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Reviews
Prey (2022)
Great Predator movie, terrible review bombers
Ok first off, I want to talk about the review bombers on this site giving this film 1-star because it features a small ethnic woman as the lead. They're whining about the believability of a hero woman protagonist in a Predator movie, as well as the realism (or lack thereof) of the historic value of the time period. Of a science fiction Predator movie!! If I rolled my eyes any harder, they'd roll out of my head and into Jon Stewart's head.
If the film Aliens had come out today, I can only imagine the review bombs it would be getting: "No way a woman could defeat the Aliens all by herself! Not when there's trained stronger soldiers all around her!" "There's no way a breathable atmosphere could ever be possible in such a short amount of time on that planet. Terraforming takes centuries!! And a woman turning into a badass soldier with no training??!? So unbelievable! Worst movie ever." "I can't believe this woke movie would cast a skinny, no skilled woman as the one to defeat the aliens. Hollywood is trying to emasculate men and turn all our entertainment into woke garbage! Open your eyes! Women can't do the things she does in this movie. Only men can!" It's as if all of sudden, a strong female character is considered ridiculous. As if Kill Bill, Hunger Games, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hanna, Wonder Woman, etc had never been made.
First off, not even taking into account the lead character or the historic value of Prey - this was by far the most beautifully filmed version of all the Predators. The cinematography was gorgeously done with wide shots, flowing landscapes, and long tracking shots. For that alone, it should warrant at least three stars. And the dramatic score with the violins, was also much more than I would have ever expected out of a Predator movie. On a technical scale, this was a well made movie. Very similar style as that of a more colorful version of The Revenant.
Onto the film itself: it did a lot without an overabundance of dialogue. Similar to the first Predator. The Comanche culture was beautifully highlighted and even though I don't know much about it, I felt like the filmmakers were doing their best to honor and do them justice by capturing their traditions. I wouldn't mind spending more time with the tribe and seeing their day-to-day lives. They didn't even need to have a Predator show up to capture my attention.
The standouts of this film were Amber Midthunder and Dakota Beavers, who play brother and sister. Their dynamic and chemistry was believable and made you care for the characters, so much so that it's hard to believe this was the first acting role for Dakota Beavers. He just oozes charisma, and I'm curious to see what he does next.
The action was well done, and you could feel the visceral strength of the Predator in this. In this prequel, I'm thinking they made the Predator a bit less powerful than the Schwartzeneggar version, because this one took place hundreds of years previous to the original Predator. So similar to our technology, this version of Predator has more primitive tech. No full body suit armor or helmet, no blast guns, and a more primitive body-type. This was their native/indigenous alien version of Predator.
And the parallels they drew to "proving your worth" through trials and tribulations was also apparent. This Predator was placed on an unknown planet trying to prove his worth through hunting trials, similar to our young protagonist Naru. She wants to prove herself to her tribe that she is a worthy warrior and hunter. In a way, they're both the same character. In an alternate world, the Predator would be the protagonist and we would watch as he tries (and ultimately fails) his quest for warrior status.
I do have a few nitpicks, and this isn't a perfect movie at all. The CG animals were at times fairly well done and at times, glaringly obvious, so much that it took me out of the film's atmosphere. And that's mainly because the scenery was just so beautiful, that it would be jarring to see a CG animal appear in any scene.
I also had a few issues with this movie failing to show instead of tell. All of Naru's thoughts are said aloud, and basically hand-hold the audience into understanding how she's going to defeat the Predator.
I also wasn't a big fan of the magical cooling flower that hid body warmth. I get it, I complained about the review bombers questioning the historical value of the film. Butttttt, since this is a science fiction movie, I do think I have some reason to question the science behind how exactly that flower works just a little bit.
And lastly, for an R-rated film - at times it felt like they were toning down and making cuts as if someone told them it could possibly be PG-13. It was odd. Sometimes the camera would cut quickly away from any gore. But then other times it would show it. Wasn't sure the reasoning behind that. I actually wanted to see more of how brutal the Predator could be, instead of the quick cuts away.
But overall I was very entertained and this was probably the best Predator movie we've gotten since the first film (Predators came close and would be third on my list). It was well shot, the action scenes were unique and entertaining, and it brought back that feeling of suspense that I think a lot of the Predator sequel movies were missing. It's not a perfect movie, but it is a perfect popcorn movie giving you everything you could want out of a Predator movie. Unless of course you think that only a 250 lb Austrian muscleman could ever defeat the fictional character of Predator. If so, this movie is probably not for you.
