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The Misfits (2021)
Goofy heist movie
Relax, this movie doesn't take itself seriously and the plot is there just to frame a bit of fun and action. Don't go and expect to see a well thought heist movie. Visually and technically the movie looks really good. It's meant to go over the top. The acting is rather good with nice nuances there and there - you got the feeling that everybody who worked in the movie felt relaxed and had a good time making it.
Sure the pacing was a bit clunky and you don't always know what is happening, however in the end you feel light hearted and entertained. And for a change, not a single gun was shot in the movie!
X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)
Decent movie considering the high expectations and impossibly challenging source material
Dark Phoenix saga in the original comics had one of the longest story arcs at that time. The story developed slowly behind other stories for a long time, building the emotional connection to the characters and their relationship, and there were only subtle hints of things to come. That time in the comics has always been referred as the 'golden age' of the X-Men, where Claremont/Byrne duo created amazing stories for many consequent years (like the 'Days of Future Past'). The Dark Phoenix story in the comics had long discussions of life and desires, scheming and manipulation, until Jean Grey's dark nature was revealed with a twist of literal explosion and an emotional ending. This in mind it was scary to go and see the movie. How on earth the film makers could tell the long and complex story in mere two hours?
Well, I was actually surprised that vast amount of the original story pieces could be found from the movie. In this the movie really tried it's best to honor the original material (except the ending). Sadly, everything was just a bit off, not quite there and rushed through.
For example, Xavier behaved uncharacteristic, the relationship between Scott and Jean was condensed to a few quick kisses and Jean's runaway after single bad incident wasn't convincing. The pacing in the first half was off and the acting wasn't that great, even awkward. This left the emotional connection with the main characters very thin. In the comics the relationship between Scott and Jean was very deep and loving. At one point, Jean used her powers to create a permanent mental link between her and Scott, so they would always be aware of each other and so on. Can you remember the scenes between Aragorn and Arwen in LOTR? Very simple, but yet so powerful! This was missing completely from the movie.
On a positive note, as the Hellfire Club - that was central in the comics - had already been used in the First Class movie, we got Jessica Chastain's character who was like a combination of Emma Frost AND Mastermind from the comics. Also the fight scene at New York reminded me of the Hellfire Club premises of the comics. These were nice touches, but aliens, seriously? Well, the train fight against them was awesome, but as a whole it was a silly thing.
I was happy that Scott/Cyclops finally showed some balls. In the comics he was always the 'Captain America' of the team, the master strategist and a great leader the team always relied on - and not the boy-wonder the previous movies have portrait him as. On the other hand, I kept waiting for the 'flaming phoenix' effects on every scene. This was so cool in the comics. Instead we got the 'glowing veins and sparkly eyes', boo.
Summa summarum, even with all the flaws, I did like the movie. However, even when the origin story is simply too big for a movie to adapt (happened over 4 year arc in the comics), the movie could have been much better with some adjustments. I bet the comment track on the Blu-Ray will say "we removed this and this nice scene because the corporate guys wanted to get into the action".
And a bonus note: What the heck happened with the editing? First you have a fight scene where Mystic dies, then you have her funeral and then we are back at the scene one hour after the fight with police securing the scene and Jean's father sitting on a sofa. WTF?!?
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (2010)
Starting to get boring
Well, I can understand that if you have read all the books and love Harry Potter, this movie is really-really good. But for the casual movie goer, the pace was slow and the story was messy.
Our three heroes sit a long time in a tent. Then they jump somewhere, you get some action, and then you are back in the tent. And then you repeat this for the next two hours. And during all this time, basically only three things advances the story; you learn how to destroy the Horcruxes, you find and destroy one and you learn that Voldemort is after the three Deathly Hallows. Two and half hours for this! It smells like milking the last drop before the good thing ends.
I haven't read any of the books, but I have just spend a week watching all the movies for a second or third time. The first two were OK stand-alones to familiarize you with the story, the 3-5 really kicked the story onwards and I really loved them, but this and the previous one... leaves me quite empty. Especially now after watching them for the second time. You could have probably merged the 6, 7.1 and 7.2 to one exiting three hour movie.
Monsters (2010)
Misunderstood movie about misunderstood aliens
After reading some negative comments, I thought to give my own view to explain the inner works of the movie (which may have been deliberately left unexplained by the director). So, warning, major spoilers ahead if you have not seen the movie.
The thing that threw me off the most was the fact that the movie did not mention in the beginning that the 'samples' the NASA took were from the _sea_ of the Europa moon. This would have explained why the creatures were octopus-like. The beginning also gave the impression that the alien life was rich, from bacteria type (hence the term 'infection') to various sized creatures, but in fact the outbreak was only about one kind of creature.
The creatures lived most of their time in the ocean (not disturbing anyone) and came to surface only to lay their 'eggs'. It was also mentioned that the creatures were mostly peaceful and didn't pay attention to humans, unless provoked.
