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godfreygordon
Reviews
Serenity (2019)
So nearly a good movie
I read the description, but not the user reviews. Settled down to watch the film with an open mind and then the juvenile nature of the plot unfolded. Talk about a double take. I was watching it with someone who thought I had carefully selected this embarrasing shambles. Will I ever live it down? Executed like an oscar nominated iconic movie, it nonetheless betrayed my trust by wasting excellent acting talent.
The movie has less depth than a coat of fake tan.
The Sense of an Ending (2017)
Tedious 'luvvie' rubbish
Slow,depressing and based on a thin storyline. Don't let all the luvvie comments fool you. Story lines like this are shown every week on soaps in the U.K. The movie is about a group of uninteresting clinically depressed people who make up the guilt complex of a sad old man. The film drones on for an hour and 38 minutes which feel like five hours. It is all in the ending, but I can tell you that there is nothing intriguing or even noteworthy about the ending. Watch an old movie instead.
Fences (2016)
Over long award seeker
No white actors, not normally a problem. A movie based on a stage play, obviously well transferred. Nothing happens other than predictable emotional issues mainly from a mothers point of view. Brilliantly acted, but heavily dated and consisting mainly of incompetently addressed social issues. This plot has been done before in countless movies. Banal, boring and nothing happens. Don't waste over 2 hours of your time.
Weekend at Bernie's (1989)
Stupid plot with no funny jokes
I do not know what is supposed to be entertaining about this garbage. Maybe in 1989 a movie farce like this was risqué , sexy and funny. It just goes to show how movies have moved on. There are pretty girls aplenty in nice swimwear and the usual crowd of eighties guys who look like porn stars. One of the main characters was obnoxious and the other boring. Yes, its funny pretending a corpse is alive, but not as the one and only joke all the way through the movie. Morons will howl at the Keystone Cops style capers, but they are not subtle or sophisticated. The movie was directed and edited well and the camera-work divine, but what a predictable yawn.
Drive Hard (2014)
Sets a new low
Either the director was absent for the whole movie or had been taken ill and there was a stand in 9 year old child in the directors chair. There was no hint of any chemistry between the main stars and I doubt if there was a single improvement retake in the whole movie. "Springtime for Hitler" springs to mind as one thinks of the unlikely possibility of a deliberate failure agenda by this movie's makers. Cusack seemed to be in a different movie the whole time, acting away on his own as if he was not actually there, but had been put there post production. The stunts and driving scenes for what they were worth were not edited into the movie well. Twelve million dollars spent on what? The movie has all the panache of an amateur film maker's holiday movie. I have nothing to praise about the character interpretation by Thomas Jane, who seemed to only have two facial expressions, laughing and not laughing.
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016)
Abysmal, boring and shallow
I only watched this movie because someone saw the trailer and wanted me to view the film with them. I fell asleep twice in the first half hour. Unrecognisably bearded blackened faced American yobs swearing and badmouthing everyone as they once again mow down Libyans to do a Rambo is not sufficient to hold my interest. The problem is that I am not a spotty faced bedroom shoot em up nerd. If I were, there would be a ten star rating from me. This movie is as shallow as a hammered teaspoon.
The attempt to immerse the viewer in the obviously horrific circumstances of the "story" by dropping him/her in at the deep end backfires in a smokescreen of violent confusion. Even with the English subtitles turned on to clarify the indistinct dialogue, the movie fails to reflect reality in any way. The only parallel to reality would be provided by a supercooled games chip. The stereotyping of Libyans is appalling and ought to be redressed with an apology from the studio that released this rubbish.
Dad's Army (2016)
"Laugh out loud" family entertainment
Brilliant respectfully made movie based on the still popular T.V. series, this movie made my children laugh (they had never seen the T.V. series). Where do I start? I got such a kaleidoscope of stars for the price of an ordinary movie. A great plot to satisfy the armchair sleuths, slapstick in moderation and the precise shoehorning in of catch phrases and stock jokes without overdoing it, as could so easily have been the case. New filming locations and excellent camera work enhanced the viewing experience. To be honest I was dreading watching this film, expecting the cast to ham it up big time, but that did not happen. Difficult roles were expertly and reverently handled, as in the case of Bill Nighy in the potentially unfillable shoes of the brilliant John Le Mesurier and Toby Jones,who seamlessly slipped into character as Captain Mainwaring. Felicity Montagu's Mrs. Mainwaring was a particularly enjoyable bonus.
Churchill's Secret (2016)
This would send an insomniac to sleep
Settling down for a nostalgic immersion in a post war period drama, with a martini in my hand, I was surprised to be nodding off after ten minutes or so. I now realize the potential of this movie as a sleeping pill and intend to keep it in the drug cabinet. I have recently watched too many of Michael Gambon's performances slide into apparent mordancy with dismay. A bad double episode of Downton without Maggie Smith is one way to describe this tedious rubbish. There was so much dramatic potential in the story which was routinely squandered, presumably in order to dumb it down for a broader audience. I would have thought that a two hour monologue by the late Les Dawson about his piles would have been more entertaining. Do something else. Don't waste an evening on this.
Beyond Borders (2003)
Superficial and lightweight
Obviously tilting itself at award harvesting, this movie is a sensationalist and superficial treatment of a very serious subject. Any movie in which the female and male lead find time for immaculate personal grooming all the way through, while wading through dying human beings, immediately puts itself in the realms of fantasy for me. It's execution is as unbelievable as the fake wrestling of the 1970s. While Nick Owen has previously impressive credentials in the swashbuckling "thinking man" department, he does not seem to take this role seriously enough, always appearing to be on the point of "corpsing", to use an inappropriate pun. I must confess to always finding Jolie unbelievably attractive, but never a convincing actress. The movie tries to be everything to everyone. A spy movie, an action movie, a kidnap movie but only succeeds in becoming a bad imitation of all of these, while pandering in a most annoying fashion to the morally pretentious. The low score is because the film and cast were not woven together effectively into a thinking person's movie. I struggle to think how anyone with half a mind could enjoy it.
Midnight Special (2016)
A bit of a yawn
Gosh. its a long time since I sat through such a boring movie. I wish I had cleaned behind the fridge instead. Derivative, banal, poorly scripted and directed. Don't waste your time. I was literally praying for something, (anything) to happen. There was no discernible depth to any of the characters. The special effects seemed to have been cobbled together from old clips or made with a cheap P.C. movie editing suite and there was no story. If you are making a "guess whats happening" movie you need to keep the bums on the seats between clues. Bums got off seats in droves in the cinema I was in. There were no plot intricacies and I had to check if this was a low budget T.V. movie for juveniles or a young director's debut.