Change Your Image
VeggieWindu
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Europa Report (2013)
The Spirit of Science
Well, well, well...
Europa Report is supposed to be a realistic portrayal of a scientific mission to Jupiter II.
As a scientist I loved this movie. It encapsulated the spirit of scientists. A sense of wonder and awe for nature, nothing too over the top. But, as a scientist, I also felt like the mission was badly designed.
- Why send a MANNED mission there without doing thorough robotic surveys first? Impatient much? You shouldn't be impatient when it can cost lives, thereby also ruining the prospect of future missions which will struggle to get funding after this disaster.
- Why didn't they take multiple different types of drones and remote control robots for sample retrieval and other tasks? Or at least a spare?
- Why didn't they have any protocols for when things would go wrong? In a real mission every possible scenario would have been thoroughly explored. It could have avoided various arguments.
- Why didn't they bring a doctor, or anyone with medical qualifications?
- How did that spacesuit tear so easily? Surely even if the spacesuit material was that bad, they would have had thorough training in conducting repairs in a manner that would avoid tears. And couldn't they have brought any extra fabric to patch up any tears?
Overall, I liked the movie a lot though. I liked the realistic atmosphere. I liked the way they put scientific progress before their own lives. I liked the visuals a lot. It looked fairly realistic. Sometimes it was obvious CGI was used, but it was acceptable.
1917 (2019)
Seldomly has a movie managed to transfer raw emotion in such an authentic fashion
This film reeks of compassion to the brave. It is reminescent of Lord of the Rings, in the sense that it's an adventure about two 'hobbits'. Tolkien, after all, served in WW1 too. The main characters embark on a similar quest as Frodo and Sam. It feels as if you join them on their journey. Like you're going hiking with a few friends, except every wrong move might kill you. The tension build-up from start to finish is impeccable. All great movies are about a journey. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a journey, as is Apocalypse Now. This movie was missing the 'Marlon Brando' depth though, therefore it is not a 10. Never before has the first World War however been portrayed in such an intimate and beautifully shot fashion.
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Brilliant
This is a film about how understanding and misunderstanding propagate destiny. Everyone is following their own little role in life imposed upon them by their circumstances. The spirit of their time and their personal position within that era dictate their actions. Mina feels resistance to hanging out with the rich people. Any violation of their sense of reality is labelled as insanity. Harker and Renfield are deemed insane by people that didn't come into contact with Dracula. These rules hold true for everyone except for Dracula, who escaped the bounds of time, and van Helsing, who escaped the expectations of his position in life. Van Helsing is a professor and is expected to be totally rational and scientific and yet he beliefs in the supernatural. He always knew that his knowledge was leading him towards some great work, and here it is. Dracula. Both characters are aware of wisdom beyond ordinary comprehension whereas all the other characters get sucked into events that elude their understanding. Because of how stuck they are in their own time they are simply unable to understand van Helsing. They're prisoners of fate and van Helsing and Dracula creators of it.
How was van Helsing led towards Dracula? How did Dracula become a supernatural force? Those are questions that even van Helsing and Dracula themselves don't understand, which van Helsing admits in the movie. All they can do is play their roles in the context of possessing that knowledge. So it turns out that there is a hierarchy of fate, with 'God' at the top.
Several strong points of this film: Engaging and creative cinematography and art direction. Beautiful sets and costumes. The soundtrack is very fitting and beautiful. Good pacing. Whenever things seem to be getting a bit dull some amazing scene unfolds and draws you right back into the movie. The story feels very solid and fleshed out. That's undoubtably so because of the strong source material on which the film is based.
The acting is great too. Keanu Reeves performance is cool. It feels like he is a bit of an anxious guy just trying to do his job and live a good life. Van Helsing is a typical Dutchman. He is very blunt, intelligent and doesn't care much about being judged by others when he does his thing. Brilliantly portrayed by Anthony Hopkins. But Gary Oldman really steals the show as Dracula. An incalculable dark creature of the night who commands respect and imposes his will, yet a tragic anti-hero all at the same time. Winona Ryder is lovely and she plays the role of being slowly seduced very convincingly.
