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John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
Matrix Resurrections of John Wick franchise
Feels like a high production fan fiction, or perhaps someone from the High Table (if you know what I mean) sampled the social media and compiled fan's favorite bits into this mishmash of a movie.
Very little rhyme or reason to it... All plot lines feel calculated and unnatural, as if it was directed by a spreadsheet (or an AI perhaps?) and not a real person.
And the ending... Good grief! I can almost hear the boardroom discussing how to make this movie end in such a way that it will provoke strong social media reactions, possibly igniting sequels and spinoffs. And while at it, likely boost DVD sales due to included alternative endings.
...But hey, at least color grading was spectacular!
Inside the Mind of a Cat (2022)
Enlightening... for the first time cat owners.
If you lived with cats, gave them any thought at all and did even the slightest bit of your own research, you will learn nothing new from this movie. That "cutting edge research" they keep promising from the get go? They never deliver on that promise. Instead, you get a lot of fluff, tons of "funny cat" videos collected from various sources, some very basic interviews with cat owners and trainers... suddenly, a misandristic rant (what's up with that?), more fluff... If you know your cats, at the end of the movie you will be mildly entertained and equally mildly annoyed.
I recommend this movie to the first time cat owners only.
Kateo (2022)
Hardcore Joon-woo
This is a Korean take on "Hardcore Henry", plus shaky flycam, minus FPV. If you enjoyed "Hardcore Henry", you will definitely have a blast with this movie.
Word of caution though: violence is very graphic by Western standards.
The Gray Man (2022)
Good guys, bad guys and explosions as far as the eye can see...
Lighten up people, it's an entertainment. At last, we have Maverick and Gray Man as action flicks without any virtue signaling or preaching some social issues. Just a good ole' story, very cliche indeed, but entertainingly done.
PS: Ana de Armas needs to be the next Tomb Raider instead of that cyborg chick.
The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
They just keep on miking a dead cow...
It felt like a poorly written fanfic targeted at anime fans, vegans and furries. Literally everything in this movie deserves a "pathetic" label. Pathetic storyline, pathetic script, pathetic acting (even Keanu was sleepwalking), pathetic cable-fu, pathetic camera work... You get the idea.
It should've been a "straight to DVD" release, starring Dolph Lundgren as Agent Smith. Yes, it's Lundgren level bad. Don't waste your time and money in theaters, wait for it to be released as a late night cable entertainment and watch it only when you're bored to tears but playing with yourself is not an option for some reason.
No Time to Die (2021)
Whose chopper is this? It's Zed's.
- As it turns out, Spectre and Blofeld are not the biggest threat. There's a new player in town! His background: shot Madeleine's drunken mother with an AK, disappeared for decades, then reemerged and promptly killed every high ranking Spectre operative, including Blofeld. From teenager with AK to ultimate villain, without ever getting on anyone's radar?...
- Q is gay. This is important part of the story.
- New 007 is indeed a black female with zero sex drive (getting laid is a quintessential part of being a 007). Probably in the follow-up movie she'll come out of the closet.
- Oh, and I really want to see the new 007 run a mile. She really seems to have a problem with handling her bodyweight. Same applies to weapons manipulations (which are somewhat concealed by enormous amounts of cable-fu, shake cams and quick cuts).
- Nobody has any good or even half decent lines, except for Bond, Madeleine and the new villain. The rest of the characters are flat and cartoonish, they're basically NPCs.
- The movie is about 3x longer than it needs to be. There's just not enough storyboard matter for this epic reel. What was their plan, stream it and sell ad breaks?...
In short, they've just killed the whole franchise along with Bond.
Copshop (2021)
They had me in the first half, then Dolph Lundgren happened
...Ok, maybe 2/3. A solid, watchable action thriller. It was almost great until it was time for Grillo and Huss to take front stage... And then it went really bad. For some weird reason, special effects went sour at exact same time.
To give you a sense how bad, here's an example: you pull the trigger on a semiautomatic pistol, it goes click, then the slide quietly jumps back and locks there.
