mat-fletcher Reviews

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022– )

who did the casting on this?

[5/10 · 9 October 2022]

The acting and dialogue are well below the expectations that the a show of this visual and financial magnitude dictate.

I just cant get my head around why the dialogue and acting can be so poor, it's dull and uninteresting and has not depth whatsoever.

The usual workery has infected it but it's not that noticeable when there are so many other glaring problems with it. I just find it perplexing that with a budget as high as this had, it's so boring and the acting so poor.

On the upside, it is visually pleasing, the dwarves are alright, but the rest of it is very forgettable . As a a huge LOTR fan i'm left disappointed to say the least.

Prey (I) (2022)

dull

[5/10 · 14 August 2022]

I don't get why this has such a high rating, it's a dull, cheesy and uninspiring remake of the original with a woman cast as the lead. It lacks any kind of believably. I found it really difficult to get involved in the story because i kept thinking how ridiculous it was that this 45Kg girl was going toe to toe with a predator when it had just made mincemeat of several strong men all at once.

It's full of things that make no sense and just goes into the bin with all the other virtue signalling nonsense that has plagued our screens of late.

If you're wifes boyfriend says it's ok for you to watch this in your house then maybe give it a go if there is nothing else to watch, otherwise, you wont regret skipping it.

Men (2022)

What in the actual ....?

[6/10 · 31 July 2022]

I have no idea what i just watched but it was bloody horrible.

It was all shaping up to be a slow burner and then i dont know what happened, it just got really dark and really weird.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994)

There are FOUR lights

[8/10 · 18 March 2021]

Star Trek TNG is like panning for gold, you have to sift through the sand and rocks to find the gold. You can go through 4 or 5 episodes and nothing much really happens and then boom, out of nowhere comes one of the best pieces of sci fi you have ever seen.

This past year, with more time on my hands I have re-watched every single episode of every single Star Trek series and TNG is the most important of all of them as it forms the core of the whole Star trek universe. Without TNG, the other's like DS9 or Voyager would not be able to stand up.

I noticed that the series really gets better and better episode by episode, season 1 and 2 are a bit meh but then it gathers pace and the characters (and the actors) really start to form and bond with each other and by the time you get to the end you will be amazed at the quality of the show and sad to see the end but now you can watch the movies and get stuck into one of the others.

It's a genre defining show of huge cultural significance, ST has always pushed the boundaries of what people will accept, culturally speaking and it continues to do so even today with later series (Discovery) albeit in a strange and off putting way but TNG remains pure and wholesome instead of shoe horning the latest culteral whim into a story to be relevant. I actually stopped watching Discovery because I kept expecting Ensign George Floyd to be restrained and die in custody or something.

Devs (2020)

Screeching music

[5/10 · 30 April 2020]

The music sounds like somebody tuning up a trumpet, it's ear piercing and horrible. I almost stopped watching because of it.

The acting is poor all round. The set's, the camera work, the lighting, the editing are all excellent but the acting is like a BBC drama - mediocre and the characters themselves are just not interesting or likeable. I'm not certain yet if it's the poor acting that makes me simply not care about any of them or if it's the characters that have been written. Most likely the former. It just makes no sense that the cast have been selected for this, they all seem so out of place amongst the otherwise top production quality.

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019)

Turned it off

[3/10 · 12 February 2020]

I grew up loving these movies, they were underground, indie / cult and spoke directly to us 90's, grunge stoners.

I watched the first few minutes where they are in a court room and after a slapstick interaction with a lawyer, i just shut it off. I want to preserve the good memories of the old movies and not have the whole thing ruined bu this garbage.

I wish I could give it more of a chance but I've had every childhood movie franchise ruined by recent remakes, prequels etc, and I'm making a stand here now by not watching another one.

Jay and Bob will remain as good memories to me.

It Chapter Two (2019)

MIssed the point entirely

[5/10 · 23 November 2019]

This is simply a remake of the original, again, as if last years remake was not enough.

The producers have ignored the tension and msytery that made the orginal story scary and replaced it with CGI monsters and that leave nothing to the imagination.

It's not scary at all, I laughed out loud when the CGI monsters came out, so absurd that it is genuinely funny.

Shame, it has a really great cast but the producers went for the short term money form a "loud music and make them jump" sort of movie instead.

It's just another forgettable movie that hurts the original to throw onto the garbage pile of 2019 movies.

What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (2018)

Another childhood favourite ruined by the Social Justice Brigade

[3/10 · 5 September 2019]

It starts off well but by the 23 minute mark they have all gone full going on about Feminists "kick" and "gender roles" and all that rubbish.

I turned it off at that point.

The Dead Don't Die (2019)

Disapointing

[5/10 · 31 August 2019]

Bill Murray plays a pretty good zombie in this one....what's that? Oh, he was not meant to be a zombie?