*Wish list for the next Predator movie: Taking place in 12th century feudal Japan, featuring samurai warriors fighting Predator to protect a village ala Seven Samurai.
Spencer (2021)
Spencer is a wonderfully beautifully uneasy feeling film without substance
Maybe it was my expectations of a wider berth of a character study, but this movie just screamed pretentious to me. And I'm a film lover who tends to gravitate towards abstract and avant-garde. Give me a Yorgos Lanthimos film any day.
I thought Kristen Stewart did a fine job, and now I understand why they selected her - since this was the behind-the-scenes neurotic anxious Diana we're supposed to be seeing (and we all know Kristen displays that emotion well). But it did feel like posing at times. As if she was trying to capture that perfect head tilt and stare up look while the camera pans and floats up and down and around her.
It was beautifully filmed, and composed and framed wonderfully. The claustrophobic feeling matched alongside the unsettling jazz score really conveyed that this was a journey of a woman losing her marbles (or her pearls so-to-speak). But I can't help to ask, why?
The hints of infidelity and the pressures from the Royal Family aren't enough to really truly understand Diana's struggles, but that's all the film gives us - alongside elaborate running scenes, childhood ghosts, a conjured Anne Boleyn, and many many distressed crying pained close-ups of Diana. This is a long slow movie where we the audience aren't privy to the inner workings of the main protagonist princess, nor are we privy to any other character's actions or reasoning. The people here are all puppets putting on an elaborate play, but the emperor has no clothes.
It all felt like an excuse to make a statement about the Royal family (yes, we all know they are alien and otherworldly, and also cold and manufactured), and to pity Diana as a beautiful bird locked in a cage by the nobles. But it's hard to pity someone who is waited on hand-and-foot, and who is still by all-means in title, royalty. I pitied the chef more than Diana in this film. I even pitied Prince Charles more than Diana in this film.
It was difficult to see Diana as more than just misery personified here. This film still treats Diana more as a persona than as a person. The image we conjure up in our heads after reading pages and pages of tabloids and second-hand accounts. The brooding Diana who simply must be a wounded pheasant flying around the grand halls of her prison. I don't believe this film really gave us a human character of Diana. Maybe it's because Diana was larger than life, or maybe it's because the film really only wanted to showcase the circus and absurdity that is the Royal family. Either way, I was left unfulfilled.
Invasion (2021)
Nicely shot, expensive looking melodrama masquerading as sci-fi
To quote Ian Malcolm, "Now eventually you do plan to have aliens on your alien tour, right? Hello?"
I understand adding a human element to a show, being more intimate and focusing on characters (it's a great way to create a bond for the viewer at home while also saving money for the producers), but first rule of character dramas is that you're going to need characters that are actually likable. So far I've watched 5 episodes of Invasion, and I have not bothered to even remember any of the character's names because they are just so blah.
Here's the character's as I view them: Sad vacant housewife who has a Harvard education but did nothing with it, Sad cheating husband who banged a white girl, Sad sheriff who didn't accomplish anything and died before he could, Sad bullied kid who draws, Sad lesbian space programmer who lost her girlfriend, Sad angry army guy who's sad and angry at everyone. I think that's it, but there's probably more sad people I missed somewhere.
So you would think in a show called Invasion, these people would be sad about...hmmmm, I don't know - maybe the alien invasion?? NO, they're all sad about their sad sad lives - and since misery loves company, they want us to join them.
Sad house wife just runs around sad faced like a zombie while her children try to escape her at every opportunity. And I can understand why her sad husband cheated on her, since the only emotion she has is morose.
Sad bullied kid is probably the saddest slowest human on earth. He walks slowly, moves slowly, talks slowly. He gets pushed down by a bully and the show director felt it was necessary to linger on him slowly getting up (I swear it felt like 5 minutes), only to do nothing at all.
Sad space programmer is probably the only one actually trying to learn more about the invasion, but it's not because of the potential for aliens. It's to find her astronaut girlfriend. But hey, it only took 5 episodes for them to finally say the word "alien". Cue dramatic music. Like we're all shocked now. Like we're not watching a show called Invasion. But honestly, I do sometimes think I'm watching This Is Us, except without any of the emotion and with vapid characters.
