cps-36696 Reviews

Monstrous (2022)

Don't let the overall poor rating put you off (currently 4.7)

[10/10 · 16 May 2022]

I rated this 10 out of 10. If I am being completely honest it's probably more deserving of an 8 out of 10 however given the undeservedly low overall rating this currently has in my opinion I decided to give it 10.

I do have theory as to why it has so many low rating which I will come back to at the end of this.

From the very beginning of this film the effort that the film maker put into this is obvious. The attention to detail is astounding and the very deliberate hints that are subtlety spread thought out are all well thought out.

There are two major twists in this movie and from the beginning there are breadcrumbs all the way through regarding each one. Everything from the way it's filmed to camera techniques and surreal imagery all combine to tell the story and provide clues as to what is actually happening.

One of my favourite aspects of this movie is that its apparent from the very beginning that all is not as it seems with an immediate indication that's it's the kind of movie that if you pay close enough attention you'll find all sorts of subtle hints as to what might be happening.

I said at the beginning that if I was being honest I would have rated this 8. The main reason for this as others have alluded to is that one of the twists has been done numerous times before and is therefore easier to guess than it otherwise would have been. Indeed if this was 20 years ago this would have deserved a 10 outright. That said the second twist is a relatively new take on the first that I can't honestly remember coming across before.

The acting in this film by the two leads is suburb - no surprise with Christina Ricci being in it, and at 1 hour 28 minutes it doesn't over stay its welcome.

Don't let the poor overall rating put you off and give this a chance.

With regards to the overall low rating my theory is that the trailer and description of this movie as well as the title of movie does not do it any favours. Indeed my opinion is that with the surreal imaginary in the trailer combined with the general plot description and the title, the expectation for most viewers would be for an entirely different type of movie and therefore it is attracting the wrong type of audience which subsequently equals the low ratings.

In fact when I watched this myself my initial expectations were somewhat skewed by the these points.

Moonfall (2022)

Rips offs a major franchise. An unoriginal Senseless Mess!

[1/10 · 6 April 2022]

A lot of films have farfetched or implausible premises and are still capable of being amazing good movies, this is not one of them.

Given the quality of the cast and the budget this disaster movie had this film really was a disaster.

The basic plot is the moon is losing orbit and our "heroes" are trying to find out why and fix it. While this had the potential to be an interesting sci-fi story, the film quickly makes it clear very earlier on through poor choices, cliché's and non-existent character development that its never going to live up to that potential.

Then just when you think it can's get any worse it basically rips off a major franchise with its "big plot twist" More on that later.

None of the characters have any depth and are all cliché's, intelligent comedic person never taken seriously, disgraced person restoring his reputation and getting his family back, problem child making good, comedic step father, useless military and more.

The opening sequence is passable with the shuttle accident and Patrick Wilson seeing the anomaly however it then jumps a number of years ahead and we find that Patrick Wilson's character was blamed and subsequently fired from Nasa. Why?

In story the explanation is eventually revealed that it was part of a cover up to hide the anomaly on the moon. Now apart from the fact that he wasn't even in the thing when the wave hit and that they could have easily covered it up without blaming him I don't get what it adds to the story.

When you consider that in the end the solution is for him to pilot a shuttle that only he and a few others are able to fly would it not have made sense given how far ahead the movie jumps for him to have been retired or working alongside Halle Berry's character in control so that it would be somewhat believable that he's able to accomplish what he goes on to do.

Instead, he falls apart and becomes a drunk and loses everything but then when disaster strikes within days, he is completely fine, sober and able to fly a shuttle to a moon and carry out all sorts of advanced manoeuvres.

Then we have John Bradley's character. Apart from being seriously miscast in this his character is largely pointless. I get the idea of the character that finds out about the impending doom and has to warn everyone like Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day but in this movie while he is trying to get his information out Nasa have already become aware of the problem and are already working on it.

The only reason he is there is so he can die at the end so neither Patrick Wilson or Halle Berry have to. This was because Roland Emmerich thought this might lead to a trilogy and therefore there return. Given the box office return or lack thereof it achieved the chances of that are almost non-existent.

Charlie Plummer's character is supposed to be a drug addict joy rider. They specifically mention a large quantity of drugs in his system at the time of his address. Given that's the case why was there zero effort made to have him look like that. A small thing I know but still annoying.

I liked Donald Sutherland's character but his explanation that they stopped trying to deal with this global threat due to funding makes very little sense unless you're trying to make a political statement like when the Doctor Who in story reason for torchwood closing down was Brexit.

Then we have the usual cliché of the military being nothing but a nuisance and an obstruction and ultimately as big a threat as the enemy. First telling Nasa that a disaster / threat in space is something they won't work with them on and then their big plan is to nuke and destroy the moon.

