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Reviews
Plane (2023)
A Steven Seagal production?
An FBI agent escorting a murderer who's an ex military, traveling on a plane. In the middle of the Pacific the plane is about to crash due severe weather and mechanical problems. In the worst part of the about-to-crash situation the FBI agent has his cellphone in a hand (Why?). Due the to bumps, the phone drops to the plane floor.
A normal personal would hold, wait and keep safe, ignoring the phone, knowing you're not only responsible for your life but for others since you're ESCORTING A MURDERER.
But in this movie, the FBI agents removes his seatbelt and goes, against everyone's advice, looking for his phone. A phone that won't do any good since YOU'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PACIFIC anyhow.
What happens next is that the FBI agent is killed after a serious plane's bump. Also a steward is killed trying to sit the FBI agent down.
The perfect scene for an audience that spends more time looking at their phones than real life around them. Without a question, that audience will find this scene very relatable.
This scene defines the entire movie: All situations in this movie follow that same logic with the adding of drug cartels, a drunk hero pilot who badly needs to shave, annoying passengers who complaint because nobody rescues them in 30 minutes, a low cost airplane company hiring expensive mercenaries, and a long and sad etc.
Movie could've been good, but they took it so many steps down so the young (and low IQ) audiences could follow the plot.
Steven Seagal's movies are more realistic than this. Imagine that.
The War Tapes (2006)
Brought to you by the US Army
You have to be American to understand, "enjoy" and even go as far as call this "documentary" a "masterpiece".
The film starts with a voiceover stating "I want to kill" in the lips of one of the "documentary's" protagonist. A speech that demonstrates the level of psychopathy soldiers manage and why they're also probably recruited. They are so eager to kill they don't even care who they're going to kill.
Despite it has been proved many times that Iraq -nor anyone near Iraq- had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, the soldiers justify themselves in the film by going there to get some revenge and so does a documentary who's missing any explanation or clarification whatsoever of the political, military and social context all the killings in the film happen.
If your country gets invaded, of course you're going to grab a rifle and defend yourself. Basically, the film takes record of the invading side illegally killing the invaded side in a context where no formal war declaration ever took place in a gross invasion of a foreign sovereign country.
Film offers very little value in terms of information, it's extremely biased, full of symbols and propaganda. It's also full of cheesy moments with the soldier's family and how good American life is, painting the "enemy" as crude animals who have no feelings, nor family themselves and live in a dump. As always with US war films about 9/11, only one side of the story is ever told and reality is molded to suit the needs.
You could easily say this is a documentary about war crimes and how nobody in the world (except the Iraqis) cared.
Films gets 2 stars because someone took the job of editing all this propaganda together.
Im Westen nichts Neues (2022)
The Meat Mincer
European cinema has come A LONG way in these few years, and they have a story to tell. Anecdotes and books are the same, the way they're told it's what makes the difference. American cinema needs a hero, this movie all it needs it's an audience.
I can't feel there is some Tarantino influence in it, the photography, the well placed, tragic comedy scores. The meat mincer World War I was. Silly pride, useless military tactics, and the industrial world at the service of the death business. 20 million people died in World War I. 20 million more were injured.
"Im Westen nichts Neues" is brilliantly filmed, with an amazing photography, acting performances, costumes, props, guns, sounds of a war that was supposed to end all wars... but it didn't.
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
Dark Fate indeed... for the whole franchise
Saw Terminator 1 when I was about 12yo and now I'm seeing Terminator: Dark Fate being 39 yo. Saw every Terminator movie in between and let me tell you something: this food is way overcooked.
Sci-Fi's got always a grasp of some reality, somehow or another. Science fiction's concept aims into the realms of the *possible*, not matter how unlikely it could be from today's tech standards. Otherwise it's a fantasy film. Well, this is NOT a sci-fi movie, this is a fantasy/comic-sort film, much like Avengers and all the movies you see today who are shot in a room with a green wall. T:DF wasn't shot in a room with a green wall, but hey, they should've done it that way.
