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Reviews
Another Life (2019)
Another Freeform original? Where are the Vampires?
I guess in the future they will be raiding the local community colleges and coffee shops for the hero's to save the world because they don't want to pay better then minimum wage? I guess the "olds" (anyone over 27) who've got the real experience and years of knowledge needed to be trusted to do something of such great importance were all too busy counting their money for the job.
For comparison sake, Neil Armstrong was about 40 when he went to the moon. The latest group of astronauts today (Group 22) was selected in 2007 and are between 29 and 42...that's before a mandatory 2 years of training before even being eligible for any mission. But Netflix's crew is already experienced. They must have been doing this since they were 16.
Look, I get that Netflix is purposely targeting their mostly younger demographics (16-23 years old) who like to see people the can relate to and who are "Hawt!" doing important things and leading important lives, but would it be a sin to have at least one character who's slightly graying or at least old enough to have enough experience at their jobs to be believable? Yes it's sci-fi, but there has to be some bit of plausibility to it all to even suspend disbelief. Do the even the younger people watching this say: "Wait, where's the grown up?"
The best and most qualified to send out to interact with aliens in a galaxy light years away, is kids who've probably just started paying back their students loan, if they were even in college at all? Kids that think 27 years old is basically death.
Seriously, this Doogie Howser/The O.C. approach to everything Netflix does whether it's cutting edge Biomedical research, to the biggest brightest minds saving the planet from extinction is painful awful to watch.
Of course they hit all the hot and trending social topics like having a woman prove she better than a man and lead the way, and a token transsexual character who's also Asian just to get all their based covered. There's even a abortion dilemma brought up because boning on a space mission is like a totally legit thing.
But even with all that obnoxious preface, the content is also abysmal. Of course because the people actually watching this trite fiction are a product of today's public school system (if that) and nowhere near educated enough, they have to explain every little thing in dialog, like what infrasonic is (to the older person because only young scientists in the future will know that cutting edge concept), while at the same time not bothering to cover why they can holograhically video chat from light years away in delay free, real time!
That's right, they've perfected faster than light travel (obviously because they were orbiting another star in a month), can video chat in real time from across the galaxy (when it takes 2 seconds just to send audio from the moon) but still use clunky dysfunctional microwaves on their space craft. That and you'd expect this crew to be professional, but the conversations and behaviors are juvenile to say the least and similar to what you'd experience in a mall food court. Well hey, at least they are dressed appropriately ...for the mall that is.
Of course they were out walking around breathing without a space suit on the first planet they landed on (hard to look good with a helmet on) and I won't even get into what weird winged creature they encounter in episode one. I'll say I was expecting old 70's era Sleestak from Land of the Lost to show up, but sadly that didn't happen.
Salvation (2017)
Not enough substance...too much relationship fodder
I like the subject matter but there's too much relationship drama and predictable adolescent interactions with a cast that quite frankly, was designed for a demographic younger than me. The so-called "smartest person on the planet" looks like he might have just recently finished his post-grad studies and we're supposed to believe he's already got this mega corporation and the worlds respect for what he hasn't been alive long enough to create yet earn. The casting smacks of Hero's meets 90210. The 18-30 year old target audience will probably love all the cute people and wondering about who's going to get with who, but I just can't get behind it enough as a sci-fi drama because of the Freeform level casting.
Rest Stop (2006)
Sooooo bad
"Ohhh Jessie...I'm so sorry Jessie! Boo hoo hoo!!!" Umm Jessie was an adolescent idiot and a jerk to you. If the psycho didn't kill you he surely would have either by accident or intentionally. Who here cared about Jessie dying? Me neither.
Look, I get the cheesy 1980's B grade slasher flick it was trying to emulate, i grew up on that stuff, but even with that in mind it was too poorly done. What eventually killed it for me was the needlessly drawn out "tell my kids I love them" scene with the dying cop on the floor of the restroom, that I swear was 1/3 of the movie, or at least if sure felt like it. I still don't think the cop is dead, he's probably telling some other unfortunate girl about his family this very second. What was the point of all that? Jezzus! And this cop didn't have a gun that she could have used? This cop - who was clearly as dumb and useless a cop as there ever has been, and just a prop to be quickly killed off after 2 minutes in - deserved to have probably 60% of the dialog in the entire movie tied up in a pointless death bed scene?!