Waco: Madman or Messiah (2018)

Lurches from one extreme to the other

[7/10 · 22 August 2019]

The producers went to great lengths to condemn the Davidians, repeating many of the falsehoods and smears that were used to initiate this debacle in the first place but they also try hard to be sympathetic to the children.

Not once did they seem to seem to question the principle concern with this event - The government invented a reason to raid this group of people and then they shot them and burned them alive and for what?

The government deployed a troop of M2 Bradely Armoured Fighting Vehicles, AFV's against a bunch of families, helicopters, snipers, about a battalion sized element of government agents against a bunch of bible bashing families who appeared to have been no danger to anyone.

About the only genuine crime that seems to have been carried out by Koresh was that he may have had improper relations with teenage girls. Why on earth then was he not arrested and tried before a jury of his peers? When did raiding a property, shooting first, bringing in tanks and burning them all alive become a proportional response?

The Boys (2019– )

Worst english accent on TV

[7/10 · 21 August 2019]

Aside from the terrible English accent, it's a decent show. I am well and truly sick of super heroes which seem to be all that anyone makes movies about anymore however this is more about anti-heroes, it's alright, worth a watch

Black Book (2006)

Gripping

[8/10 · 20 August 2019]

I have never seen a good Dutch movie before so this was a surprise. Van Outen is really good in this and the supporting cast are pretty good too, good story, dark, plenty of action to move things along and the story develops slowly but well enough to have you leaning forward and paying attention throughout.

It's good, give it a try.

The Red Sea Diving Resort (2019)

Incredible tale of compassion

[7/10 · 10 August 2019]

It's weird in this day and age to hear anything positive said about Israel and this is a timely reminder that the nation of Israel always does whatever it takes to protect their people, if if they are Jewish Ethiopians.

From a tactical perspective, this was operation certain death and it's amazing that they pulled it off not once but enough times to rescues tens of thousands of genuine people displaced and in mortal danger at the hands of an Islamic revolution.

It's very well acted, the characters personalities develop. Currently, with no much absolute garbage coming out of hollywood, I have the attention span of a 3 year old when it comes to movies but this captured my attention throughout and had me involuntarily shouting at he screen a couple of times.

Decent.

You Can't Watch This (2019)

Excellent

[8/10 · 19 June 2019]

A sad story of our slip into fascism, the real fascism where governments force private business to censor dissenting voices and where partisan activists lobby, smear and boycott to get their own way.

I don't know Laura Loomer but the other guys are all decent, genuine, nice people. If you have heard of Gavin Mcinnes, Alex Jones, Paul Watson, Tommy Robinson and have only heard of them via headlines or blog posts the you can be forgiven for thinking that they are a collection of persona non grata's.

None of it is true, they are all good people.

I wonder how long this page will last before it too is censored.

Arctic (2018)

Very realistic, Survival savvy people will love it

[7/10 · 22 April 2019]

I have an interest in all things outdoor and particular survival. I often watch these survival movies and am aghast at the poor choices that the character make and the need for the producers to add unrealistic drama and romance into every aspect of the story.

Thankfully, this movie lacks all of this. There is hardly any "drama" aside from the realistic scenarios that the protagonist finds himself in, frost bitten fingers and the unspoken but well conveyed message that this is bad, really bad, if he looses his fingers then he's going to die. This is a fleeting scene lasting only a few seconds but the magnitude of it was powerful.

Our guy then made good survival decisions throughout the movie and instead of sitting there thinking "no, I would do this and that" from my chair, I nodded in approval as he did exactly what I would have done except for one time when he was struggling to *haul a heavy paulk up a steep hill.

I was impressed with his unattended fishing set up, his dogged determination to maintain his aerial signal, his signalling and the strict time table that he kept throughout. This is an excellent way to conduct oneself in a survival situation as keeping busy keeps us calm and keeps the negative thoughts away. Survival is much more of a mental challenge than a physical one and if the mind likes one thing it is - routine. This is why it is so important to keep to a busy schedule.

The landscape is brutal, rock and snow, no vegetation, no trees, few resources. A really hard place to live. He had nothing to burn so making a fire to stay warm was not an option. I think that the movie is supposed to be set in Greenland but was filmed in Iceland. The main difference between the two is that one is very, very cold and the other is relatively mild.

You could tell that he was in Iceland because the snow was wet and crystalised which gave the impression that the temperature was not far off of -10c which is not that cold. In Greenland temperatures can drop to -40c and life becomes even harder to sustain.

It's a fantastic movie, a true role model in terms of "what would I do?" movies. The production is excellent, the dialogue perfect. The tension never lets up, it just keeps increasing all the way to the end.

