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Reviews
Red (2008)
Superb
Cox is incredible as usual in this realistic confrontation between a noble man of principle and wicked degenerates. The characters are believable and interesting, and the director doesn't dabble in superfluous flourishes. But they still created enough depth and intrigue to keep a strong viewer engagement. Score, foley, voice, and cinematography are all above average, and exceeding expectations for the film's budget.
Fractured (2019)
Great plot, absurd characters
If you love mysteries, the plot is intriguing enough to keep your attention. Although the possible twists are predictable, they do a good job at keeping the alternatives plausible until the climax.
Unfortunately, the quality is vastly degraded by the dialogue and characters. If you can tolerate a sniveling, Homer-Simpson-cultured moron and his neurotic wife express their dysfunctional behavior in unnatural, ham-handed presentations? You'll at least appreciate the story.
I Am Mother (2019)
Excellent Plot, Lacking Emotive Connection
Questions of eugenics, human perfection, nature vs nurture, and mankind's relation to the machines we create. The plot is pregnant with opportunities but takes advantage of only a few. Some melodramatic dialogue distracts at times, and the loose ends miss the chance for deeper character development and investment in the characters. Who made the machines? Recall how Resident Evil's scientist had a heart-wrenching backstory about trying to save his daughter's life with the technology? It would have added depth if the writers used some backstories and flashbacks. Overall worth a watch, and well-produced, but you won't be returning for a second viewing.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
Avatar 2.0
Ready for the sermon? Everybody is corrupt and stupid, the act of just being a living human being is a shameful thing because animals, rocks, and dirt need to accommodate human life. The military is stupid, brash, and corrupt, and only a godlike alien can save humanity from itself. If you like your movie to preach an environmentalist creed, without tact, and with ham-handed stereotypes and tired tropes, this is the movie for you.
The Strangers (2008)
Empty, unintelligent, boring
I can't imagine the script took more than 20 pages. There is no character development, no real story, and no creative style whatsoever. If you want a tediously drawn-out suspense with no emotional investment, this distraction will waste 90 minutes of your life.
Witches of Amityville Academy (2020)
Artless Nonsense
Want to waste your time on a movie with zero character development so you have no investment in any of the people? Want to see wooden characters forced to act out mindless power struggles and empty dialogue? If you like things such as the Power Ranger kids show or Pokémon, you'll find that this immature one-dimensional magic power contest is entertaining.
The Amityville Terror (2016)
Dialogue of a Monster
The only terror in this movie is the mind within whoever wrote the dialogue. It's melodramatic, unnatural nonsense that might seem compelling to neurotic people. For anyone with a normal psychology, these characters are unrelatable, weak, and foolish. And who wants to watch a cliché horror plot with unintelligent and unnatural characters?
Dota: Dragon's Blood (2021)
A Creative Failure of Epic Scale
Dota 2 is a rich universe, in the video game. The possibilities for a rich animated series are endless. Which makes it even more baffling, how the creative team behind this series managed to produce such vapid garbage. Perhaps they were aiming for a juvenile demographic? But if that's so, you would think they'd tone down the low-IQ language, casual intoxication, violence, and sex. The dialogue is wooden and unnatural, and lacking anything relatable. The plot is banal, predictable, and unimaginative. And the animation...oh my...how much money do these frauds have behind them? The Steam empire? And they won't open their gigantic purse to actually finish the animations in scenes? They actually present to you a slideshow of still images at times, jarring the experience and wresting you out of the mood and atmosphere, which is the worst thing you can do in a fantasy or sci-fi which already require so much suspension of disbelief.
If you want a well produced and intelligent fantasy there are many to choose from: Castlevania, Final Fantasy, Xenosaga, Lain, Record of Loddoss War, Vision of Escaflowne. If the Dota franchise wants to deliver a timeless production, they're going to need to replace the entire creative team with writers who have studied classic literature and understand more about humanity than what vapid Pokemon, Dragonball Z, and Power Rangers-styled mindless quarreling offers to the constraints of their imagination.
Red Joan (2018)
Good Drama, Bad History
The acting, costumes, and sets for this period piece are all excellent and engaging. The depiction of political indoctrination and group dynamics was accurate. When the reason for disclosure of nuclear secrets is revealed, I docked 2 stars. While I'm sure that the rationale of the traitors was historically accurate, the writers obviously did not bother to hire a sufficiently competent military or intelligence advisor. Had they done this, they would have at least provided the rebuttal to scientists who hastened Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) via Soviet nukes. They wrongly presumed that the United States would ever use a nuclear first strike in an act of aggression, rather than saving 5 million lives, as they did for Japan and America, when choosing to drop the bomb in WW2. The years after Hiroshima until the Soviets obtained the nuke proved that point.
The next wrong presumption is that Soviet nuclear power decreased war casualties by preventing another World War through MAD. That presumes that the world had conditions for another World War, which were somehow abated by MAD. In truth, Soviet acquisition of nuclear missiles allowed them to instigate proxy wars along with China across Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, which slaughtered millions of people, and brought tyranny to millions more. Without the deterrence of US nuclear superiority, Europe, Asian allies, and America had to confront the communist proxy wars with containment and spheres of influence, unable to assist the rest of Asia with prosperity and peace like Japan and S. Korea.
So they can carry the false narrative that Soviet nukes were beneficial to humanity, as they did in this movie. But those millions of families who still suffer from the brutality of Pol Pot, Mao Zedong et. Al., are not so easy to kick to the curb for those of us who know history. When the scriptwriters presented the question of scientists (who ostensibly care more for humanity than for nationality), versus the politicians and military officers (who ostensibly care more about power and nationality than humanity), they deliberately took the side of the "humanistic" scientists. Which is precisely an inversion of reality. History proved those "humanistic" scientists wrong about MAD leading to peace. And if they weren't so arrogant, they would've left that determination to the military officers and political science experts who accurately predicted the dangers of communist nuclear armament. If the scriptwriters had conveyed this message, the movie would deserve 8 stars.