But so much of it was poorly acted or just badly directed that it became tiresome even before that really, but you stick around watching anyway hoping maybe something will happen worth seeing to salvage your already invested time, but it never happens and it only gets more frustrating the deeper in you get. You know a movie is bad when you are rooting for the killer instead of the hero/heroine very early on just to end the misery ASAP.
Oh, almost forget...the part where she's drenched in gas that she was siphoning from under the car to make a molotov cocktail?...who was hoping she'd catch herself on fire like like what would have happened in reality when she lit the thing? (raises arm) Me too! That would have made it all worth it! But no, it didn't happen. :( She lites in, throws it at the car hood, it catches it on fire, and your supposed to believe the crazy man just sits there reading Yelp reviews for the time needed for the car to finally explode, and then: "Oh my god, he's no in the car? Really? Really.
Final Score (2018)
If having your intelligence insulted is your game, this is your kinda movie.
Are people in the UK oblivious to anything but soccer...sorry, football? It seems you can have raging shootouts involving military helicopters and motorcycles driving through the stadium and jumping from rooftops and no watching the game notices. I mean, I get the whole suspend your disbelief thing, but at least try to make it look like there was reason for the myopic behavior other than a game on the field.
They also don't notice a very bloodied large man walking around looking like he was in a car accident, yet draws no attention by even the security...until he runs on the field that is. Don't mess with the game buddy! Typical hooligan I guess. Based on this, I'm pretty sure much of the UK will not know when WWIII starts because you know...football!
Add to that the typical 100 or so moments where normal people in similar situation would be easily killed by getting an iron pipe smashed off their head several times, or punched and kicked in the face repeatedly, aaaaand the status quo 85 lb angry girl who can lay waste to a 280 lb ex-soldier who just moments before did pretty well for himself taking care of a 350 muscled freak of nature, and you have the modern action fantasy in it's finest form, with not even a hint of believability because, why bother? This genre is about as plot-centric as low grade porn.
It's just too much when you ad it all up to give it more than 4 stars as the plot is too thin to carry it regardless of the copious amounts of drama-tinted destruction tacked on that humans obviously thirst for.
Blood Money (2017)
What was the point of it all?
Other than Cusack adding cred to a poorly written, poorly shot and edited (HS A.V. class level scene transitions) and questionably directed movie giving it a 2-star rating at all, I don't know what I'm supposed to make of it, or how I should I feel about the ending.
Let's make this real short: We have 3 very juvenile bro and bro-chick characters being idiotic college age Do The Dew pals on a rafting/hiking adventure, with the sole/lead female character being a people-using psychopath who takes advantage at every turn her bro pals obvious desire to be with her and have sex with her to get what she wants. She decides early on the money they find (Cusack's, but it really doesn't matter) was more important than her friends lives (friends as far as we'll bang but after that you're dead to me...literally), or her own for that matter and her friends ultimately are killed by her (actually twice for the one character) in their attempt to make her happy and make her like them and be their GF..
Cusack's character is eventually killed by one of the guys - the one who was already intentionally killed once by the insane girl just minutes a earlier - in an attempt to save her yet again before she kills him (again), and at this point, you're thinking, the only thing that will save this movie is her having her face chewed off by a bear, but no, she ultimately lives and takes the money with her. The End.
How am I supposed to feel about this? The unlikable character with the nice a$$ gets to live at the expense of her naive so-called friends lives? Idiot friends who's only real character flaw was their un-squashable desire to get into this girls pants. Maybe if there will be a sequel where we can't again root for her to finally and deservedly die - like Jason or Freddie Kruger - it would sorta make sense in retrospect, but I don't think that's going to happen here.
Somehow the director and writer thought that the appropriate ending would be for the murderer with serious mental problems but pretty, should live on in a Lifetime Original "woman's heroic story of survival against all odds" kinda moment. Anyway, I was looking through the credits to find out if maybe Casey Anthony or Jodi Arias were the writers or heart-felt inspiration for this train wreck but sadly, found nothing.
Emelie (2015)
The writing/charter development was sub-par
Who is this babysitter? They really give little to no build up or insight as to her motives and personality. Although you can tell very quickly she's going to be a bad egg before she even gets into the house, they don't give you any back story as to why and even throughout the movie, you never really find out anything other than she must have lost a child (boy) of her own (How? Who knows) but that's about it. Pretty shallow.