It is really hard to film in these conditions, you can only use a landscape once before you leave tracks in the snow so it has to be done right first time every time. In the extreme cold, electronics do not work well, batteries loose their charge and people start to break down too. 10/10 for making it work on that side.

I gave this a solid 7/10. I could be pressed to increase this to 8 but what this lacked, in my view is the story of the events leading up to the opening scene. I know that they did not want to include that as part of the story but i'd like to know more.

I'll be keeping an eye out for the producers and actor in this movie as if they can make such a realistic arctic survival film then they should be able to make extremely good other movies too.

* He had two lengths of rope, a quickdraw carabiner and an ice axe. If he had known about rock climbing then he could easily have rigged a Z-drag / 2:1 or 4:1 pully system and had that paulk at the summit in no time. In fairness though, he was a pilot, basically a glorified bus driver so we cant expect him to know everything and his northern bushcraft was pretty good up until that point.

Free Solo (2018)

"To feel fear and to push through it because your goal demands it, that is the god damn warrior spirit within"

[9/10 · 10 March 2019]

He's an oddball, defintley got a screw loose (shown in his MRI scan) but he is such a nice guy and one of the most talented climbers in the short histroy of our species.

I was so happy when I heard in the news that he had made it and the documentary really shows the emotion of the team during the climb.

Love it. It's inspiring in many ways. I think that Alex could do just ab out anything he set his mind to.

Walking Out (2017)

Completely unrealistic, dull and uninteresting

[3/10 · 9 March 2019]

None of the "survival" aspects of this film are even remotley realistic in premise and the reactions by the characters are pretty much the opposite of what would be required in reality but OK, this is a movie, not a documentary.

The score is dull, depressing and reminds me of some other art house dullness.

The acting is average, the kid is better than the father but his part os very limited in scope so he does not really get the chance to shine.

The father's character is 1 dimensional and simple barks out commands that would get them both killed in real life.

If you have an interest in the wilderness, ,hunting or just survival, skip this one, it's frustratingly incompotent and boring.

If you are not interested in those things, I still dont see anythign else about this movie that would make it worth your time to watch/

Overlord (2018)

6.5 SS Cigarette Lighters out of 10.

[6/10 · 4 February 2019]

If you played wolfenstien back in the day and have seen some of the other attempts to make a movie like this then you will like this one. It is one of the better attempts at the nazi horror genre but it still falls short.

I really dont know why an excellent movie with a rich story based in historic fact is so elusive, this one still leaves us wanting but it is, on a whole, a decent enough movie.

MY only real gripe with this is the plague of social justice that infects everything coming out of hollywood at the moment.

The lead character is supposedly a private soldier from the 101st airborne infantry on his first drop behind enemies lines in operation overlord. The snag is, that he and his platoon sergeant are african americans. There were no african american infantrymen involved in this operation so why are these two here?

Not a word is said about it and of course the rest of the platoon accept them as if racism did not exist in the 1940's and it was all just perfectly normal (it wasn't).

The two actors in question did a fine job and I was almost able to forgive the producers for this but I am still left wondering why a historical white persons role was replaced with a black person. It would never be considered that white actors should play the parts of historical black characters so it leaves me with the obvious conclusion that the inclusion of two black actors playing the role of white people in a historical event (zombies not withstanding) was a simple, misguided and futile attempt to be politically correct.

I'll admit I was wrong when we see Matt Damon playing Malcolm X, Ben Afleck playing Mohammad Ali and Jesse Eisenberg playing Michael Jackson. Perhaps when they remake the next black slavery story they could cast some white people i amongst the other slaves.

It would of course be unthinkable to do that so why do they think it is ok to do it in reverse?

Keep politics out of movies, especially movies like this and if you want to have black actors involved then write them a part that makes sense and dont just substitute them for what can obviously only really be a white actors role.

Better still, stop making race an issue at all.

With that little commentary of the sorry state of hard left politics out of the way, Jovan Adepo was impressive and did not succumb to the temptation to overact or cheapen the story. He was measured, restrained and obviously a very capable actor who has control of the full range of emotions and skills that any good actor should.

Og and this is the first WW2 movie in which nobody smokes., 1944 and nobody smokes cigarettes, yeah right (more politics)

6.5 SS Cigarette Lighters out of 10.

Robin Hood (2018)

At least they cast a man as Robin

[2/10 · 22 January 2019]

This movie was a hairs breath from casting a woman in the role of Robin Hood.

Little john is a sub Saharan African who is also Muslim eh, sure, in Medieval England, ok.

There is such a rich mythos and legend surrounding Robin Hood and there has not been a single decent movie yet, they seem to get worse and worse every time somebody tries.

The last decent Robin Hood on screen presence was the TV series back in the 80's.

This insult to the legend is a pathetc attempt to cash in on the current, awful trend of regressive liberal politics and putting women and black people in the place of white men.

