Change Your Image
vosnovyanenko
Reviews
Cypher (2002)
Freaky turns silly
I won't repeat what the others have said already. So here's what got me.
Without explaining who these corporations were and what their "operations" were, it felt as if I was watching a spy parody. You get these typical tropes like a double agent, a data disk, and evil corporations.
I am sorry that I like smart movies. Because smart movies explain everything in detail. For me, it felt like the corporations' whole purpose was to spy on each other. That's it.
What's funnier is how you get these third-party spies who hire each other lol. Well, at least the ending was twisty, although predictable a little bit.
Anyway, good luck rewatching this film.
Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
1 star not for hate, for wasted time
As an old prequel-born (yeah, I know, that's not very old but still) fan of SW Universe, I've tried enjoying the last SW movies as much as possible, despite that EP7 copied EP4 or EP8 featured canon-breaking and more philosophical scenes. I really did. I was like one of the few people who had gone "haters gonna hate" and stuff, but this movie - it's like a plan B, a second Death Star, to destroy all support in the fans who wanted some consistency.
Alright. Enough whining. Straight to the facts.
1. Palpatine has returned. My futile hope that Palpatine is alive based on the trailer is dead. This is such an annoying film cliche and a sign that your project is running out of plot, and you need to monetize it badly - you return a character from the dead. Not just a character, the character - who was the main antagonist of Darth Vader arch.
Why would you bring back another emperor after Kylo killed him already? Why couldn't you show the main conflict between Kylo and Rey? Instead, they have denominated the prophecy of Anakin, making Rey the chosen one because she brought the FINAL balance to the galaxy. Garbage and non-sense. You don't need the whole Palpatine to make Rey heroic.
2. Original trilogy patterns. Playing safe didn't work out the second time. I thought Abrams had figured out after EP7 that rehearsing the same plot looks stupid. This time, he has gone as far as making another Han Solo in Poe Dameron, a war-pilot who suddenly has connections to smugglers and underworld. If you haven't seen this transformation yet, notice how he fights with Rey the same way Solo and Leia did. You also get to see a green planet (this time it's a jungle dome).
What's really stupid is how Snoke in EP8 has shown Rey through the window that the Resistance is going to die (Like Palpatine has shown it to Luke in EP6). In EP9, there's the same scene. You don't even need to copy from the previous trilogy, you just go full-meta.
3. Missed opportunities. The fan-based theories were much more interesting to explore. The idea that Kylo and Rey could have switched sides, or that Finn could have liberated stormtroopers by telling his personal story. All these ideas would have contributed much more depth to character development.
4. Inconsistency. A good story for another time. The Chekhov's gun that never shoots. I understand that EP8 was shot by another director, two directors with different visions competing with each other at the cost of the beloved Universe. That's why you see Rey's parents being no-one and then suddenly becoming the children of Palpatine with no backstory. That's why you see that after the death of the emperor Snoke, Abrams resists and puts a "new" one anyway. That's why you see Finn being in love with Rey again. There are a lot of inconsistencies that don't make sense, and inconsistencies are a sign of a bad quality writing, which is a domain of fan-made content (there are some good fan-made SW clips though).
5. Politics. You see, I support LGBT rights. In fact, as much as I support homosexual, female, and animals rights - anyone's rights really. I also believe that a 70s-era movie should stay just that. If you put in cultural evolution as a sign that SW Universe is advancing, you might as well put in some new radical technology too. I don't mean light-speed trackers or flying stormtroopers, I'm talking Internet here. Have you seen how Finn had to transfer a message for the resistance using a long-ass cable?
I mean if you show LGBT people kissing, you might as well add other advances of the society, but that wouldn't be Star Wars then, would it? Then what's the difference between a cultural and a scientific advancement? It both ruins the magic of that world. Don't use a fairy tale for your preaching, as if this trilogy doesn't scream new age ideas. I'd be perfectly fine with that in new IP set in space, but not in the 70s-era space.
6. Ren Knights are a joke. They should have definitely used them in EP8 instead of praetorian guards.
7. Endgame ending much? I'm pretty sure they edited Iron Man's speech and just went with it.
The only thing that I liked are the first 10 minutes: mighty Kylo wiping out a settlement to find an ancient relic that leads him to dark and thundery planet, walking below the narrowest structure, going deep in the ancient temple. And then it hits you - why tf is Palpatine alive?
Sventasis (2016)
Driven by atmosphere - not by plot
I saw this title yesterday, on a film festival in Kyiv. I gotta admit, as Ukrainian, this movie was plain boring. I mean I know what I was signing up for anyway - Indie films with no Hollywood patterns - cool. But this was just too realistically gray and dull for a viewer who has been living in a post-Soviet country.
You get to see an apathetic protagonist with a classic Russian chav attitude (save the utmost pathetic image of a drunk, thank you very much). Vytas is a struggling mechanic who just lost his job. With a help of the state, he tries to land a job as a mechanic yet again. However, given the chance, Vytas flunks it because he has a very dry personality - he reveals no hobbies and interests (except for the formulaic "sports") or rather he decides to hide that his hobbies include drinking beer with classmates on the streets (again, a very common activity for post-Soviet countries).
But then things spice up with an affair. Vytas spends time with his new female friend who trimmed his hair that one time, which led to her assistance with a business outfit at a clothes store. He then takes her for a few walks, sometimes alcohol-included. Vytas has a very closed personality. He is not straightforward with his feelings. Instead of inviting his new love interest to a walk with a chat, he chooses a silly reason - trimming his barely visible hair while slipping the fact that he was not accepted for a job. He then thanks her for a what-is-hard-to-call-a-trim-at-all.
You might think Vytas would up his game with a new love interest but no. He is so miserable that after announcing to his wife that he is leaving her, he unsuccessfully tries to move in to the hairdresser's apartment. He probably didn't even consider the fact that she lives with her parents. The result? He drinks a tea with her in silence and then leaves her. No chat about his feelings, no revelations, just a visualized part of his misery. I could only wonder how he got married in the first place.
Between these colorless drama episodes, there is a subplot about a guy who allegedly saw Jesus on the wall. The best friend of Vytas is trying to find the guy. Upon seeing the scene where the best friend serves a ceremonial role in church, you might get an idea that he wants too see Jesus for himself. Nope, his first reaction when he finally found the guy was to beat him up on the ground (Christian, am I rye?). A scene later, Vytas, his friend, and the "psycho" meet at that very Jesus wall, with no Jesus in sight. The end.
While the summary of a film suggests there is a theme of success and failures, I, for one, think The Saint was about the concepts of hope, faith, and miracles. Vytas believed he would land a job, he also hoped to start a new relationship, and he probably expected Jesus to turn up on that wall. He put his faith into these things instead of applying the efforts, thus failing at each "challenge". You can spot the pattern of expecting a miracle this way: Vytas signed up for a job searching list, expecting a job to find him; Vytas started spending time with a female, expecting her to show her feelings to him; Vytas looked at the wall expecting Jesus. This whole time he was just standing there and expecting something to happen. It didn't.
As a side note, the absence of Christ on the wall put Vytas back to reality because he realized how meaningless his attempts at getting a job and getting laid were. Just like religion gives people hope and a sense of Apophenia, Vytas thought of the new job and a new lover as a game-changer in his life but these things were not special, as the wall implies so.
Personally, I think a viewer from Western culture would appreciate this film more than I did because they'd get an insight into the life of generic civilians from post-Soviet countries. A lot of people from these states continue to live the lives illustrated in the movie to this day, that I can tell.