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mikey79
Reviews
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
Weak finale
Compared to previous films in this series this is truly disappointing. As a stand alone film it's almost on a par with the Mummy - action and hokey history mixed with the usual bad guys v hugely outgunned good guys. Blah.
There's some woeful dialogue, from the teenage Moroccan kid mostly, and also some pointless characters along the way too but the main protagonists (some of which are big names, such as Banderas making his usual Puss in Boots like cameo) were a real let down. The female lead especially, a typical English woman usually plays this role and so it be here too! Even the 60s look and feel is kinda lost.
I guess the one plus point is the CGI - they manage to make Ford look young at the start and that's impressive. But overall not a great film. Shame.
Special Ops: Lioness (2023)
Claptrap
This is what Hollywood has come to, making obvious and repetitive dramas with but peppered with incredibly unlikely circumstances like this one.
A female led CIA squad takes on ISIS or whoever (generic Islamic terrorist org). That would be such a strategic error - they would have the biggest targets on their backs it would make the whole thing untenable. Anyway, apart from that this series is so packed full of patriotic-jumbo, and it's almost as if this only got made because of the one element that makes it 1% different to everything else they make (the female angle).
If you like the usual, run of the mill series (even the musical intro has been done 100s of times now) then this is for you but don't watch it expecting anything new.
PAW Patrol (2013)
I mean the kid likes it but
The one thing I'll say (and I don't usually review cartoons!) is that the voices in the British Netflix version are just awful. Even my 3 year old asked "why is he talking like that?" There's no acting involved it's just like they're reading their lines!
At least the US version involves actual actors who put feeling (I guess) into playing magic dogs who can drive jeeps or random helicopters.
Anyway, the cartoon itself is fun but I'm amazed they stretched it out for so many episodes - the premise of some billionaire kid and his menagerie of animals constantly saving one town (that seems to be full of the most clumsy people ever) got thin quickly :D.
Pathaan (2023)
American inspired rubbish
As cheesy as Indian films used to be they were distinctly Indian. What Bollywood has done these last few years, and which is most apparent in this film, is that now Indian screen writers or directors just pitch an idea by comparing it and copying American films. So here we have a complete rip off of Mission Impossible and the last couple of Bond films.
I can't even list the plot holes, glaringly idiotic moments, and terrible fight scenes as you probably know about them already.
People will watch this because it's SRK (or is it Captain Jack Sparrow?) and Deepika but she looks totally out of place in the film and even the Salman Khan cameo looks forced.
India needs to stop making these dumb overly patriotic "Jai Hind!!" films and go back to the basics.
Quarterback (2023)
Really dull
When I first saw this advertised I was seriously excited although the inclusion of Cousins and Mariota was a bit perplexing, the former is a decent league QB, gets good stats but is otherwise quite...boring, and the latter seems to be on his way down but I guess they gambled on him having a comeback season. Anyway they secured Mahomes which was a bit of a coup I felt.
What you're left with is footage of Mahomes making a bit of a fool of himself time and again, I mean he's just so one dimensional and cringe. He's surrounded by 'yes friends' in addition to his horrible wife and even worse brother which doesn't help. I found him the hardest to watch in fact, at times it was just painful especially after the game against the Raiders where they didn't edit out him telling the same story again and again.
Cousins comes across as likeable but you don't really get much out of him otherwise, and Mariota was a wasted opportunity - he was potentially the most interesting as he struggled to adapt to a new team and not being the main guy anymore. But hope here's more footage of Mahomes' wife.
If they do make another series I hope they choose better candidates because this was pretty weak.
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Overrated and loses direction
Ok so yes a lot of the reviews on here are right, I have no idea why this film was so highly rated by the academy. It was probably political, and some of the performances weren't that outstanding (JL Curtis in particular).
I feel that despite its efforts to be groundbreaking it's neither that new (other films have handled the whole multiple universe thing better) nor deep (the tedious interaction between Jobu and Evelyn was meant to make us think...but it was trite and shallow and overly obvious).
It's a film of two halves, which is done on purpose, and it starts off excitingly - there's a baddie and a goodie and one has to prevail. A good amount of people die at the hands of Jobu. She's cruel and unforgiving. Sets it up nicely. Unfortunately in the second half the whole thing unravels, it gets lost and slightly preachy and also the humour just doesn't work. The ending is saccharine, and left me feeling...meh. What about all the innocent dead people? It's as if they ran out of ideas and went for the easiest option which again is not very groundbreaking. Just the usual Hollywood fare but with some good fight scenes because of the actors involved.