Why don't I rate this movie a 10? Because if the movie was an hour longer with more character development it would have had the potential to become a classic epic of cinema like Apocalypse Now, The Good the Bad and the Ugly or Matrix Revolutions. Just like in Interview with the Vampire there is still room for more. 9/10.
Escape Room (2017)
Nice try Will
There is no tension in the movie until the first people die. That's about halfway through the movie so it makes the first half boring.
Yeah, what else can I say about this? It is difficult to understand the morale if almost everyone dies with no purpose. What story is Wernick trying to tell? There is a lot of potentional in the movie that remains unutilized.
It's not John Wick, but it's not Saw either. It's just a movie about people in an Escape Room with death traps for the amusement of a psycho. The best scene is the phone call with the psycho himself. That scene deserves an 8, so considering my score is a 5 you can tell that the rest of the movie is quite bad.
I still believe in you Will. Give it another shot.
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Marvel what happened?????? (massive spoilers)
What happened to the deep relatable character of Thanos?
Why is Thanos extremely overpowered now?
What happened to Thor one-shotting Thanos?
What the hell happened to Hulk?
Why didn't we get closure on the Bruce Banner - Black Widow story?
How could Captain America travel back in time without switching timelines?
What happened to the Avengers having to team up and defeat Thanos in an intelligent manner?
All in all this movie provided quite some closure in a decently satisfactory manner. But it could have been so much better. The start of this movie contained too much silly humor in my opinion. Thor and Hulk have been turned into ridiculous comic relief characters. In the second half of the movie it got a little bit better.
Thanos sucks. When he died at the beginning it was like he got replaced by a completely different character. All of his character development in Infinity War was gone and he was turned into a mindless brute that felt like a side-villain to me. Also, why could Thor defeat him easily in Infinity War when he had all of the Infinity Stones but didn't stand a chance now? Ok, maybe it's because he got out of shape. Then why couldn't Captain Marvel defeat him? Wasn't she supposed to be even more powerful than Thor?
To me it seemed like they threw all of Thors character development out of the window. Throughout Ragnarok and Infinity War he became super powerful and got to the top of his game and changed into a true king. I was hoping to see him unleash that insane power in Endgame. Instead, he changed into a total fool.
The end battle is cool. It was nice to see all the characters uniting in one last battle. Captain America wielding Mjolnir is awesome. Apart from those things, it was pretty mindnumbing. Even the end battle in the cartoon tv-series was better. There everybody had to come together and use their unique strengths to defeat Thanos one stone at a time. In Avengers 1, Age of Ultron and Civil War the Avengers were a mess that was falling apart. I was hoping to see them unite harmoniously as a team once and for all in this movie. That didn't happen.
Tony Stark and Captain America got closure in a reasonably satisfactory manner. I always imagined Captain America going back to his own time to live out his life. Sadly this is followed by a huge plothole. Tony Stark is arguably the protagonist of the MCU and his ending was beautiful. Using the infinity stones was his destiny.
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Best Star Wars Title Produced By The Mouse House
For the first time since Disney bought Star Wars we finally get a film which expands the Star Wars universe in a positive way. We get characters one can empathize with making very human decisions in a very dark world, whilst progressing a plot with initiatives on the grey side of morality. It's fun. It's exciting. It's Star Wars.
Alden Ehrenreich plays the young Han Solo in a fun way and he really makes you sympathize with his struggles. The film paints a picture of why Han Solo is who he is as you slowly see him being formed by the world around him into the character we know. We see a dark and gritty galaxy in which the Empire reigns supreme and crime and civic unrest are on the rise. It's no wonder stormtroopers develop their sarcastic war humor to keep a sense of optimism after the dark things they have to do.
The rest of the cast is great as well. All the characters were full of life and their actions were very human. Nothing like the dull and lifeless stereotypes we see in Rogue One. Chewie is fun. Qi'ra is mysterious. Lando is... Lando. It all just works. Every character has a distinct personality and the bad guys' motives aren't black and white. This results in unpredictable plot twists and at the end of the movie you might find yourself rooting for completely different people than before.
The cinematography could have been better to give use a better overview of different situations, and I would have loved to have seen more technologically advanced settings in the vision of George Lucas instead of the natural wastelands Disney likes to show. But that's just nitpicking and personal preference. 9/10 stars.