HrutkaPal Reviews

Squadron 303 (2018)

CGI planes look great, the rest is lousy

[5/10 · 10 May 2019]

This subject of WWII history surely deserves a movie, but it's too bad, that it ended up like this.

The flying scenes really look great, the CGI production was worth every penny. Unfortunately they couldn't really do anything with it, because the combat scenes were written just poorly. As soon as they got up in the air, they instantly bumped into some geman plane and they shot it down. Thrilling, isn't it?

When the CGI takes most of the budget, they need to save cash on different areas: -I swear, like 2/3 of the movie plays in pubs or restaurants. After a while this could become like a drinking game, it's that laughable. As soon as they leave the pub, you can place your bets, that they will be back almost instantly. -The acting is quite stiff and the bad and pointless dialogues don't make their job easier -The script is so pointless from time to time. Random flashbacks, that don't add anything, strange love plots that have no depth and you won't believe even for a second. Also the portrait of the british generals is just non-sense. For quite a time they are actually more evil than the nazis. -I do understand that this is a story about the polish squad, but the polish pathos here was strong, it was hard to take after a while. It was like these handful of polish fighters fought back the whole nazi Luftwaffe themselves and the brits had nothing to do with it.

It was an ambitious project to do, unfortunately it seems it ended up in the wrong hands

I Am Steve McQueen (2014)

Steve deserved better

[6/10 · 18 July 2018]

As my favourite actor, I'm always interested in seeing retrospectives on his life, even though mostly I'm aware of his biography.

Interviews with his son and his ex-wives surely show an insight of his life as close as possible. Problem is, when like 1/3 of the movie is filled with talking heads, which have nothing to say. People like Pierce Brosnan, Gary Oldman might be classic actors, but never met McQueen. Gets even more absurd, when models like Marisa Miller or Zoe Bell talk about him. I honeslty hardly believe they watched more than 4 films of him,so what do I care about them talking about Steve?

Even bigger problem is what they talk, because it's as cliché as it might get. "He was the coolest / Nothing beats him / He wants to be the #1. / If you have 2 people on the screen, everyone watched McQueen etc. "

Get film historians, directors to talk about him, not some people, who might look good on the IMDB page, but have nothing to say.

Also his filmography was very rushed. We all know, his passion for racing was immense, but for me, it got way bigger screen-time as needed.

There are better documentaries about McQueen out there, watch this at the end.

The Unbelievers (2013)

Even as an atheist I disliked this

[4/10 · 14 February 2015]

Being an atheist in the public is really an interesting subject. Especially in the US it's a sensitive area, so I was told that this movie would be about this.

Well, it's not really, but the bigger problem is, that instead we get a 70 minute self-hooray, which was even for me as an atheist just too annoying after a while.

I would've loved to see in the movie deep thoughts, which I could show to a religious person and make him think. Instead we get a lot of pointless montages with bad cuts, where someone says something and the crowd goes nuts.

What exactly was this movie made for? Atheists watching this won't get really more connected to the subject, religious persons won't even have the interest to keep watching after latest 10 minutes.

The movie had the potential to make something good, it had 2 good personas, but it was ruined by a really bad concept/directing.

Just considering the main movie (without the off-speaking of guest-stars) doesn't even reach 70 minutes, just shows how low on ideas they were.

White God (2014)

When dogs act better than humans

[4/10 · 27 June 2014]

After seeing the first trailer, I thought this looks interesting, this might look like a "Planet of the apes" adaptation, only with dogs. Then it won quite surprisingly in Cannes, so this really deserves a watch. Especially since these kind of movies are quite rare in Hungary.

Well, to start with the good things: The main dog (Max) is awesome. Same goes to almost every scene related to the dogs, the pet trainers did a brilliant job. Considering real shelter dogs were used here too, the animal team deserves high applause.

Also from production/directing perspective this movie is really a good step into the right direction. You didn't see a hungarian movie all the time, it's high class, even for western standards.