The opening abduction scene never really ties into the rest of the story either. Who's the blonde girl who was abducted. Who's the guy working with her that eventually crashes his car into the car the parents were riding in at the end? He killed himself doing it, so was he purposely buying her the time she needed, or was it accidental? The body of the early abductee was in it, but was she dead already, or was it from he crash? Why don't we see his face? Why was she abducted. What does it have to do with anything?
Also, the are many instances for the kids to escape her, or to let others know she was a psycho that makes everything harder to swallow. Anyone who has/knows kids know none of this would play out like it did. Finally, the ending with how the kids escape her and are rescued came abruptly without a whole lot of drama, action, or thrill that movies like this typically end with. It was like they allowed the Hallmark Channel or ABC Family to produce the last 10 minutes.
I mean; I've seen Sesame Street characters go down harder than this wacko babysitter and we all knew she wasn't going to be there in the driveway when the they got back to the house. I get the director was going for almost a Halloween type ending so the character could return for a sequel(s), which is why she was "gently" run over, but it all failed miserably.
I wasn't expecting much from this movie to begin with, but even for what it was, it wasn't very good at all.
John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
Less character development, same results
As a whole, the movie played out the same as the original, although lacking some of the dry humor and things that would make you root more for Wick that the original had. What I fail to understand was the unneeded femme fatale character like in the first Wick movie that has no character build-up or back story. Who is she? All I could gauge was she's a smartass with the intimidating physical attributes of a 13- year old child and yet we wait through her hiding behind every other bad guy he could possibly fight/kill to die first for the ending and for her to be taken out as easily as well...fighting a child should take.
At least they didn't make it as painful as it could have been and had her actually give him a real scare for his life like everyone with clue knew would be more fantasy than him killing a guy with a pencil through the back of the head. Why is it these movie always have to have a character like this who after dealing with real imposing and capable bad asses the whole time, being giving either a chauffeured villain who's been pampered his whole life and who's blood is half crème fraîche, or a 85 lb sexy hot (but with attitude of course) woman who even if her ninja like, cat quick reflexes were all that, couldn't kill a fly with a round house kick to it's cranium, to fight?
I mean; I realize all of it is fantasy and Wick realistically should have died 5 minutes into the first movie, and having a tough gal with a great ass is somehow mandatory now for flicks like this anymore, but my intelligence would have been less insulted if the movie was about a dwarf woman who wanted to play Inside LB for the Bears and got the start after she proved she could get to the QB and chew on his calf with her wicked smarts and hard to catch elusiveness that her pet ferret taught her. Enough already. If they simply must (new SAG law) have to employ a woman in the role of "tougher than 99% of the men" in flicks like this, can they at least make her somewhat believable physically?
Arrival (2016)
I love these kinds of movies!
Why? Because I love good thought invoking sci-fi but mostly because these are the movies that when the reviews come out you can easily separate the small-minded folk with no imagination and lack empathy over, well...those who aren't those kind of people. You can imagine as you're watching it all the people who are frustrated with things like conceptual/hypothetical thinking just squirming in their seats when forced to deal with their own shallow incompetence.
The "Duh, I don't get it, it's got no plot derrrr"..."I don't understand this mumbo-jumbo liberal stuff!" people with the inability to follow a movie unless it's spelled out for them every 5 minutes, is especially interesting for a movie like this because well, those would be the folks wanting to "blow it up" cause of they fear and want to kill things I can't understand or control. Basically, Trump voters...you know, Morons.
People who can't follow this movie without a seeing eye dog and find it "boring" are those who probably don't read anything other than twitter feeds and chain restaurant drive through menus.
I know it's frustrating because of the lack of "spolsions" or gratuitous T&A shots, but it's a sci-fi drama folks. Please do us all a favor and stick to the remedial level Fast and Furious, Ron Burgundy, or Kung Fu Panda flicks when you decide to choose a movie to watch so we don't have to sort through every other review being a 1-star rated 3rd grade hill billy comment that includes the one word you use often that you think makes you appear intelligent but you either spell it incorrectly, or use it wrong.
That said; they did need to better explain and tie up the lose ends. I know they kind of left it open to interpretation and the film probably ran longer than they wanted but leaving it hang was kind of frustrating. What "unstoppable" disease killed her daughter, what was the help humans would give to the Heptapods? Why were the Heptapods ultimately there for? Was it solely to give them the gift of non- linear time so they can help them as well? Other than that, I enjoyed the basic story line and the direction for the most part, as well as the acting. If the movie was about 30 minutes longer, it would have been better.