And finally, there's sad angry soldier. He's in the desert and he really hates sand. It just gets everywhere. So he yells at everyone. Especially the people trying to help him. And he wanders around aimlessly, and is actually one of the only characters to encounter an alien ship - but nah, that's not important. Gotta find my squad. I didn't see nuthin. That ship we shot at wasn't weird at all. The real threat are the middle easterners and insurgents. Not the weird ship that blew my squad to pieces.
So that's it. 5 hours so far, and one single mention of alien. And a couple of brief shots of some black spiky metal. So sum total, about 5 minutes of alien footage in 5 hours of show called Invasion. The majority of the show is people moping around and slowly stumbling into scenarios where they have to deal with their feelings. And talk about their feelings. And trope trope trope about their feelings. Entertained yet?
And yet I still continue to watch, for a tiny taste, a sweet sweet millisecond of alien footage - because I'm honestly kinda intrigued what they will look like. I'm sure I will be highly disappointed when they finally reveal the aliens in Episode 6 of Season 3 (who am I kidding, this show will not be renewed for any more seasons).
At this point, I'm just torturing myself wishing they will finally show some goods, any goods because I've already committed this much time to it. Will it get better? Doubtful at this point. So don't make the same mistake I did. Just wait until the season ends, and watch the final episode. You more than likely won't miss anything other than bully kid eventually making friends with his bully, sad wife finding the courage to be a doctor and leave her husband, angry soldier probably shooting more insurgents, and space girl finding her girlfriend and then discovering that the real invasion was the friends that we made along the way. Ugh.
American Fable (2016)
American Fable doesn't live up to its title
This is a movie that could have benefited from putting more "fable" into the story and less realism. While beautifully shot with a couple of good performances, overall the story could have used more polish. The protagonist is a little girl (11 years old) named Gitty, whom we follow and experience life on a farm in the 80's, as seen through her eyes. The general overarching theme of the film is about the struggles of the American farmer who can no longer get by because of federal cut-backs and big business coming in and acquiring the smaller farms.
****SPOILERS****
The main plot involves a kidnapped land developer (Richard Schiff's character) who is buying up farm land, and an unknown woman who has something to gain off his disappearance. Gitty's family participates in helping keep the secret, in exchange for financial gain aka: Money to save their farm. Gitty secretly befriends the kidnapped gentleman while he is secured in an abandoned silo and hi-jinks ensue (just kidding). They bond and she learns chess and literature from the man, while the family (specifically Gitty's older brother, Martin) keep an eye on him. And by "keep and eye on him", I mean beat him and cut off his finger. And for this, they get a bag full of money. Just for following the plan set in play by the mysterious woman.
We get all-too brief flashes of some mystical elements here (coming from the imagination of the protagonist, Gitty), but they are few and far between. The film mainly just consists of miserable characters talking about miserable things happening to them. For a film centered around only a few characters, it's amazing how underdeveloped they are. Gitty is the most fully fleshed out, and the girl who plays her - does a good job at expressing her emotions - but there just seems to be something missing. She plays off Richard Schiff's character well, but they don't develop his character enough to really care. There are hints at who he is, but we're never really shown or told. He's just a kind, old man. But is he really? We never find out.
Now I'm guessing the title "American Fable" is sort of a play on "The American Dream" and how the dream isn't all that it's cracked up to be, but come on - if you're going to have "Fable" in your title and follow a little girl through a beautifully shot landscape - don't just hint at a supernatural element. Show us something. Anything. And I don't just mean a woman on a horse in Maleficent garb showing up every so often randomly to as if exclaim "See, this IS a fairy tale. Kinda!".
Gitty explores a well early in the movie, with a violin and scribblings from a past unknown figure laying at the bottom of it. I remember thinking, "I wonder what kind of fantastical element this will turn into?". And the answer? Nothing. It's never explained, and it doesn't lead to anything - except one brief scene where Gitty brings the violin to the man in the silo. But he doesn't play it. No one does. It's just a prop. A useless prop.
See how frustrating that is? It's like an hour and a half of build-up to an interesting idea, and then nothing. Even the psychotic brother Martin is left hanging. He's an evil for purely evil's-sake character, just so the film has some kind of tension and climax. And at the end, he falls down the well. And then? And then we have no idea. No idea if he's alive or dead, or what the consequences of his actions were - or if he had any kind of revelation. This is the brother of the main character, and not just some random person - so why aren't we provided with any kind of closure?
