Reviews

If you're going to watch this movie, remember that it's a small indie flick. Because it looks like it.

As an indie flick, you can expect the usual small-budget issues of bad music, mediocre script and inconsistent acting. Dialogue is occasionally cringeworthy and while the lead actor is definitely nice to look at, as someone once said, he has the acting range from A to B. Plot and character development also sometimes leave a lot to be desired.

On the plus side, however, the film's message and heart are in the right place. I can think of a few million holier-than-thou "Christians" who should be strapped into a chair and forced to watch this movie all the way through. If it makes at least one of them get off their soapbox about gay people, then mission accomplished.

OK, so let's start off by admitting that Justin Hartley could stand there and read takeout menus, and I'd give a film four stars. This one has all the cliche rom-com elements, which means you have a pretty good idea where things are going to go almost immediately.

On the plus side, the "unconventional twist" at the end isn't as big of a deal as other reviewers seem to complain about. What IS a much bigger problem, however, is the music: a non-stop bed of banal elevator muzak playing in the background becomes a royal pain after about the first 30 minutes. Some gaping holes in logic in the plot don't help, either.

Secondary characters fill cliche roles just like you'd expect (i.e., kindly old hotel clerk, sassy waitress, etc.), yet what should be key scenes get short shrift and leave you wondering "wait, that's it?" And much as I love dogs, Justin's trusty sidekick dog here is way overused as a cutesy prop.

If you want an evening of predictable, mindless entertainment, with a heaping dose of Justin Hartley Eye Candy, than this movie fits the bill. Just be prepared to overlook the plot holes and try to ignore the annoying soundtrack.

OK, so I've probably seen waaaay too many "queer teen being themselves" movies, many of which were better done than this one. There are lots of inexplicable plot holes, stereotypical characters and unrealistic developments here. And much as I love Bette Midler, seemed kinda strange for her to be playing the mother of a teenager at age 73.

But the "message" is the right one, and if this movie makes just ONE 16-yr-old kid feel better about themselves and give them hope for the future, then mission accomplished. There are too many suicidal LGBTQ+ youth out there who could benefit from seeing more uplifting films like this one.

If you're having a bad day, this gem is just the thing to make you feel better! Atrocious dialogue, horrible acting and innocent teenage romance - it's got it all.

I thought nothing could top "Queen of Outer Space" for cheesiness, but I was wrong. And happily so. The story is kind of familiar, in that an alien race is plotting to take over the Earth but one of their landing party decides to not go along with the plan. Shenanigans ensue. Bonus for old car lovers, there's tons of footage of beautiful 50s chrome on display.

So relax, lower your expectations and sit back & enjoy.

But be warned, you'll never look at a lobster the same way again. :-)

I was hoping for a lot more from this. For starters, being old enough to remember this era, "Test" captures absolutely none of the feel of that time. If you want a genuine reflection of what things were really like, watch any of the gay films that were actually made then: "Longtime Companion", "An Early Frost" or others. Throwing in a couple of Bronski Beat songs and having your characters talk about their new Sony Walkmans is a pretty pitiful way to have to make people believe it's set in 1985.

Slow pacing, weak writing and mediocre acting don't help. This film had no emotional depth at all, which is sad considering the seriousness of the subject matter. In sum, this movie sadly adds nothing to the genre and you're probably better off watching something else.

What a ghastly waste of time.

I was hoping for a reasonably-entertaining "buddy flick", but for starters, the chemistry between Mark Wahlberg and Tom Holland is sadly lacking. What's supposed to be "buddy banter" bickering between them is just forced and obvious.

Add to that an absolutely ludicrous storyline, plot holes large enough to drive a truck through and action sequences that are simply insane. I didn't expect them to necessarily follow the laws of physics, but c'mon....some developments are beyond ridiculous. Does Antonio Banderas get a paycheck for phoning in a standard "evil villain who delivers nothing but cliches" performance these days?

The weak attempt to redeem themselves by having Tom Holland take his shirt off to work out for no reason whatsoever was a little bit of a plus, but not nearly enough.