Want another one? In a final chase (or whatever it was) they forgot to add a moving background and shakes. Just 2 actors chilling in a studio, nudging their steering wheels left and right...
War of the Worlds (2005)
Misanthropy inducing dumbshow
There's no smart people in this movie. I'm not talking about leaders or heroes; the whole movie doesn't have a single character with an IQ above room temperature. Add screeching undisciplined kids, unremarkable sound score, put in in a blender with a bunch of epic special effects (Cameron just couldn't resist from savoring that sinking ferry shot!), blend for 2 hours. Try not to barf.
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
Rather disappointing
Pour a 1968 movie in a shallow skillet. Toss in the "Entrapment" template, add Pierce Brosnan at the peak of his career. Then add a dash of breathtaking scenery. Stir for a while. Then add a bucket of the most uninteresting music score ever; shake violently. Bring what's left on the skillet to boil, stir in Russo's mediocre performance, add unrelatable characters to taste. Put the lid on, let it simmer. Then finally, try to sculpt "Breakfast at Tiffany's" from this goo.
Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021)
Finally, entertaining without lecturing!
Yes, the storyline is kinda flat. Yes, the flick won't win any creativity awards. But! It's well made (except for some rather bad renders of fire), mildly entertaining and... And it's has no virtue signaling, except for girls (that's right, plural) saving the day. Amazing treat this day and age!
Chaos Walking (2021)
A mildly entertaining piece of puberty fi
Tom Holland has 2 facial expressions: puppy eyes and Spiderman. That puts him in a league above every new "star" of late, including his female partner in this movie, who has an acting range of an oil drum.
The movie itself is well made in terms of SFX, and it even has a plot (although very misandristic, like most of whats coming from Hollywood nowadays). Latter, along with the fact that the main hero can act, puts it way ahead of Valerian.
Overall, as a silly puberty fi, it's an entertaining piece. If you have nothing better to do with 2 hours of your life, watch it; you'll only have mild remorse, if any.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964)
Two fantastic seasons, one mediocre, and one okay
I've rewatched it recently. The first two seasons were absolutely fantastic. Great humor, incredible attractive female characters, crazy gadgets, tailored for smarter audience. For some reason, 3rd season took a nosedive - actresses went from 10 to 3, and the target audience's IQ from 120 to 60... Fourth season was okay, although rather short.
Overall, very enjoyable experience (except for the 3rd season).
SAS: Red Notice (2021)
Drop her!
Ruby Rose has at least two wonderful traits:
1. She's quite fit
2. She can make tennis noises.
There's only one downside to her being in any movie:
1. She's a box office poison. Uninteresting, uncharismatic, unremarkable, dull... You get the idea. She wants to be Michelle Rodriguez, but totally lacks the charm.
The rest of the cast varied from almost great to mildly boring (mostly latter); plot was rather cheesy and predictable, but overall it was an entertaining movie with remarkably low volume of virtue signaling. I'd say, if that move was shot in the 80s and starred Dolph Lundgren instead of Ruby Rose, it would've been a hit!
Cosmic Sin (2021)
Adjust your expectations!
It's a B movie. It's made to kill time. It could've been much worse ("Monsters of Man", anyone?)... Yes, the actors seemingly didn't want to be there, and the music was on the opposite side from Zimmer... But it's a B movie, okay?!
On a bright side, other than presence of a token "female power" character with wielding a BFG, there's no virtue signaling whatsoever, no preaching or lecturing... That alone gets 3 extra stars from me. So, 4 in total. Fair enough?
Monster Hunter (2020)
Resident Riddick
It's trying to please everyone, delivering a pulp of fantasy, action, anime, steampunk, you name it... It's silly. Its plot holes are larger than Texas. Script is nonexistent, sound score is generic. Yet this movie does what Wonder Women 1984 failed to do: it entertains.
Outside the Wire (2021)
A hippie Terminator
First 3/4 of the movie are mildly entertaining. CGI is quite decent and acting is bearable... but then comes the usual Hollywood shortcoming: why the "bad guy" wants to do bad things? What's the goal here?