The list with the bad things will be unfortunately much longer: -The acting is really bad.The main character girl Lili was already annoying enough with her behavior, but with the bad acting performance it was just overall terrible. Same goes to the afghan character played by the director itself. Holy moly, Kornél, where did you get that horrible fake Russian accent? -The story itself didn't make any sense and I couldn't take it serious. It was not explained why literally EVERYONE in the goddamn city (apart from Lili of course) hates dogs now. If you want to build a whole movie about this, better have some explanation. Even a cheesy one (like some infection) or whatever. This is a no go. -100 dogs and a city falls. No really, they set it up like 28 days later. Only there it was a global virus. Here it was like 100 dogs! Of all kind! Not even 100 pitbulls, it was mixed with tiny to big, and none of them really looked terrifying, that would explain why people left their cars in panic on the middle of the bridge. Give me a break. -There is a never ending party scene, which I guess only had one purpose, to promote some song. Also for people with epileptic problems, this will be a hard challenge. -The ending twist was could be predicted after 5 minutes. I'm not joking, you'll see it yourself.

The comparing with "Planet of the Apes" has it's reasons, since both movies have their leader who is doing a revolution, and with one human friend connection. Only 100 strong apes would be a more reasonably threat, than 100 dogs, so it's sadly a bit laughable considering how serious this movie took itself. I find it hard to believe, that police would have big problems catching 100 dogs which are together all the time. They were even in a tunnel,so just block both ends with nets or a fence.

There you go, you're welcome...

Zuhanórepülés (2007)

Hungary has finally a gangster movie...

[6/10 · 12 January 2014]

...even if it's surely not in the top league of mob flicks, but it's quite descent for a start.

It has the usual setup for these kind of movies: drugs, betrayal, twists, affair and so on. For the hungarian movie standards I think it did a good job and opens the door for future mob projects (which unfortunately still didn't happen yet).

Most of the actors did a good job, the movie never really got boring. What I disliked are the too long trippy visual montage scenes, but for some reason hungarian directors really love doing this. A mystery for me.

If you want to see a not so typical hungarian movie, I recommend Zuhanórepülés, as it's a descent end result.

Gingerclown (2013)

Not a mainstream movie

[4/10 · 24 June 2013]

I was at the actual world premiere of the movie (which was fully occupied, I don't know what the other reviewer is actually talking about...) and I can see, why many people will have their issues with the movie.

You need to understand, that if the trailer says "In the style of the 80ies", it REALLY means "In the style of the 80ies". It is having all the clishés over and over, that teenagers from now will hardly enjoy this. Gingerclown is clearly a genre movie.

So if you are an eighties child, you'll be more friends with this flick, but unfortunately still it's having several issues.

The actors are quite bad (most of all the woman and her endless yelling/screaming made my ears bleed), there is hardly anything you'd call horror, almost no gore and many of the scenes feel unreasonably stretched. You'll need a lot of patience.

Also the ending...Well, see it for yourself.

I liked the monsters though, even if mostly only their heads were built properly. They had their charm, the famous voice actors had surely their fun. They could've gotten a bit more airtime, but it was okay.

It had some funny moments too, but overall the movie was unfortunately a letdown, it's hard to call this a horror-comedy, when it's not that funny or scary. They tried too hard with all the nostalgic things what made many of the 80ies movies so bad, it was a bit too much in the end.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Rourke was good. The rest was terrible

[3/10 · 5 May 2010]

This movie was absolutely terrible. Seriously, everyone involved(except Rourke) should be ashamed. I don't know what was the worst thing: -Starks annoying love for himself, which was good in part 1, but here it was over the top. -The even more annoying Paltrow character, which just wouldn't shut up for one second -The fact, that the movie had a ridicilously flat story, which is close to not existing -Or all those wannabe side-characters which had almost no role at all, and were just in to provide some big names to the cast

After like 20 minutes it was pretty obvious for me, that this movie is gonna suck. But I thought, hey, maybe the actions scenes could spice things up a bit. But not even those were really entertaining. The ONLY part, where I thought that it might become interesting, was where all those robots showed up, and they were outnumbered. Cool. What happened? They killed them in like 30 seconds. What a joke.

Rourke's character was the only thing that was a plus.

The Speech (2010)

A bit confusing but nice visuals

[5/10 · 5 November 2009]

First of all I liked how the director used the light and the angles. Great camera-work. I enjoyed mostly the beginning. Looked very nice.