Stay away.

Wow, what a waste of talent. As someone who has loved Mel Brooks for decades (and quoted "Blazing Saddles" on practically a weekly basis for just as long), this was a crushing disappointment.

Clumsy, forced jokes that would embarrass your average middle-schooler combined with just flat-out unfunny writing make a cringeworthy, discombobulated mess. This is also the first time I've ever seen Wanda Sykes NOT be funny. And the D-Day scene at the beginning of episode 2 was just a foul, disgusting mess. Somebody obviously thought that just having people fire stupid lines at each other quickly would somehow be funny - it's not.

Madeline Kahn is spinning in her grave.

Good lord, what a waste. I saw the cast list and had high hopes: Judy Greer, Justin Long, Ryan Phillippe, etc. It must be pretty good, right?

How in the world did they manage to take so many talented actors and make such an absolute trainwreck of a movie? Bad direction, terrible dialogue and painfully bad pacing make for an excruciating 96 minutes. When you've got repeated flatulence jokes that fall flat, you know you're watching a disaster unfold. The main character, Hannah, is one of the most unlikeable, unappealing characters I've seen on screen in decades.

I have to wonder if the cast simply made this film because they owed somebody a favor, or maybe had two weeks to kill and thought "why not, it'll be an easy paycheck?" Even the music was terrible.

I can only hope that Judy Greer told her agent, "OK, I'll do this movie....as long as you don't make me watch the finished product."

What a waste.

I guess I'm just another 60-yr-old gay man, who enjoyed SATC, who hoped for something better 20 years later.

It sad that after watching all 8 episodes, the characters still never had any more depth than a Will & Grace episode. This checks off all the tired gay stereotypes you might have hoped had disappeared by, say, 2009. Sassy black friend? Check. Twink-chasing, vapid, middle-aged muscle queen? Check. Bitchy, overweight best friend? Check. And all three of them are continually chased by gorgeous guys half their age? LOL Darren Star must have the misfortune of actually knowing people like this, because I've seen very few of them in the past 30 years.

You see talent like NPH, Tuc Wadkins and Marcia Gay Harden (fresh off "The Morning Show", where she was fabulous!), and you think you're going to see better. Which it should have been. What you get is another tired, cliche-ridden fantasy, which is best watched after lowering your expectations to zero.

Again, what a waste.

I have to admit that I read the other reviews before actively choosing to finish watching this train wreck of a movie, just to prove that I could make it.

If you do likewise, challenge yourself to see how many shots or bong hits it takes to make this movie approach anything tolerable.

Script, plot development, music and acting are all equally embarrassing. And, as another reviewer described, the manner in which the director mis-represents the dates of the onset of the AIDS crisis really is a slap in the face to the gay community. And a final note to the director: if you're going to make a cameo, try not to embarrass yourself as well.

So I guess I missed a sweet story about saving elephants, because the clumsy, cliche-ridden and appallingly-written first 8 minutes made me turn it off. This looked like it was going to be "Under the Tuscan Sun" minus the script, acting and writing. Not even the trailer promising some Rob Lowe skin was enough.

But yes, we SHOULD do everything to save the elephants, so they get points for that. :-)

John Waters did it again! This film classic should be required viewing for no other reason than to watch Divine chew the scenery like no one else (God I miss her).

I remember when this first came out and now seriously regret not having done a couple of bong hits and seen it then. Take Waters' usual cast of zanies (Mink Stole, Edith Massey, etc.) add in the usual outrageous "acting", ghastly script and ludicrous plot developments and you've got an absolute classic. Tab Hunter was clearly having a blast, to boot.

No matter how bad you're feeling, an evening with Francine Fishpaw and her minions is just what the doctor ordered.

There's so much wrong with this movie it's hard to know where to begin.

If you want to learn about Stonewall, there are plenty of documentaries out there that tell the story much more accurately than this does: this flick plays into the tired old cliches about how the riot started, but manages to whitewash the characters and distort events horribly. You'd be better off watching "The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson" for starters.

