Change Your Image
quartzz1
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Expend4bles (2023)
standard shootemup....nothing special
Standard shootemup....nothing special
although I enjoyed the film shoot em up more than this tbh
Expendables 2 is my favourite film of the franchise. It had a bigger cast than expendables 4, and lent more dialogue from each of the actors individual backgrounds (for example, arnold saying I'm back). Exp 2 was a turkey shoot with style
what this film has is a lot of jason statham going on a rampage. If you want a lot of non-memorable guns and knives in standard situations, this has lots of it. In fact if the film had been one of stathams titles and not under the expendables title, it may have made more sense
one major aspect of this film was feeling cheated. Sylvester stallones character dies within the first half hour or so. Except he doesn't and is re inserted at the end of the film. The majority of the film is about statham and the group getting revenge for his death, so the whole film is sort of nulled. Maybe he wanted a break from filming.
If you wanted to be pedantic, I suppose you could say that in the film, the characters all thought he was dead. Nah...doesn't really work. The characters don't express any regret apart from the raise a glass scene, they are too busy tooling up with ammo. There is a lot of tooling up with ammo. Motorbikes all start without keys. He wouldn't have made that jump. There is very little wind on the decks of ships on the open seas
Something that someone said reminded me. At the beginning you have megan fox as the bimbo, somehow she makes it into the team as one of the kick-assers. I thought the purpose of the bimbo scene was to portray her as something jason statham was "getting away" from. And also as someone has said, the "essence" of the expendables was as 80/90's stars getting to do their thing again. M fox is there, because she's there
towards the end there is a lot of metal-on-metal blade hitting each other, nothing that hasn't already been done, really. Watch "blade" if you just want to see some fight scenes
The big bomb does go off underwater, because a huge container ship sinks much, much quicker than it should
very mindless gun and knife action with no unique or memorable scenes. Yeah I would say 5.2 is about a genuine rating.
Surf Nazis Must Die (1987)
its what you think it is
(fair) enough
if you get paid to watch the matrix preview, you have to sit through films like this
what it has:
some passable surfing, racism from both sides, practically soft porn scenes and some pretend blood n guts. I wouldn't have known I was watching the same film, each scene is completely different and very little continuity from scene to scene. The end credits are slightly easier to watch. It does have some genuine 80s audio synths
there's a bit here you'll say "they made a plaster cast of her head". Being a Brit, I also noticed it would have been unusual for her to have the only gun there.
I'm not sure if this comes under shlockbuster, but this is at least 20 years before passable budget computer graphics came out. You'll get to see some of the junkyard parts of the location other er films dont show you. I'm sure the dude from clockwork orange makes an appearance
I was almost obliged to watch the credits to think "bless, well done". 3/10.
Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017)
so I was watching this on TV
In the background
but the thing that made me start paying attention to it rather than just a background screen. was...
I sincerely hope we as Brits have become less repressed than the (I'm sure) well portrayed characters in the film.
some of the time I was (internally, of course, terribly vulgar otherwise) screaming at the characters to JUST BL**DY HUG EACH OTHER
were we that repressed? have we become less repressed? is this the movie that the phrase "stuff upper lip" was based on?
marvellous, jolly good, and so on.
The Night Listener (2006)
so I won't try and....
Psycho analyse this...
but I guess the film has more meaning given Robbie Williams suicide/death? and his phrase "the thing worse than being alone, is being around people who make you feel alone"
R Williams certainly had some depth, tortured genius might be the phrase? maybe he was looking for company in the wrong places - looking to people that had too many issues of their own to give him company
his character is "Gabriel noone" (final parting shot of the end credits, as in...no-one)
The Dish (2000)
this is a film that made me think they were...
Running out of ideas for films
which turned out not to be true, which is good..
Star Trek Beyond (2016)
one of the few times I write something
Without preparing it in notepad
I'm 80/20 star wars/star trek.
original series, I paid a "little" attention to -carriage return-
TNG. I paid a little bit more attention to.
I quite liked into darkness. beyond?... just seems to be a special effect-fest
JJ. dude. films aren't boxed sets designed to have adverts every 15 minutes. they can flow. TV networks never take any notice of "advert breaks" anyway.
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
lots of "moments", mainly for the sake of having moments.
Edit - there's actually a good article, "JJ Abrams is bad at making movies". worth a read.
I'm a star wars fan. a big star wars fan. not the biggest in the world ever, but hey.
4 5 and 6, the films. I was 2 in '77, so didn't get "the original cinema experience", but anyway.
1 2 and 3, under rated in my opinion. yes they did everything on a computer, yes the dialogue was (slightly) forced. no, Artoo (probably) doesn't have rockets in his legs, but under rated films.