The story confused me a bit. At the typewriter scene you had the feeling that woman was the big chief, and the writers the bunch of slaves, after that I had the feeling it was the other way around. Maybe the writers shouldn't have discussed, that way it would have maintained that hierarchy.

And they discuss the main issues for the election. Okay. And so? I didn't really get it, along with other things like -Why were they playing in an orchestra? -Why were the writers using museum old typewriters, when you could see, that the president has an European Union flag in the background. I mean even Romania should be modern by now ;) That way the starting scene wouldn't have looked that nice though with the monitors, but it just confused me a bit.

Anyways, descent short, but sadly has some problems

11 PM (2008)

I can clearly see, where this guy got his ideas from

[7/10 · 18 June 2009]

The writer obviously is a big fan of the Simpsons, cause the plot is pretty much a rip-off of the episode "Trilogy of Error". Only blind men don't see that.

Apart from that, we learn, Romanians listen to bad music, have ugly football shirts, run very slowly and punch unrealisticly.

But still it's a pretty nice short movie, cause the dialogues are realistic, doesn't look unnaturally scripted, and even if it's a clone, I like these stories, where one story is shown in several ways ( watch also the movie '11:14').

All in all nice entertainment, worth a watch

Snow White (1984)

Can't share the fanbase opinion

[4/10 · 8 August 2008]

As a kid, this cartoon really frightened me. I just couldn't understand, how an animated movie can be so bizarre and different. Didn't like it at all. About 17-18 years later, I watched it again, and I thought, from an adults prospective, this will have a different effect on me.

Well, I still find it pretty disturbing... Of course, I understood much more of its humour and bizarre world, but I do believe, this is a really overrated movie. Can't believe why it has such a cult-status over here.

The story itsself is kinda lame, and boring. Nothing really happens, no gag-fireworks. Also the parody factor isn't really worth mentioning.

If you want to see something different from the old Disney movies, check this out, but it's not as a big deal, as promised

It (1990)

Great and thrilling movie only the last 5 minutes are horrible

[9/10 · 12 July 2008]

For a long time, this was the most frightening movie I've seen. It just has this really weird kind of horror, where you get shocked in a way, what no horror movies uses anymore. You don't really see too much blood, or gore at all, it freaks you out with the inner and unexpected fears.

It also delivers a great and interesting plot, where the timeline is changing from past to present over and over. In this way you get to know the characters really well. The acting is remarkable, and you don't really feel the movie is 3 hours long.

Only the last 5 minutes are a huge disappointment. I haven't met anyone, who doesn't share my opinion. That idea almost ruins it, what were they thinking? It's just one of those movie-decisions, where you can't imagine, how on earth did they actually think, this is good.

Overall, very good movie, you'll be entertained

Postal (2007)

If it wouldn't be Boll, the mass would like it

[8/10 · 11 July 2008]

It's just one of those movies, that most people hate, without even seeing it. They say "Ahaha, it's from Uwe Boll. It sucks".

No, actually it doesn't suck at all. The whole movie has a horrible plot, overacting and bizarre scenes over and over. Well, it is actually the movie version of a very very bizarre game with no real plot and crazy citizens.

So if you haven't played the (fantastic) game, and you say this movie is rubbish, you haven't really got any right to say that. It really adaptates the game style and it's ideas. There is the lucky Ganesh, the cat silencer, the crazy chasing mob, the trailer park and so on. They even hired Verne Troyer, since Gary Coleman didn't want to join. So Boll actually really tried.

Sure, the movie has it's boring sequences and bad jokes, but overall you get many gags all over from beginning to the end. Most of them are just so awefully wrong, that it's frenetic. Even Uwe Boll made fun of himself, when he said, he is financing his movies by nazi gold, and he pays someone with gold-teeth.

To sum things up, I think this was a pretty nice movie, for the fans of the game, this has many references and gives a similar style of humor back.

Miami Supercops (1985)

It's okay, but not the Spencer & Hill standard

[7/10 · 7 February 2008]

Well this movie was made in the mid 80-ies, where this glorious duo began to get older & slower. In this movie (I think the "brawling two" is still working here, but it's not that great as in the earlier years, decades.