If you just want a well-acted, well-written period drama, there are countless other films with better acting, better character development and less cliched writing than this one. What's particularly offensive is the reliance once again on stereotypical caricatures of fat, ugly old lecherous queens, preying upon the purebred white-boy central character. Other characters (Ray being the prime example) are completely undeveloped and could have made things more interesting. And lastly, you'd be offended if you watch this after seeing the 1995 "Stonewall" to see how much Roland Emmerich simply rips off from THAT film.

Joey King as the little sister provides some momentary relief...but like a lot of missed opportunities, there's not nearly enough of her, either.

As an old-car lover, the frequent presence of 1966 Plymouths and other gorgeous 60s cars was one of the few things that saved this from being a complete disaster.

This film is like seeing someone dig up some astonishing dinosaur bones and reveling in experiencing something both old and new.

But it's equally tragic that the event itself, the Harlem Culture Festival, was so completely forgotten by society in the 50 years since it happened.

The music is outstanding, and I enjoyed (and learned a lot from) the commentary from the musicians and festival attendees who were there. It really is sad that, like the 1921 Tulsa massacre, this event has been utterly forgotten and is only now coming to light. As someone who was a kid in 1969, I wish I'd known about this event decades ago - and watching it was like time travelling back to a different age and remembering what life used to be like.

So watch it not just for the wonderful range of music and artists presented, but to learn something about how Black people felt that amazing summer of 1969.

It's appalling that they had four stars of this magnitude and managed to make a movie this terrible. How on Earth any of them got convinced to do it, if they'd taken 10 minutes to read the script, boggles the imagination.

What's really tragic is that someone could have made a GREAT, truly hilarious movie with these women. They clearly enjoyed working together, and the banter between them could have been genuinely funny with better writing, because they all knew how to deliver a line.

Terrible writing, idiotic plot development and clumsy pacing make for a train wreck of a movie, which I can only imagine at least one of these women must've been embarrassed about.

What a waste.

Within the first two minutes, we've got all the makings for a pile of crap: cheesy writing, and cliche plot devices aplenty:

Child falling running away from disaster? Check.

Estranged couple as the central characters? Check.

Gratuitous use of a character's disability? Check.

Continued viewing is going to require a lot of alcohol. Maybe things will get better?

So within the first 10 minutes, I was having flashbacks to "Sideways".

Was half expecting a Volvo to crash into a tree sometime later on...

You will either consider this a 1 or a 10, hence my 5:

The "witty banter", spot-on Michael Caine impressions and beautiful scenery are all positives; if you enjoy these then this movie's a 10.

On the other hand, all that happens is that these two guys blather nonstop and virtually nothing else happens, except for when Steve Coogan miraculously manages to hook up with not one, but two, hot female hotel hostesses (seriously? Please.) For those of you not amused by this, then this movie's a 1.

For the same reason that "Airplame II" would have been considered funny, except for the pesky fact that the original "Airplane" came first, this flick didn't do much for me since Sideways had done it all already.

So this flick has decent visual effects, and Gerard Butler can be entertaining just by reading takeout menus.

But seriously, there is absolutely nothing new here. "Deep Impact" "Armageddon", or "Meteor" in 1979 told the comet/asteroid story better. And the "estranged couple reuniting in a crisis" has been done to death...all the way back to Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb in "Titanic" (1953) or Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner in "Earthquake" (1975). See also "War of the Worlds", or "San Andreas" or "2012" for the same tired old plot device. And of course they throw in the "kid with medical condition" cliche for good measure.

So while it's mildly entertaining, it was also frustrating to sit through what was more like a montage of every end-of-the-world asteroid/comet movie done before. Bleecchhh.

...he might have made a movie like this.

I seriously wish I had done a couple bong hits or shots before watching this. Some of the dialogue might have been more tolerable, or the incomprehensible changes in character motivation might have made sense. It's a pretty twisted tale to start with, but slow pacing and plodding developments don't help. When a movie is only 1 hr 40 minutes, but feels like 3 and a half hours, it's a warning that things are not right.