Kandahar (2023)
Ummmm this is the same film as Covenant
Has nobody told anyone that this film has been made twice in 2023, once with Jake Gyll as the US Army sergeant who gets lost behind enemy lines with an afghan translator and now this with Gerard Butler doing exactly the same thing. Why the heck has this been done twice?? The covenant was bad enough and I could only take a few minutes of this before I a) realised it was the same film and b) realised I can't watch Butler just as much as I can't stand Jake Gyll.
Maybe they should be like third time lucky and make a comedy version of this with Chris Pratt as the US Army dude and Jonny Depp as his local guide?
The Covenant (2023)
Mid level war movie
Ok for a start let's just put it out there that the US totally didn't help their afghan interpreters, a lot of whom were murdered by the Taliban which Guy Ritchie rightly points out at the end of the film with quite a touching photo montage. Despicable.
But anyway the film itself is good in parts, the role of Ahmed is well acted (despite having a bit of an American accent which nobody wants to explain!) and the other supporting actors also do well, Jonny Lee Millar especially. My main issue is Jake Gyll who is incredibly wooden throughout, he's almost Clint Eastwood-esque! Not a great performance by him and I feel he's wrong for the role.
Also, the action shots seem a bit B-movie, I don't know why but the Taliban come across like a bunch of extras running about in a bad ninja film, just cannon fodder in these giant gun battles which Ritchie peppers throughout the film. His directing is more haphazard than usual so be prepared for alot of random camera angles as Jake goes through a bit of a hallucination sequence, close up shots of faces gurning and distorted sounds. All very film school but a bit passé now.
It was entertaining at times but ultimately left you feeling let down, the end was totally ridiculous and unrealistic but even then in a giant denouement, Jake just planked his way through it like a big fence post. There are so many better war films out there.
Sebastian Maniscalco: Is It Me? (2022)
How the mighty have fallen
Such a shame - I'm a huge fan of Maniscalco's earlier work, he was razor sharp in the early part of his career and midway through he developed and added a touch of panache to his comedy and delivery, he was becoming more finessed, more lightning quick, but not at the expense of his comedy...his take on life, and his stories. They were both excellent.
I feel now, and with this special, something has changed. Has he been too famous for too long, too rich? He seems more distant from his audience, perplexed by people who aren't like him, moaning about banal occurrences or little quibbles which he can't now turn into a funny story. It ends up sounding just like a middle age man whining for the sake of it. He also looks in terrible shape, like any kind of movement on his part would set him off on a burping fit weirdly. He even touches upon it during the stand up that he's out of shape.
Hopefully this is a minor blip but I guess it shows nobody stays funny forever, as their circumstances change they change as people and lose what made them hilarious in the first place.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Disappointed
I have to say...as a kid who grew up on the Mario games I'm massively disappointed with this adaptation. Nintendo would've vetted every part of the film of course but I'm amazed they signed off this version, full of lazy humour and typical Hollywood repartee, plus the occasional reference to the game now and then as if they'd forgotten they needed to reflect it (as an after thought).
Anyway the modern kids will probably like it I'm sure but as someone who loved the NES and SNES versions of the game it's not for me, nor will the likely countless sequels be as the Americans squeeze every bit of money out of yet another franchise!
Indian Matchmaking (2020)
So many stereotypes
Yes it's full of stereotypes and portrays Indians as overly superficial and superstitious in a lot of ways. The premise is fun, an old aunt from India tries to match young people all over the world from Indian backgrounds.
Where it all gets a bit dull is by the third series they try to focus on creating a celebrity out of some of the people. So some of them are truly awful and of course they make good tv, which means they tend to get the most screen time. Aparna (series 1) comes across as a true psychopath, like she is seriously deranged. Arti (series 3) is another case in point, she actually leaves the experiment and chooses her own partner and yet we still have to listen to her droning on.
At least by series 3 they focus more on the auntie and how she started her career which is slightly more interesting but it doesn't resolve the issue that the show is full of fake old fashioned portrayals.
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
Overly bloated film
Firstly the positives, the CGI looks good (weirdly tho not the Avatars themselves at times). The nature shots are beautiful and it's clever how they've introduced different types of Avatar people into the planet which we weren't aware of before. Did the war not affect them at all you wonder...
It's a simple revenge movie yes, but we all knew that the human army would return. Altho not with Carmela Soprano as their general! Anyway...
