jc811 Reviews

Hit & Run (2021)

Slow, somewhat entertaining but pointless

[6/10 · 31 August 2021]

First few episodes had some twists and mysteries regarding the wife. Once the mystery was revealed mid-season, the rest of the way it was a long multi episode chase regarding a notebook (Muguffin).

Everything way to slow. Could have been better as a 2 hour movie.

Murder on Middle Beach (2020)

Not true crime but a character study

[4/10 · 8 December 2020]

Woman murdered. Son decides to make documentary. The main thing the to know is that the son has zero access to police records. The police do not participate. The DA does not participate. What you have left is a young adult with a video camera interviewing his aunts, cousins, sister and his father. Mostly stories about his mother, a gifting table pyramid scheme, and secretly recording his father. None of leads to anything because the kid does not have access to evidence.

Waste of time.

Greyhound (2020)

Where was the rest of the movie?

[5/10 · 17 July 2020]

Greyhound is like turning on a movie 2/3 into it and this is the climax of the movie, the Big Battle. If you did that, you would have no idea who the characters are, the scope of what they are doing or why. You would just turn it on and catch the battle scene at the end. That's what this was.

The is a Tom Hanks movie. It's all Hanks, all the time. It mind as will have been with faceless robots because no one else is even remotely given a backstory. There is no story at all. Just lots of "hard right rudder", "hard left rudder" , and random guys repeating coordinates. Tom Hanks rushes to the left side of the ship, grimaces and looks into binoculars. Then someone yells out new contact info, and Tom Hanks rushes to the other side of the ship, yells out "hard right rudder", looks into his binoculars and grimaces. Repeat for 80 min. Oh..and the CGI was terrible.

If you want to kill an hour or so and watch some action scenes, go ahead..but this is not a complete movie,

Our Friends in the North (1996)

British politics. A little slow for non-brits

[6/10 · 30 March 2020]

Not nearly enough focus on the 4 main cast members. Anything that does happen, it is usually with British politics as the backdrop. Great for Brits, Pretty slow for anyone else.

After 9 episodes, I really didn't care about anything I watched.

Noah (2014)

Terrible bore rest

[2/10 · 12 July 2014]

If you think about the concept of this movie, it is impossible to make an interesting movie . God tells Noah to build Ark, then there will be a flood. How do you make a movie about that?

There are really only 4 people who have any screen time. Noah, his wife, Shem, and Shem's wife. There are long sequences where Noah is brooding or dreaming and no one is talking. Plus Noah himself is a miserable unlikeable character. The Anthony Hopkins character just pops in and out. The main baddie is a cartoony who you really don't care about.

So you are watching this boring movie about Noah and ancient times, supposedly rooted in reality, then Tree Ents from Lord of the Rings show up in Rock Costumes and protect Noah and his family while they build the ark in the background. Finally the main baddie shows up with humanity to bum rush the Ark and the Rock monsters fight them off until the main baddie appears with a bazooka like device??? In 4000bc? The baddie "shoots" the rock monsters, then God brings them to heaven? What the heck is happening?

Finally the earth is flooded , and the story focuses on the ark floating around. The inside of the ark looks like stage set piece of every dark interior you have seen in every movie. Noah thinks that God wants all of humanity dead, including he and his family, so he announces that he will kill any future female baby so that humanity will end with them. Of course, Shem's wife has 2 girls and more boring predictable drama ensues.

Did I mention how bad the acting is? No one is believable. When Jennifer Connelly is crying, I was waiting for the director to yell "cut". You care about no one in this movie.

The only sequence I actually liked was the watchers vs people rushing the ark. It was a cool action sequence lifted from LOTR 2 towers.

Religious folks won't get anything from this, atheists will laugh at this, and the general movie goers will fall asleep.

Avoid.

Gomorrah (2008)

Where is the plot??

[2/10 · 7 March 2009]

Talk about flimsy story lines. We watched for 2 hrs and asked ourselves, "What is going on?". The multiple plots were a trainwreck trying to keep up with.

Yea, it shows the gritty side of Italy. Yea, it features some criminals. But it seemed to me that it was just filming the characters delivering food, making dresses (one is a dressmaker), and delivering money.

There was a (boring) subplot about illegal dumping of waste. The one story that was slightly interesting was the two wannabe gangsters.

Unless you like movies just for the fact that it is set in Italy, avoid this nonsensical bore fest.