This time we're given a painfully long winded incoherent sermon that essentially boils down to "War's bad" and "America's bad", which leads to "I'll show them collateral damage!"
...Pathetic.
Deja Vu (2006)
Excellent ride
If you can survive a cringeworthy premise of time traveling stalker being a good guy and (presumably) far-right terrorist going after "government" by blowing up a bunch of sailors, it's an excellent movie.
Next (2020)
A typical TV drama in AI wrapper
It was intriguing at first, but as the season progressed... here we go again, your usual "office drama" plot lines.
I dare to ask, are these TV show scripts nowadays... computer generated?!
Monsters of Man (2020)
Number Five Is Alive. Well, Kinda...
Every single character in this movie was so annoying and unrelatable that I was actually rooting for the killer robots.
Burn Notice: You Can Run (2012)
I've stopped watching mid episode and never watched again
Season 6 was becoming exponentially cringeworthy; this particular episode is where I said a few expletives, turned the TV off and never watched Burn Notice again. First 4 seasons were fun, season 5 was cringy but survivable, and this... well, see above. No idea if season 7 was watchable, I was unable to convince myself to have a peek.
PS: By the way, I think I found a culprit. After comparing the credits of fun episodes & seasons with cringeworthy ones, it appears that the main difference is some guy named Craig S. O'Neill moving from editorial to writing position. I checked his other work as a writer and producer... yup, 100% cringe.
Ava (2020)
Vanilla Salt
Script is boring, action choreography is horrible, and everything is so predictable that I was surprised to not find Dolph Lundgren on a cast.
Enola Holmes (2020)
The Recipe
Take a dash of eye candy, mix it with a heaping spoon of gorgeous lighting, cupful of outstanding camera work and a pinch of well made special effects. Let it simmer while admiring the smell of perfection. Now toss in a bucketful of misandry, stir in a pound of indoctrination and top it off with a gallon of ridiculousness. Shake it, don't stir. Make sure to wear a gas mask.
...Normally I'd say the recipe above describes BBC movies, but it appears that Netflix is really eager to compete. They've even tried to perfect that recipe by adding their own house flavors, such as condescension al dente and grandstanding post haste. A lot of effort by the smoothest brains on payroll went into creating dialogs, monologues and other bits of misandric propaganda.
In short: therapy has a brilliant future.
The 2nd (2020)
Stupid enough to give you a headache
Don't know about you, but I can survive bad acting (Dolph Lundgram level bad). I can survive infinite ammo. Terrible special effects (kids, you're supposed to black out the glowing pyro from "bullet holes" in post!). That's all survivable, the movie still could be entertaining with all of the above. Hey, I can even live with totally predictable plot!
What's not survivable is utter stupidity of every single character in the movie. The smartest (by far) person in the whole script has an IQ of gerbil, and I'm sure I've just insulted the entire gerbilhood.
You do you, but I quit watching that thing after maybe 40 minutes. It's just unbearably stupid.
Charlie's Angels (2019)
You know what the problem with Hollywood is?...
Search Youtube for "Swordfish intro" to get an answer to the title question. Travolta's monologue was on point... to the point.
Anyhow, where were we? Charlie's Angels, of course. First two were very entertaining. Excellent actors, well written scripts, good fun for the whole family.
I've watched the third one with an open mind, hoping to be entertained.
...It was actually beyond horrible, imagine that! It begins with a misandristic lecture from an actress with an emotional range of a brick (we'll meet more just like her down the road), and it goes downhill from there. Cringe, cringe, barf, facepalm... Rinse and repeat. It was not entertaining in the slightest, it was exhausting.
Whoever wrote, shot and directed it... please retire now. You've made enough damage.
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2019)
Pushes all the right buttons, but...
The movie is quite mechanical. Authors (coworkers to be exact) tried to be a pre-Disney Pixar, but the soul just isn't there. You can almost see the storyboard: "touchy moment", then "adult cameo", "funny here" immediately followed by "sad" and "aww"... This button pushing almost seems computer generated.