Where this film fails for me is how long it is but also how it dwells on some scenes for far too long. It's almost like it's so smug with how it looks it forgets to continue with the story. At one point I almost forgot there was a plot happening, because they dwelt for so long on a sub story with a giant whale. The new characters aren't solid either and take valuable screen time away from the main 'heroes' and villain, who are more interesting as protagonists. The children are just so....annoying. The way they talk and interact will date terribly. One of them (Kiri) is totally obsolete but is thrust on us far too much without any real need. The human friend (Spider) also seems contrived and redundant.
All in all this film could've been 45 mins shorter and would've been just as good if not better. Makes you wonder what they'll do next.
Next in Fashion (2020)
Probably the worst show ever made
Such an asinine and pointless show, everyone takes themselves so seriously - you can imagine the presenters and creators thinking that the fashion industry actually makes a difference to life. It's just fluff. Also, who on earth are the presenters? One is a stylist (I think) who probably is the kind of guy that makes someone's life hell for getting his Starbucks order wrong, and the other is a psychotic looking stick insect who dresses like an 8 year old girl.
It's like project runway of course, a total rip off, but without the hilarity and tongue in cheeky nature of the show and the personality of Kors or the warmth of Tim Gunn.
What gets annoying apart from how staged it is that any time someone mentions a celeb, or a celeb turns up to help judge, everyone just loses their freaking minds. It's embarrassing. The fashion shows too and the judging are so over the top, it's almost as if they're committing someone to the electric chair. It all shows how pointless the fashion industry really is.
Babylon (2022)
Disappointing and overly long
I was more disappointed than anything else with Babylon as I was very much looking forward to seeing a film about Hollywood's golden era. It fell rather flat unfortunately and just ended up dragging on, as most films made by Hollywood about Hollywood tend to do. They're incapable of being unbiased I suppose.
What irked me a little too was the disservice they did to some of the stars, Pitt hammed it up as he usually does now so well, like his role in Bullet Train but set in the past, Robbie looked like she'd stepped out of a 1980s music video (with 2008 dance moves) not like a 1920s starlet, and Calva spends most of the film looking gormless.
It felt more like a copy and paste job of some other films like The Great Gatsby in some places and nothing about it felt new, in fact Singing in the Rain still tackles this period the best and that was made in 1952!
The Fabelmans (2022)
Yawn fest
I imagine the reason people review this so highly is basically because it's a Spielberg film. Nothing more. Professional critics dare give it a low score which spills over onto IMDb reviews so of course everyone fawns over it.
It's basically a look back at Spielberg's own childhood and tells how he fell in love with film. In between all this is a family secret that's so obvious you see it almost immediately. I'm sure Spielberg loved to go back into his past and reimagine his child and young adulthood but for outsiders it's completely dull. It doesn't focus enough on the look and feel of the era, taking the viewer themself back to that time as Scorsese tends to do. No. It's just all about Sammy (Spielberg) and his idiotic dad, and crazy mum. Self obsessed nonsense. Total borefest.
The Menu (2022)
Horror-ible
I can see why this film elicited such great reviews, it's different at least to the usual Hollywood fare - but that's it's only redeeming feature: a bunch of people go to a fancy restaurant on an island and the evening starts to unravel as the demented chef punishes them for some wrong doing or other. The characters too are almost a little overly stereotypical. The finance guys, the washed up film star, the sterile and annoying Tyler guy. And so on.
It's just at the source of it all a little daft. You know what's coming but even then it's just trite and stupid - without wanting to spoil it the plot doesn't hold together in so many ways - how the photos were taken for the tacos, why the staff would take part in such idiotic actions, like seriously why! And what if some guests didn't come and then ruined the whole plan and so on...it's a little yawnsome after a while and not even Fiennes performance can save it.
Aladdin (2019)
Terrible adaptation
Firstly why mess with a classic but ok they want to milk some money out of the film and it's been nearly 30 years when they made this since the original animated version.
But way to get it wrong, Will Smith looks uncomfortable as the genie, he just doesn't flow as a character for me, and his supporting cast of actors are appalling. Aladdin, supposedly the star of the film, is totally overshadowed by the genie, Jasmine is non descript and Jafar was out acted by his cartoon version. They also try desperately to a) modernise it and b) racialise it but it ends up looking like a Bollywood film not something from the Middle East (but then this is America and it's all the same, right??)
Terrible.