People had to use the gas masks, because the US sprayed chemicals to the jungle, trying to kill the 'eggs', not because of any air spreading infection.
This all leads to the movie title, which in my opinion meant us, the humans.
(And all above was only a backdrop to a love story :)
Skyline (2010)
Split decision
I had a vague memory that this movie got bad reviews, so I was a bit scared to watch it - ID4 has haunted me for years for being a good movie ruined with the most horrible acting/characters ever. However, the acting was quite neutral experience, and it didn't annoy me as I had feared.
The best parts about this movie were that it kept taking different turns what you expected on many scenes, and that the invasion and how people reacted on it felt quite realistic. It was also good that it was more rugged 'we are dead meat a.k.a. Cloverfield' and less polished 'we great Americans save the world a.k.a. ID4'.
And the worst parts... the beginning before the title was totally unnecessary - you could call it even a spoiler. And a running time of only 1h35m with the unnecessary beginning and end credits! It felt that the producers run out of money and had to finish early, and after finding out that they had only 10M budget - it's probably what happened.
The most amazing thing is that you can actually get a very good looking and decent sci-fi with 10M, when a typical Hollywood thriller with 0 CGI, e.g. The Tourist, has a 100M budget. Wow.
Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)
Exhale Hollywood, inhale realism.
This is my 43rd movie of the year, and my god what a surprise it was.
This movie takes off the Hollywood gloves and sticks the hands to the dirt. It totally lacks any goofiness or over the top action scenes (like in the previous movies). The realism level and style a par with Black Hawk down and Jason Bourne. There is nothing funny in this movie. None of the scenes have slow motion or dramatic background music. Fist fights are straight from UFC, and gunfire makes the subwoofer move across the floor. Even the two most scary things in this movie, Van Damme and Lundgren, are there only to be part of the story and not to stand in the spotlight. What an earth has happened? Van Damme even gives us one of the best infiltration scenes I have ever seen, really.
It is so sad that the utterly stupid Unisol 2, which resembles more c-movies like the Street Fighter, has ever been done. Even the first movie casts a dark shadow over this movie, converting possible movie watchers away. Well, some say there couldn't be the good if there wouldn't be the evil.
I wish they had called this movie simply "Universal Soldier", like they have with many movies that have gone back to the beginning, cleaned the slate and re-visualized the original idea with a great success. Few such movies that come to my mind are Rambo, James Bond and the latest Star Trek. Add few dollars to the marketing campaign and you could have had a very successful movie. It is a true shame so many will miss this movie.
The contrast between the two other movies of the series is so big that it is difficult to say how good movie this is after all compared to others in the genre. You have to make the judgment yourself. I recommend you give it a fare chance. The movie carries a heavy burden of the past sins, but I for one, have forgiven them.
D-War (2007)
Wow, what a roller-coaster ride of quality
How to begin... I have so mixed feelings.
When I saw the opening scene, I was like, man, this movie is going to suck big time. It was really, really basic scene, but you could right away tell that the director was no Spielberg. Odly, only 60 seconds from the opening, and we already got into a flashback (which again went to another flashback!), and it got a lot better. What?!? Then came the 'lord of the rings' battle scene, and suddenly it started to look even good. I really liked the 'rocketlauncher lizards', those where cool!
But then... then we came back to real-time from the flashbacks, and what a load of crap it brought with it. The movie was as bad as the other reviews say it was. No sense of directing, nor editing. Really bad story telling and acting, and nothing made any sense. I really started to hate this movie, but I kept torturing myself.
After an hour of living hell, I thought I would stop the movie and watch something else. It was really that bad. Then it occurred to me that (the movie was still on) I could read some (bad) reviews about it from IMDb just to amuse myself. Not surprised, everyone seemed to hate it.
However, on the background something seemed to happen in the movie and it caught my attention. I sat back to the sofa and put my headphones back on. And then... I started to think that this CGI stuff was actually pretty good. The city was been destroyed and cars where flying in the air. Some helicopters where shooting dragons and I was suddenly eating my popcorn again?!? I didn't have a glue what was happening, but that didn't really matter, the action, and especially the CGI was pretty decent. After a while the characters even seemed to jump into another dimension (for some reason) and the CGI was looking really good. What the heck, I started to like this 'what ever they were trying to do' stuff.
The end scene with the big fight was really nicely done, and I especially liked when the good(?) snake... I mean dragon, changed into... well, a dragon - a traditional Chinese dragon! I'm a graphic designer, and I must say the CGI was really, really good for the last minutes of the movie. Did you notice how liquid the dragon was when it flew through the air? Very well done.
I was totally clueless about the story and everything not related to CGI was horrible. Some stuff was so bad you will tear your eyes out and have nightmares for years, but there was enough tiny things, like the music score and especially the last 15 minutes, that it made me raise my vote from 2 to 7.