the balls to kill off everyone. If I had one criticism, it's that Act 1 took too long to connect the strings together. It felt little disjointed at the start. But once they did, they took you to one hell of a ride. This is the real Star Wars movie for me.

I don't know how any movie buff would not see the twists coming from a mile away. One can see when a twist is done in a tasteful and careful manner, and when the film makers are desperately trying to fit square pegs into round holes. Credit must be given to Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, and David Bowie for their superb acting. However Christian Bale(who I normally like) and Scarlett Johansson were terrible. A few of my specific gripes: 1. The ending is given away in the first minute. Christian Bale is accused of killing Hugh Jackman. EVERY MOVIE that starts with this presentation ends up with the supposedly accused being innocent.

2. The cat was duplicated. Surely by this alone anyone can deduce that Jackman was also duplicated. Hence the pointless "solving the puzzle" scenes.

3. Mystery/suspense turned into Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories science fiction halfway through the movie.

4. Jackman conveniently tears up the Transported Man secret(which was a driving plot) so he can be shot by Bale's twin brother.

5. Jackman conveniently finds an exact look-alike in a bar.

6. Bale's wife amazingly knows which days he loves her and which he doesn't, in a dire attempt to connect the twin brother twist.

7. I was terribly disappointed with Perabo's death scene and subsequent funeral. These were two important moments in the film and should have been emphasized and given more attention. "What knot did you tie?". "I don't know". "You don't know?".

8. A supposedly "dead" Jackman trots in public without any concern of being recognized to have a contrived face to face dramatic effect with his nemesis.

9. Just get a gun and shoot each other in the back. The movie would be over in 10 minutes and there would be no need for tantalizing sabotages.

To conclude, this movie was made with the intention of "let's get in as many twists and turns possible" rather than "let's tell a good story with a twist".

I feel this film is massively overrated. The overly long gun fights couldn't distract me from the shallow revenge plot. We find out very early on that the agent's list(already used in Mission Impossible) was just a distraction to the main plan which is to take revenge on M. This tiny little story is wrapped up in a sushi of gun fights, chase scenes, explosions, trains, helicopters, etc. And that's the ENTIRE film.

A few specific qualms: 1. Completely incompetent bad guy. This film will dazzle us with all his cyber terrorism skills and techy stuff but it all comes down to the fact that he had THREE chances to kill either M or James Bond and he failed due to the old "take your time before killing someone".

2. Bond arranges a face to face meeting with the bad guy. That's your plan Mr. Bond? A man of your experience and you go with let's get handcuffed and bring a tracking device? Which by the way none of the goons checked his pockets?

3. Villain's elaborate but pointless plan. So you get captured intentionally to hack MI6, what exactly did that do for you? You could have went to the hearing without doing that. By the way, didn't you already hack MI6 at the beginning of the film?

4. Magic bread crumb trails. What exactly is it and why can only the villain see it and not MI6?

This is just another hack and slash film. This is not an exploration of the origins of man. Basically, when they meet "The Engineer", the one that they have been searching for all this time, he just smashed them to bits.

It's also hard to believe that this crew just hopped on a ship and travel that distance without knowing exactly what they're supposed to be doing or where they're going.

How can Shaw still believe in Jesus Christ (along with God the Father and the Holy Spirit because they are supposed to be treated as one) after it has just been proved that he is not the creator and therefore not God? I know one of the themes is belief vs. knowledge but this was not done very well. How would we treat someone today who still believes that the world is flat after it has been proved incorrect by solid facts? I thought Charlize Theron would have a significant impact on the plot but it turns out she is just the typical heir apparent who cannot wait to take over.

When the cast doesn't have personality, character build up, or background story it's hard to care when they get obliterated.

There is so much more in human history than warfare. There is the arts and sciences, inventions, and discoveries. They seem to take their time and fully detail all the war scenes but only make a passing reference to the Renaissance, Enlightenment, the rise of civilizations in Mesopotamia and India, the invention of the alphabet, mathematics, astronomy, telegraph, light bulb, the discovery of electricity. They seem to only mention subjects like the Iron Age and the Industrial Revolution if it relates back to their war scenes.

Their resource persons seem to tell us things that we already know like it's hard to sail 1000 miles or stealing land will cause war. With the budget that History Channel has you would think that they could hire someone who can offer a different point of view or a deeper explanation.

If you want to know more about history other than warfare there are plenty of not only free but better documentaries on Youtube.