This film had potential to be something with depth - but whether it was budget constraints or just bad storytelling - it's really quite disappointing because I honestly wanted to like the movie, based on the main character and the visuals alone. American Fable was just too vanilla, with nothing really to say or show, to recommend to anyone. A real shame since there appears to be talent involved.
Cell (2016)
Can you hear me now?
Let's just get down to it: This is not a good movie. If there was anything I could compare it to, it would be The Happening (except slightly less idiotic). During the entire length of the movie, I couldn't help but keep asking "What happened to John Cusack??". Now Samuel L Jackson makes his share of schlocky B-movies, but he also makes some good ones in between. Lately it seems that John Cusack has taken the Nicolas Cage route of becoming insignificant in cinema. Where Cusack used to make memorable and crowd-pleasing movies, his catalog of recent movies have been average at best - and unwatchable at worst.
But enough reminiscing, let's talk about Cell. I never read the Stephen King book, but I knew of the general concept. However, I didn't realize going into this movie that it was basically a zombie film disguised as a tech-horror film. It starts pretty immediately with little to no character development for Cusack's character. All we know is that he has a strained relationship with his wife and that he wants to see his son. Then all hell breaks loose. People transform into angry zombies after a weird signal is transmitted through their phones. There were some fairly shocking scenes of horror, such as a woman ramming her head into a wall continuously - but overall, we've all seen this before in much much better movies.
Cusack eventually befriends Jackson's character and they go on a journey to find his wife and son, while picking up characters along the way. Cell would have been a lot better if the characters were actually interesting, but there are no redeeming qualities about any of them. They're as exciting as cardboard, with even duller personalities. Cusack seems to be chugging along and speaking all his lines in a low raspy voice, I guess to seem more dramatic - but his lines have no significance, so it's the opposite of dramatic. It's boring.
There are also plot holes galore, with everything important left unexplained. Who's the man in the red hoodie? Why does he pop-up everywhere? There is some gibberish about what the zombies are and how they get created, but there isn't any payoff - and there doesn't seem to be any rules. How come some people become cell phone zombies and some people don't? They're all hearing the same signal. I can understand if this movie was trying to symbolically represent our modern day society and over-reliance on technology, but it doesn't do that well at all. There are no parallels drawn or even characters that care. They all just chug along with no purpose. Just like this movie.
And if you make it to the end, prepare to be disappointed even more. This movie feels incomplete and lazy. Like everyone making it just wanted to finish it and get on with their lives. I would not recommend it. Watch 2007's The Signal instead (a somewhat similar tech-horror anthology movie, but much much better done).
Ink (2009)
Fooled again, shame on me
So it seems that there is a plague of undeserved positive reviews infecting review sites such as IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes. Call them what you want: shills, fakes, imposters, plants. Whatever you decide to call them, one thing is certain: the praise they pour onto bad films is usually easily spotted because of their generic sounding reviews. "This film is a miracle!", "Greatest accomplishment in cinematic history!", "My favorite film of all time!". All these people love this movie and yet no one has heard of it? It hasn't won any awards? Absolutely no one is talking about the movie except these "reviewers"? And you tend to find that the more truthful reviews (aka negative reviews) end up getting buried far down the review pages. So after being duped a couple of times, here's a tip on how to spot bad movies masquerading as good movies on IMDb. Look for the bad reviews. See what the discrepancy between the positive reviews and the negative reviews are. If the positive reviews are all giving the movie 9 and 10 stars and calling it amazing, and the negative reviews are giving it 3 stars and under - and there doesn't seem to be any in-between, then you've got yourself a real good candidate for a bad movie.
Ink is one of those real bad movies that miraculously got amazing reviews on Rotten Tommatoes and IMDb. The good reviews are just praising this movie like it's a Best Picture contender, while I had to scroll pretty far down to find any negative reviews. That right there tells me that someone has a lot of friends drumming up some hype for them. Within the first five minutes of watching Ink I could immediately tell that this was amateur hour. When the best actor in the entire movie is a six year old girl, you know you've got problems. The movie starts off looking like a film school short (but alas, this movie is almost two hours long - and it felt like 2 years).