Elvis (2022)
Like a comic book version of Elvis
Firstly the comic nature of the film is done on purpose I guess, it's all so stylised and overly done as to not be an accident. I get it. It's quirky. But what annoyed me about the film were the quickly stitched together scenes just in order to hurry and get to the next bit of his life, as if the screenwriters knew they had X many things to stuff into a movie so had to patch it all together into a narrative.
What would've been more interesting would be if they focused on a few aspects of his life, like his relationship with his family or with black music, or with his manager but nope. How about everything all at once accompanied by chance meetings with little Richard who happens to be playing at a club he flees to when his fame gets to him.
As a biopic it's a bit like bubble gum. Runs out of flavour fast.
Harry & Meghan (2022)
Contrived and painful to watch
I'm in no way a royalist so this was interesting to me as I wanted to see what a real life royal was like when the constraints of being in 'the family' were lifted. It seems for Harry, though, that he's left one cult and joined another, one where he is now controlled by his overbearing wife rather than his father and grandmother.
The whole thing seems so overly scripted and fake - despite what you think of Megan and how she has recreated herself into being some sort of American heroine - her hand in the way this show was prepared and presented is very obvious to see. I'm amazed Netflix allowed this level of control, but then they probably knew people would watch this even if it was the worst thing they ever made.
It's painful viewing at times, almost like when two reality tv contestants stay together after a show because it makes more monetary sense to do so. But then we all know how that ends after a while.
Bullet Train (2022)
Guy Ritchi-tino
As a standalone film it's quite entertaining and funny in places mostly because Pitt is a very good comic actor, but the film is just a 2022 version of an old genre, namely classic Tarantino and his rip off mockney copycat Guy Ritchie. Even to the extent a number of characters have ridiculously bad English accents.
The premise isn't new either, a number of assassins (each more of a national stereotype than the last) are all onboard a (pulls random word from a dictionary) "train" looking for a (random word) "briefcase" for a (yep) "Russian gangster"
It all leads to high jinx and loads of needless violence unless someone happens to be shushing them or walking past in which case they have a chat and a cuddle. All too obvious.
Also at 2 hours it's very long for what it is, meaning a number of scenes are needless or drawn out. But it's entertaining I suppose so that's the most important thing I guess!
The Good Dinosaur (2015)
Terrible and cheap looking film
What a rubbish movie! No idea what people have been watching who rate this highly. A bog standard film about a young dinosaur separated from his parents trying to survive etc etc - with humans chucked in. Of course. I'm genuinely surprised that this was made by Pixar, I had to double check. Maybe their B team in terms of animators and writers? It looks so cheap and is badly made, basically an amalgamation of all other films like this, a bit of Ice Age, some Lion King, a bit of Land Before Time, nothing new at all.
There are some 'sweet' moments of course but it's just so samey, and nothing like the usual Pixar output.
I am (and I repeat) genuinely amazed this wasn't made by a cheaper studio!
Ticket to Paradise (2022)
Americans doing their usual thing...
...appropriating and misrepresenting other people's cultures. Seaweed farmers in Bali living in a paradise on the beach. Sure. Ok. They clearly haven't been to Bali and waded through the 1000s of drunken Australians?
The costs of flying everyone over there must've been astronomical so they must've cut corners on the supporting cast. It's a typical Hollywood rom com too. They make it every couple of years, with different actors, a couple who hate each other are thrown together again by a series of 'hilarious' circumstances, but Clooney and Roberts make it more bearable at least, but like I said they're let down by co-stars.
The Split (2018)
Written by committee
How this thing is still going on for another series is beyond me - it's the dullest, most turgid thing on TV now and just drags on. It also seems like it's been written by a committee of uni leavers who are trying to get in as much box ticking as they can. The dialogue is horrific.
And then comes the acting, which is laughable - the most thesp like lawyers I've ever come across. Have these people ever met real lawyers?? Bizarre.
Bridgerton (2020)
Over contrived crap
My goodness the acting in this is painful! Was it this over the top on purpose?? The majority of the cast have at least one eyebrow raised at all times. The script is terrible and trying to be too wordy with everyone outdoing each other with 'witty' repartee. I love the diversity of the cast but it was a hard watch. Like viewing a period drama while smacked off my head on LSD.
Morbius (2022)
Please no more
Please stop making Marvel and Jared Leto movies. Just please. Stop.
Awful film this whole genre is now officially dead which is ironic as you kinda wish the main character would be all film.