Both of these decisions make absolutely zero sense and combined with no character development from anyone of the military side of things reinforce the military in this movie as standard obstacle B and nothing more. This is made worse by the fact that when the AI's plan is relieved later is essentially to destroy the moon to destroy mankind because there would be no way back for mankind from that, where as if the AI attacked earth directly mankind might still survive. This is literally spelled out in the movie and confirms what everyone watching already knows, that destroying the moon would destroy earth.

We are told that AI is somehow reducing the moons mass to cause it to lose its orbit and that the construct inside the moon is somehow able to correct this but we are never actually told what the AI is actually doing to cause this or how the construct is able to reverse it. All we really see is the AI attacking any source of power that also has a human with it.

Michael Pena's character was originally going to be played by Stanley Tucci which probably would have added a great deal. Michael Pena was brilliant in both Ant Man movies but his character is nothing but a cliché in this right up until the end. Then his character dies pointlessly.

Him and his daughter somehow incomprehensibly get separated from the rest and then his daughter's oxygen starts to run out again for no given reason. He then givens her his oxygen and stays behind to suffocate. Given that you can share an oxygen tank under water and therefore absolutely could here and coupled with the relatively short distance he dies for absolutely no reason.

Then they have a rescue mission but have to abort it because apparently Nasa aren't very good at this sort of thing and it conveniently takes just long enough for the rest of the crew but not Patrick Wilson to scarper before John Bradley's character to save the day and find a new solution so Halle Berry and John Bradley can accompany him to the moon.

Why not just have them be the ones going in the first place rather than this nonsense.

There's a scene where Charlies Plummer's character is car jacked at gun point and then later the same people who drove in the same direction that they went in by foot somehow turn up at a store after them and try and rob them again. He pulls a gun on them and disarms them temporality and the then leaves the store with the oxygen tanks and in doing so goes right passed the car and the one they stole from him earlier.

At this point I wondered why he didn't take his car back and also why he didn't disable the other car by I don't know shooting its tyres out because it seemed fairly obvious to me, they were going to go after them and of course a few minutes later that is exactly what happens. Again, I think this purely exists for the comic scene of Michael Pena leaning out the window to shoot at them.

Then we get to the "big plot twist" where they find out the threat is an AI that became self-aware (they actually use the words self-aware) and turns on its creators wiping them out. Sounds familiar, it should. I was have expecting them to say its name was Skynet at this point.

Yes, it's basically terminator in space! If they had made the previously mentioned sequels, I expect they would have involved the Ai travelling back in time to kill ether Patrick Wilson's characters parents or Halle Berry's!

This film to put it simply is terrible. It has no redeeming qualities, its not even funny. The plot barely makes sense if at all and the only part that does make some sense is the part that is basically the terminator story. The actors do what they can but the characters have no depth so they had a thankless task.

Save yourselves two hours of boredom and frustration and give this one a miss.

Stowaway (I) (2021)

Vague irritating mess

[1/10 · 22 April 2021]

The acting is the only thing that justify a this getting even 1 out of 10.

This was a mess from beginning to end. They make no attempt to explain large parts of the story. There's a lack of dialogue which makes it incredibly difficult at times to follow what's going on.

The overall pacing is fairly slow despite the lack of clear plot and story.

Multiple times we get told something happened with no explanation as to what caused it or even speculation as to what might have caused it.

Multiple times we get told different options won't work again with no explanation or reason as to why.

In both these cases the characters just routinely accept it no questions asked even though it's a life or death situation.

Multiple times they communicate with ground control but we only ever hear there side. We hear them asking questions and answering questions but we never hear the questions they are asked or the answers to there questions.

It's ridiculous and means we always only have half the story.

Imagine Apollo 13 and Tom Hanks conversations with Ed Harris but only hearing Tom Hanks side of it.

The fail to acknowledge some potentially obvious solutions and seem to think that because they don't acknowledge them that they don't exist and therefore don't have to be accounted for.

They briefly mention that turning back isn't an option because they don't have enough fuel, but they are aware of the stowaway and the oxygen issue almost straight away. There may be actual reasons why turning back wouldn't work but much more explanation and clarity would have been nice and would aided the story they were trying to tell.

When they become aware of the stowaway not one of them questions if they will have enough food, water or air with an extra person on board when you'd think that would be one of the first questions they would ask.

This of course is presumably to make it more dramatic when it's revealed later that they don't have enough oxygen.

The ending or lack thereof is abysmal in every possible way.

After another unexplained and very quick failure with no real drama behind it and no real reaction they only have enough oxygen for two of the four people.

Two of them go out side to fill two oxygen tanks with liquid oxygen from there craft which is apparently going to be enough for the other two to get them to Mars. Again no explanation offered for this.

They fill one canister and then a solar storm hits and they have to abandon the second one.

They lose the first canister on the way back and then it's revealed the storm will be over in a matter of hours.