The first lines yelled unconvincingly was three "f*cks" as a guy is driving a car down the road. Cliché. Then we get a ton of editing cuts, and I mean a ton. You know what the easiest way to spot a bad movie is? When a director needs to use 500 cuts for two minutes of footage. We start off with random strangers in their beds sleeping and the camera never stops moving for what is supposed to be peaceful sleeping. It just goes all over the place with cut after cut after cut. Next we get a fight scene in a house between some good Dream Warriors and a bad dream warrior. The cuts were down right nauseating. Incomprenhisible action. 10 cuts were used just for running down the hall.
And then those Adobe After Effects filters. My God, someone just used the entire library of filters for one movie. Every single scene had a different filter effect. Between the editing and the filters, you could tell this director was just trying to put lipstick on a pig. I won't spoil the movie, for those that may actually want to sludge through the entire thing, but let's just say there's a twist ending - that you can spot from a mile away if you pay attention (and let me tell you, it's damn near impossible to pay attention to the entire movie. You deserve an award if you manage to make it all the way to the end without falling asleep).
The acting in Ink range from "surprisingly decent for a child actor" to "mentally disabled adult" (aka 1,2,3,4 guy). I'm sorry, usually I can forgive a film for raw acting, but when it's a combination of bad dialogue and reading straight from a cue card - that's where I draw the line. And I've read that they made this movie for $250,000!! I'm sure all that money went straight into the prosthetics for Ink's nose.
Now I'll give credit where credit's due. The main little girl actress is too good to be in something this bad. She was the only believable thing in this whole movie (and that's including a dead corpse in a coffin). The only person who didn't look like they were acting. The lead actor (John) was serviceable. He had some decent diarrhea faces when he was sad and some OK constipation faces for when he was angry. And there were actually some good inventive characters. Mainly the evil Dream warriors who gave nightmares to the sleeping people. I thought the combination of the video screens over the faces with the eerie smiles and static was fairly well done, and very reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's work. Also, every so often there would be a well-composed shot or sequence that made me think that the director might have a little bit of talent (such as the butterfly effect sequence involving the car crash).
But the sum total of the movie does not a good film make. It's laborious, laughable, and lame. It's a shame too, because under the right guidance, the story itself could have been quite interesting. I could have seen it evoking a Labyrinth-type design and journey.
Please please please, if you end up watching this movie because of all the positive reviews you read - just turn it off early when you start to ask yourself "It must get better right?? The reviews are too good!". It doesn't get better. There's no transcendent moment that makes you go "It was worth it.". There's no redemption at all. The reviews are a lie. Just like the cake.
Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010)
Tomorrow, When I've Purged This Movie From My Mind...
Tomorrow, When the War Began is a film made specifically for pre-teens and idiots. If you fall into any of these categories, then you'll love it. Just read any of the IMDb reviews under 5 stars and you'll know exactly what the problems are with this "film". Aside from the nice production values, this movie pretty much falters from the start. Rather than repeat everything that has already been stated, I'll just write a quick synopsis for this film from the viewpoint of a teenager:
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"Hey, let's do something fun!"
"Sure!"
"Ok. Let's go on a camping trip!"
"But we need to make sure we bring a diverse and stereotypical group of people we don't really know, with us. You know, since we're popular and beautiful but don't have any friends."
"Good idea!"
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"Oh no! A war has started in our town. Bummer!"
"That sucks! Let's talk about boys!"
"Ok!"
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"Sometimes...when I'm bored, I like to philosophise about what it means to really "kill" somebody. To take away everything they've ever had. And then wonder to myself, "What is MY life worth?".
"Then I like to talk about boys!"
"Me too!"
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"I'm pretty sure we're wayyyyy smarter than these organized army dudes who managed to take over our our entire country"
"We're soooo wayyyy smarter!"
"Ok, let's blow some sh*t up and teach these guys who's boss! Gasoline explodes like C4, right?"
"It sure does!"
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"It's like we're fighting Storm Troopers or something! These guys couldn't hit the broad side of a barn."
"I know, I've been totally running around aimlessly for like 30 minutes - and look: No bullets have touched me."
"Pretty sure we're invincible."
"Like Jesus!"
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"Well, that cow idea was genius dude! Who knew we could defeat an entire army with cows on a bridge?"
"We're gonna have hamburgers tonight!"
"Hold your horses, we gotta blow up this bridge first."
"Lame."
"Good thing their huge army can't hear all the fuss we're making or send out any kind of radio communication, or we'd all be in trouble."
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"We're so hardcore now!"
"Badass soldiers with guns!"
"Let's kill some sh*t!"
"But let's makeout with some boys first!"
-THE END-