I know it's supposed to be "edgy" and "shocking", but when it's also so dull that the delicious male nudity barely wakes you up you realize you're strapped in for a rough ride.

It's hard to believe that gay movies this bad are still getting made, more than a decade after Brokeback Mountain. When you can tell within the first five minutes how flat the acting is, it's bad. When the music over the opening credits is so noticeably low-budget that you fear you've just made a terrible mistake, it's bad. When even the prodigious amount of male nudity is barely enough to hold your attention, it's bad.

I tried to forgive the acting because the script is so awful - Armie Hammer and Timothy Chalamet couldn't have made this dialogue work. Add in story lines that are utterly predictable and/or have been explored far better in literally dozens of other gay-themed movies, and you've got a gigantic mess. The only line that actually made me laugh was when one of the characters quoted "Mommie Dearest" - "I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at the dirt". Well I'm mad that I wasted an hour and a half of my life watching this.

Gotta love it when you take a chance on an unknown "quirky little independent film" and it turns out to be a well-written, well-acted piece of work. The story plays out well mainly because the writing is good and the interaction between the two main characters is enjoyable to watch unfold. You think you know where things are going to go...which they don't necessarily do in the way you might expect. It's also fun to watch because of the interesting little details that you might miss if you're not paying attention to (e.g., breakfast habits that someone was apparently lying about!) It's cool to hear the older travel writer's story unfold, and it's certainly enjoyable to watch the younger character simply because he's adorable. Fortunately, he can act, too, and has his own worthwhile story. Finally, the character of the mother adds an entertaining element towards the end. The ending may or may not be what you're expecting going in....I'll just leave it at that. In sum, I was glad that this was yet another "overlooked" little film that turned out to be more worth my time than most Hollywood schlock getting cranked out these days. Give it a look!

Wow, what a terrific movie! I originally just wanted to see it because of the "hot Asian men in love" theme, but it delivered so much more than that. Palace intrigue equal to anything Shakespeare ever wrote, for starters. The relationship between the leads, the king and his bodyguard, is intense to watch but the story spins out beyond that in multiple directions. Aside from the story, the film is just beautiful in terms of gorgeous sets, vibrant colors and fabulous costuming. I wanted to pause about a dozen times just to get decorating tips, since I love Chinese furnishings! Add in beautiful actors (and let's face it, one with a particularly nice butt), and the visuals alone are compelling. Without giving away anything, suffice to say that the palace intrigues keep exploding until the probably-inevitable conclusion. Truly an interesting ride from beginning to end. And yet another refreshing break from the mountains of Hollywood drivel. I'd sooner watch this again than another "car chases and explosions" piece of garbage anytime.

Wow, the things that impressed you at 21, but now just look awful.

No wonder this was a smash: to teenage girls this had it all - catchy music, simple, appealing plot, and the clothes. If I had seen this when it first came out I would no doubt have given it a 10.

Now, however....the flaws are enormous. Plot holes, gaps in logic, flat acting, one-dimensional characters, etc. If you're over 30, the only reason to see it is if you're taking your 12-year-old niece who's dying to see it.

The message about "pursuing your dreams" is admirable but execution left a lot to be desired. Maybe I would have been better off seeing it when it first came out; that way I'd remember it fondly.

I just watched this, so am still processing thoughts here...but this was an interesting if messy, disturbing ride.

The main character is dealing with the suicide of his friend (lover?), and stumbles through being a teenager like most teenagers do. The lead often treats his friends and family like dirt, drinks too much, does lots of drugs and acts like a self-centered, confused jackass. In other words...he's an honest portrayal of many teenagers.

To an adult mind, lots of things don't make sense. But that's the point: lots (most) things that teenagers do often don't make sense. It's the rare 16-year-old that has the emotional maturity and deft communication skills to clearly explain what they're thinking or going through. Most teenagers are "a mass of conflicting impulses" as someone once said.

The writing and acting may strike you as messy and rough. But it may also strike you as raw and honest. In the end, it's trying to tell you to make the effort to talk to kids who look like they're struggling...before it's too late.