Now the force awakens has been on the TV a few times, so I've seen it properly, and I've seen it on TV with adverts littered. I've read some of the top reviews, which said it was a reboot of A New Hope, and...I don't disagree.
it's a tricky one. A star wars film could barely live up to the hype of the news of a star wars film. my mum didn't think a lot of it, she thought it was just star wars, remade (she's ok with the "star wars" franchise).
"A New Hope", "The Force Awakens"
the titles sort of mean the same thing.
so we have.....
a secret message given to a droid, to get away from an attack, a bad guy in a black cloak wearing a black mask with a voice synthesizer, a desert planet, a cantina, a person quickly saying "I wish it was another death star", so the viewer doesn't dwell too much on the previous statement which says "so it's another death star". Some of this might be based on the expanded universe. I have to admit, I've not delved into the books much. I tried a couple of them, and they really didn't do much for me. The action translates better for film for me, than into books. Some slightly cheesy lines, "I can fly anything", "while there's light, there's still hope". Also....Rey has almost no training, but apparently can take on Vaders grandson in a light sabre fight. I'm sure all of these things have been said many times.
The ending was cool enough, just discovering Luke. it's a beginning, rather than an end. Also in the title scroll, it mentions "The Last Jedi" - fair enough, that's a precursor to Episode 8.
One niggle I have, is that apparently everyones name has 3 letters. Rey, Poe, (Fin), Ren, Hux. BB8. Apparently we all have 3 letters. Ok, Snoke is the exception. Skywalker, Vader, Chewbacca, Threepio, Tarkin, Palpatine...mmmm....better. Biggs? well, maybe.
Special effects, can't fault them. Since about the year 2000, computer graphics could do anything. Since about 2010, computer graphics could do anything, and also didn't look like computer graphics. So with Pacific Rim (enjoyed), Transformers 2 (enjoyed), Independence Day Resurgence (bit nuts) and so on, "epic scale" CG is as about as big as it gets, hopefully it will be more about design and memorability, than just "scale", and putting in scenarios for the point of being able to make a special effect (Maul's lightsabre I can definitely go with, Kylo's?...as someone said, it would chop off your fingers).
Occasionally you want special effects that don't cost much - eg, "force extracting" information from someones mind.
4 5 and 6 (deliberately) had the "used universe" feel. in 4 5 and 6 everything did work, so seeing wrecks lying around in TFA takes the the used universe one step further. this is an added touch though, and shouldn't be seen as the premise of the film.
Episode 1 2 and 3 were all about preparing a story, they definitely weren't designed to be stand alone films. People have said about Rey possibly turning to the Dark side, about Ren's progression from 'petulent' to 'developed character'. Episode 9, the last Episode.....really?
I do truth be told find it a bit odd that both franchises (Star Wars/Star Trek) now have the same director. It's a bit like one person saying "Tories, Labour (or Republicans, Democrats), I'm in charge of both of you now". I mean strictly speaking, I understand why George Lucas wanted to wash his hands. He'd been doing SW since 1977, Episodes 1 2 and 3 were a last hurrah for him, and he'd basically "had enough" of it by now. but....there are other directors....yes? maybe not Michael Bay, he'd just blow everything up for the sake of it, and we know that doesn't always work.
Primal Fear (1996)
(not sure why it's called primal fear)
I saw this film a few days ago. Was quite impressed. I've thought about it some more since then, and it's occurred to me that it's clever on some other levels.
Richard Gere is the big name, but Edward Norton is the star of the show.
Now when I initially saw it, it occurred to me that Edwards character had pulled the wool over everyones eyes, and got away with murder.
But the reason he committed the murder, was abuse by the catholic church. Now...is that a "justifiable" reason for murder, and rather than justice being dodged (going to jail for murder), has (mob) justice actually been carried out...?
Merantau (2009)
martial arts with some depth
Pretty good body count, and a decent amount of time left between camera changes in most instances
couple of very small fight continuity errors if you're really looking (REALLY nitpicking in the scope of the film)
baddies do seem to often come one at a time, with some reasonable tricks to allow this to happen
main baddie is caucasian, if not British/American. The hero is..Indonesian? (apologies if wrong) and if slightly invincible.
Bangkok Dangerous (2008)
Pretty standard low key hitman film
Pretty standard low key hitman film, with a 'twist' at the end...?
They've made the 'helpless female' even more helpless by making her 'mute'.
Ticker (2001)
Promising cast, but...
Like others have said, promising cast, but the movie just doesn't really do anything.
Steven Seagal for me is best doing some martial arts, or at least fighting. He barely does that here, and just moseys around occasionally 'diffusing' bombs.