The public this movie is aimed to wouldn't have noticed or cared. Story line is not aimed at people with an enthusiastic and critic approach, there are no subjects that could be discussed with fellow sci-fi movie goers, least to say, a true Terminator fan. This movie was made for the opportunistic and casual viewer, for the "dumb masses".
The technology subject in the film goes beyond the limtis of physics and anything and everything that's possible to believe. There are things that happen that just couldn't, not now, not in a 100 years, least to say in about 22 into the future (SPOILER ALERT: this movie's Terminator comes from the year 2042).
I'm not a purist expecting to see a movie as good as T1 or T2, I do understand director's and time's change, but this movie explains why Netflix beat Hollywood: the movie is simply boring. Full -and I mean FULL- of cliches, racists remarks, bad acting in general (Linda and Arnold were absolutely TERRIBLE). You just don't buy it. Visual effects are good, but that's something we've seen before too many times already.
I don't want to get into the story not to ruin your experience as a viewer so you can judge yourself; just expect several minutes of anything but a Terminator or even a sci-fi movie.
In my own case, I couldn't finish watching the movie. I push STOP right about the middle and came here to write this down. That's the bottom line of my review.
Sand Castle (2017)
Impartial, unpretentious, great direction
I wasn't really thrilled to watch ANOTHER "Operation Freedom" movie and I admit user reviews did a good job by pointing the fact this is NOT another "Operation Freedom" movie.
Story follows a young US Airborne troop, enlisted by the need to pay college, wanting an easy way out of the daily madness recently invaded Iraq in 2003 has become: the war from the point of view of the white generation outside the American Dream.
Very well directed under what shows like a fairly low budget, yet, with the final style Netflix movies achieve, having a great final product with a solid story. In fact, I felt I wanted to see more.
Forget "Generation Kill", just watch this movie and make your own opinion about it.
Operation Dunkirk (2017)
Save the Planet
Instead of making this movie, people behind the proyect should've donated the money to Greenpeace. It's more fun to see a boat crash into an illegal whaler than the devil creation producers came up with here.
Don't waste your time with this movie. It's not a movie. It's a trap to make you lose something you won't ever get back: living time.
The Thing (2011)
Who should NOT watch this movie
People who are unable to pay attention for more than 50 seconds and those who think themselves they are the replicated version of Steven Spielberg pretending to be Acadamy Award winners for writing top notch scripts and directing multimillion dollars successful movies. If you are one of those, go ahead, and be like Homer Simpson screaming: "Marge, change the channel".
The rest are up for an VERY well done prequel to Carpenter's classic The Thing, from 1982. Expect a surprising connection to the original movie.
Well done dialogs, very good acting and surprisingly good CG effects assures you 103 minutes of straightforward entertainment in a dynamically paced movie.
Not much else to say without getting into spoilers besides that the director didn't rely on heavy CG, unnecessary killings or abundant cursing to get the show on the road. A must for all the true blooded sci-fi fans out there looking for a good time.
Lost (2004)
The only thing lost, are themselves.
Today I finished watching the last episode of the first season. To my surprise, the ending was pretty unexpected but, somehow, anticipated.
I've started to watch Lost since Episode I, and I was held captive by those beautiful scenery, some very well played characters and a plot which was, despite not new, rather interesting to see: a group of people, trying to survive in a suposely deserted tropical island, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing more than the rests of a crashed plane and... themselves.
The series title is not because they've got lost on a deserted island, but because each character has a past on their shoulders that, somehow, made them lost the way in life. The time they spent on the island, is a continuous battle to find themselves, and try to understand how the fit in this big, bizarre puzzle.
Great locations, beautiful photography and some very well acted performances compose a rather interesting series. Absolutely recommended, even if you are not a big science fiction or drama fan like myself.