Here they use guns many times, not something we got used to in the earlier movies. The story isn't really good, sometimes it's not really making sense. *Like the scene with the fingerprints. Why didn't Spencer and Hill take the fingerprints? The bad guy even said he will do it ?! That would've been the proof*

And some scenes are pretty trashy. But there are still good jokes, I laughed many times, it's worth a watch, but they had many better movies.(But worse as well, so this is somewhere in between)

Rambo (2008)

Rambo is back, and he is badass!

[9/10 · 25 January 2008]

I was pretty skeptic, I thought that it's not gonna be good, but it was! Stallone did a great job, I didn't really thought that it's a Rambo senior or something. Even though in some scenes it was pretty weird to see his flattened plastic surgery face, and then see his old skin on his arm and chest, but it didn't really matter.

The story itself isn't a big deal, we've seen it several times already, BUT the action scenes...Holy crap guys. I haven't seen this kind of graphic, explicit shooting for a long time. There were some really unique deaths, that I haven't seen elsewhere. There were some pretty nasty scenes as well (mass-murder)

It's pretty hardcore, but hey. It's a Rambo movie! There were only 2 big action sequences, but those were pretty long.Mostly the 2nd and final one. There were some flashbacks to the earlier Rambos as well.

If you liked the trailer, you'll like the movie as well, cause you get, what you expect.

The 11th Hour (I) (2007)

Good message but VERY boring

[3/10 · 24 January 2008]

I really wonder why movies like this still come out. Global warming is a #1 issue for years now, at least at the citizens. I guess, if you believe in the danger of the warming, you don't need to watch this. Cause it basically says, what you already know. If you don't believe in gl. warming, you won't watch this movie anyway. The politicians and industry bosses should see this.

DiCaprio isn't really doing anything, he just appears every 10-15 minutes to hold a small monologue, but it's clear enough, the movie just needed a famous face to sell it. The whole movie is just 10-15 people standing in front of a dark background and talking. While they are talking, documentary footage is shown. I have to say, after like 20 minutes it became really boring and uninteresting to follow.

Reservation Road (2007)

Perfect movie

[10/10 · 18 January 2008]

I can't possibly imagine how someone here can give this movie 1/10. Does that mean it's just as bad as I dunno, home alone 4 or something like that? Give me a break...

For me this movie was a huge surprise, I can't say anything bad about it. The whole cast was unbelievable, mostly Jenniffer Connelly was amazing. She really deserves a nomination for best supporting actress at the Oscars. The whole movie makes you think a lot, you get to see both sides in a very human way, and you even feel a lot of symphaty for the "bad guy". Of course, you also understand the feelings of the victim, as he wants justice.

This movie was very touching and thrilling, it's perfect.

Surf Ninjas (1993)

Worst movie EVER

[1/10 · 12 January 2008]

As my summary says it, this is pretty much the worst movie I have ever seen. Yes, I know it's a kids-flick, but that doesn't change anything. What's the worst, I can't believe Leslie Nielsen took part in this. What was he thinking? The whole story is just ridiculous, the 'jokes' incredibly bad, not to mention the acting. You could pretty much see the background actors didn't really know what was going on, it was a mess. If you want to watch a trash-movie, this is a must-see, cause you'll laugh all the time. But if you don't want to watch this as a trash-movie,this flick is a complete waste of time, electricity and your mind. Don't watch this.

Love and Other Disasters (2006)

Awful

[1/10 · 12 January 2008]

This is one of those movies, what the world doesn't need to have. This movie is built up on a stupid misunderstanding, that in real life would've been cleared in 4 seconds. And all that "woopsie.I thought you are gay! Hahahaha" monologues were just horrible. Can't believe I hate Brittany Murphy now, even though she was in bras all the time, but this movie just ruined it. The ending was kinda nice with the cameo, but that didn't really help anything, except for a quick laugh.

Call me old fashioned, this "new-trendy-single-generation-gay" combo called movie was REALLY bad. Didn't enjoy this at all, as a matter of fact, I was very close of leaving the cinema