I wonder when we will see a white man playing Malcolm X...never probably but its ok to have a black man playing Little John, the most quintessential midlander in our long history.

Rubbish. Get woke, go broke

Fortitude (2015–2018)

4 episodes in, its decent

[7/10 · 13 January 2019]

Not really sure where it is all leading, if anywhere but its decent. The settings, the cold, it's decent.

My only real complaint is that for a Norwegian island somewhere in the Arctic, where are all the Norwegians, only the cops seem to be local, everyone else is British or Irish which is weird.

Also, having spent a fairly large proportion of my life in similar northern towns, it is extremely rare to come across "multi-multiculturalism" like what is portrayed in the show, you knows, token black people everywhere. It would be a mix of Northern European, Sami and perhaps Greenlander / Icelandic so multi cultural yes but not in the same way that the capital cities of western europe have become.

Other than that minor complaint, i like it.

Bird Box (2018)

unoriginal, shallow, dull and boring

[4/10 · 6 January 2019]

This format has been done to death and there is nothing new or original in this one, they took none of the opportunities that were available to explore the concept further.

Most recently, John Krasinski's - A quiet Place explored the story arc of "you have to be silent or the monster will get you" and now here we have "you have to be blindfolded or the monster will get you".

The character development is awful, they had John "Malcatraz" Malkovich in a leading role and utterly failed to use him for anything meaningful. The other characters came and went, none of them standing out in anyway.

Even the ending is a straight up clone of Day of the Triffids. The huge number of stolen and unoriginal plots devices would have been cool if they were paying homage and putting in references for fun but they were not, this is just lazy, B grade film making done to generate a bit of money, nothing more.

It's a watch once and delete movie. This one will not be remembered and the fact that it has been nominated for awards genuinely just confirms that the current day awards programmes are corrupt and worthless to the end viewer.

There are dozens of other horror / sci fi movies with the same plot and most fo them are better than this. Watch one of them instead and dont waste an evening on this.

The Haunting of Hill House (2018)

2 episodes in and I dont see what the fuss is about

[6/10 · 27 October 2018]

It´s not scary, there are a few moments where it is weird and unusual but I really dont see what the fuss is about.

I read some reviews on here and thought ¨hey, this should be amazing¨ and I am left wondering if I am watching the right show because this is some average, tv drama with a slightly spooky theme but not much else going for it.

I´m only 2 episodes deep, i´ll do one more and if it´s still dull and boring then that will be it for me.

Dont believe the hype.

Africa: Blood and Guts (1966)

brutal

[8/10 · 12 September 2018]

It´s on youtube so i watched this earlier on. It is very graphic and very brutal with extreme violence, executions etc...

It is a very important documentation of 1960´s africa and the onset of colonial powers withdrawing.

The sheer scale of and the limitless ¨african violence¨ is shocking and goes some way towards explaining the reluctance of many to hand over to majority rule.

There is ample evidence to show that majority rule in Africa resulted in the mass murder, rape and eating (yes, they ate people) of white people.

And now look at it. Africa was a prosperous place with 1st world countries generating enough food, water and money for everyone. Independence turned it into a bloodbath and a terrible place to be overnight.

The Butterfly Effect (2004)

timeless classic

[9/10 · 1 September 2018]

This movie really got to me when I first saw it back in 2004. It got me so emotionally involved that i felt upset by it, in a good way. This is the hallmark of a masterpiece of art and film making.

It has taken me 14 years to work up the courage to watch it again and it had the same affect on me.

This is an engaging, immersive, thought provoking and loving movie with incredible pacing, lovable characters (some not so lovable) and the ending will crush you.

I don´t want to spoil this for you by telling you what happens but trust me, I usually watch sci fi or horror movies and I enjoyed this...basically a love story with some fantasy / sci fi under tones.

I will probably watch this again in another 14 years and I fully expect it to tear my heart open again.

Patient Zero (I) (2018)

Great cast, Terrible movie

[3/10 · 26 August 2018]

Some decent, well known British actors, a reasonable but unoriginal story line (essentially the same as Day of the Dead) somehow utterly ruined by a poor script, poor directing, poor editing choices and an awful - off the shelf - score that does not fit the movie at all.

Couple all of that with a bunch of British actors all speaking with American accents, presumably in order to sell the movie in the US because Americans don´t like movies with British people in.

Natalie Dormer somehow manages to maintain her dignity in this production but I have no idea what she was doing in this production, Matt Smith is also a very good actor so why was he in this? Neither of them could salvage this 1 dimensional script which was further degraded by awful supporting actors and absolutely no depth in the story at all.

I watched this out of curiosity mostly but there are a hundred better options out there if you want to watch a post apocalyptic sci fi, action, horror story.

A turd.