atrpunk Reviews

Samaritan (I) (2022)

Best part of the movie was stolen from literature

[4/10 · 5 January 2023]

I tried to like this movie but it's hard to undestand the disjointed and nonsensical world created by the writer. When the movie finally reaches the grand finale, where our hero says something profound, it's almost directly plagarized.

Stallone says "If there was only bad people doing bad things, it'd be easy to get rid of them. But the real truth is, good and bad live in everybody's heart. And it's going to be up to you to make the right choice."

This seems to be directly ripped from the pages of The Gulag Archipelago, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

This movie could have been a lot better than it was - one of those rare non-DC/MCU superhero movies that creates heroes we would all want to see again. And when you read that this movie is inspired by Unbreakable, it makes sense. But with the prior example of idea-borrowing in mind, maybe this is just an Unbreakable rip-off that was never meant to be great, just will the void in a no-new-movies-like-Unbreakable world.

Jarhead: Law of Return (2019 Video)

Meh Extreme.

[3/10 · 15 January 2020]

The problem with this movie isn't so much the acting, though there are some cringe-inducing moments (but I've seen far worse)...I am convinced the main problem with 'Jarhead: Law of Return' is the writing and directing. The acting was decent with the absolutely ghastly dialogue and development scenes they were forced into. The scene where we are introduced to the pilot, "Major Ronan Jackson", through pre-flight banter with his WSO, is not only unnecessary, but extremely unlikely. There are many moments just like this throughout the film. Any attempt to familiarize us with the characters failed and there wasn't a single character that the directors were successful in connecting it's audience to. It's clear to me that the main goal here was not to write a thought provoking film, as the first 'Jarhead' was, or even a cohesive action movie, which there are too many excellent examples to list as comparisons ... no, the purpose here was the main theme of the film: anti-Iranian, pro-Western propaganda. I understand that most war movie contain pro-west war propaganda, but this was blatantly spoon-fed to the viewer in large doses. When it's this obvious you are prepping viewers for your anti-Iranian brainwashing leading into 2020, it's obnoxious. Other reviewers already mentioned the offensively obvious military inaccuracies, so I won't go into too many details except to mention the scene in the military jets were completely unrealistic with respect to the dialogue. There wasn't a single bit of accurate pilot lingo. Again, the very basic research that is usually done by writers is completely absent from this film. To make this slow-rolling turd even worse, the ending was anti-climactic, and again contained "the enemy is still out there" propaganda. Any reviewer that rates this higher than a 5 cannot be trusted with movie recommendations. And please, don't even try to tell me that this is better than the first 'Jarhead'. I'm being generous with a 3/10 rating. Won't watch ever again.

Cars 2 (2011)

Not what my kids and I expected...

[6/10 · 24 June 2011]

Espionage, assassinations, sabotage of renewable energy, propaganda, corporate cover-ups, media manipulation and The Mob...

James Bond? Nope. Jason Bourne? Nope.

Disney/Pixar's CARS 2. Wow. This movie wasn't at all what I was expecting. In the second serving of Lightning McQueen and his pals, they take their show to the international stage in a world championship race-off sponsored by oil-alternative manufacturer, Allinol. But turmoil behind the scenes pulls the gang into a world of spies, the Mob, Big Oil, evil German scientists and hit men. Now they have to save the world before it's too late. Oh, and they race too. The animation is amazing. Water, large balloons, backgrounds during races...pay attention because the quality of the graphics in this one are world-class. There are some goofy, funny moments and some nice one- liners for the older crowd. The themes of being true to yourself and bonds of friendship run strong throughout this film but it's the remainder of the message that worried me. There were non-stop put downs throughout and some other questionable topics. I was beginning to question the G rating when the villain ordered his henchmen to "kill" several other cars. Thinking back to the innocence and the good spirit of the first movie, I began to wonder how we got from there to here. Adventures in racing take a back-seat to the more mature plot of an espionage thriller. Looking around the theater, I could tell that kids younger than 4 or 5 were beginning to get lost. Even my ten-year-old had a hard time understanding the socio-political messages. On top of all that, I'd be willing to bet that Cars 2 is a contender for most guns, explosions and bullets fired in a G-Rated movie. This movie had much more violence than the first one.

Aside from the appropriateness of the movie, it wasn't bad. All the likable characters from the first movie were back with bigger roles like 'Mater & Luigi and there were many new characters added that also brought their own personalities into the mix. To me, this was an espionage-thriller so the added bonus of some comedy made the movie move right along at a good pace.

It was engaging for me, I enjoyed it, but the entire time I couldn't help but wonder why Disney/Pixar chose to tell this story through a kids movie.