Then for some reason that's never explained they decide one of them has to take on a suicide mission to go back and get the other canister.

The medical specialist volunteers for this again for no apparent or obvious reason retrieves the canister and then sits outside and apparently slips away as the end credits roll ????

The lack of explanation here is especially galling.

Why did they need to go back before the storm was finished. ?

She brought the second canister back through the storm and the assumption is that it's still fine to save the third person so why not wait until after the storm.

If there a scientific reason why thats wasn't possible then TELL US.

The fact that they don't suggests there isn't and they just thought it would be dramatic but couldn't find a plausible or reasonable explanation to justify it.

So they just ignored this issue completely by not addressing it abs hoping no one would notice.

If there was a scientific reason as to why that wouldn't work wouldn't you stop filling the second one and take it back with you when you evacuate because of the storm the first time as opposed to leaving it behind if it's somehow going to be damaged or contaminated.

Is it really that much to ask for 60 seconds of dialogue to explain the thinking / reasoning behind any or all of this.

Ultimately watching this was a compete waste of two hours.

If you are thinking about watching this do your self a favour and come to the same conclusion the writers obviously came to when deciding whether or not to put any effort into this ...... don't bother.

The Turning (2020)

Builds well then just ends !

[4/10 · 29 January 2020]

This was well on its way to an 8. It built and it built and drew you in with the anticipation of a resolution worthy of the build and then it just ended. No conclusion or explanation, it just ends.

The Grudge (2019)

Awful Film - Avoid

[1/10 · 29 January 2020]

Awful film from start to finish. Full of plot holes and characters who either make stupid unrealistic decisions and take equally stupid actions.

No atmosphere and even the jump scares were poorly executed. They even failed with the famous shower scene with hand coming out of the head. Nobody in the cinema reacted at all apart from a couple of people who laughed.

Then there's the end where the main character for no storyline reason suddenly decides that in order to beat the curse she's going to burn the cursed house down.

This despite the fact that multiple times in the film things happen in multiple other locations and also that it's already been revealed earlier it was brought back from Japan and therefore cannot possibly be bound to a specific building.

Despite this we're apparently supposed to be surprised when it's revealed at the end that this didn't work.

What worse is that when she goes to burn the house down, this is a house that everyone who's went in has ended up dead (apart presumably from the paramedics that collected the dead body and the old woman earlier in the film) she brings her young son with her and leaves him in the car while she's doing this.

This ridiculous choice is clearly only made so we can get the equally ridiculous climax where after she's soaked the house in petrol she's confronted by what's supposed to be her son and only realises it isn't her son when he can't answer the annoying stupid question they've previously quoted at each other earlier in the film - "What do we when we're scared. We close our eyes and count to 5".

This also then leads to the highly predictable attempted end jump scare where she says goodby to her son and hugs him only for her actual son to announce from the other room he's off to school and she then gets dragged away after which it switches to an outside shot of her house which the end credits then silently play over.

Ad Astra (2019)

A Vague Mess

[2/10 · 30 September 2019]

Despire the incredibly misleading trailer, this is basically two hours of Tommy Lee Jones and Brad Pitt's Father Son relationship with everything else including the world ending threat treated as unimportant undefind background noise

The Pulse is barely mentioned in any meaningful way and the ending is just ridiculous. Tommy Lee Jone's charachter just gives up for no reason after having killed all his crew and Brad Pitt's character then escapes and goes home with one ludicrous stunt after another.

Nothing in this film even at the beginning is explained, has any details or apparently had any real thought given to it. From the line at the very beginning "in the near future" which it clearly isn't, to the moon pirates which have no story or motive and are just there to write out Donald Sutherland's Charachter, to the killer Gorilla which is just there to kill of the captain.

None of it means anything as none of it has any context.

One section that really stood out to me as being incomprehensibly stupid was when they come across the ship sending out the mayday that contains the aforementioned Gorilla and Brad Pitt's charachter who is ostensibly on a mission to save Earth tries to overrule the captains decision to investigate. The captain responds that he can only overrule him if he tells him what his mission is. Absolutely rubbish. Either he has the authority to overrule him or he doesn't. It makes no sense that he'd have to reveal the details of a classified mission to do so.

This for me was a prime example of the poor writing on display throughout this film. They wanted Brad Pitt's charachter to object as he would given the mission was on but couldn't find a way or be bothered to find a way to realistically have his objections be ignored / overuled.

Everything that happens in this film seems to only have one purpose - to kill of any characters that are with Brad Pitt so he can then carry out whatever the task is single handedly.

From the Pirates, to the Gorilla to the cowardly first officer to to the idiot military officials to the crew that's meant to fly to Neptune that Brad Pitt manages to kill off in there entirety with no apparent repercussions.

Good Favour (2017)

Utter Garbage

[1/10 · 28 July 2019]

Don't waste your time watching this. Goes nowhere and has no ending.