PeaceGuard Reviews

Climax (I) (2018)

Modern, long, visually impressive version of "your brain on drugs" brainwashing propaganda.

[3/10 · 19 June 2020]

So first.. anyone who has experience with LSD knows that reactions of characters within this movie have nothing to do with reactions on LSD. In fact, they're a whole much closer to the exact opposite. Maybe it could happen on scopolamine (deliriant) or on large doses of dissociatives (especially arylcyclohexylamines such as PCP and analogs) or as a result of some stimulant psychosis (large doses of amphetamines, cathinones, cocaine - cocaine is present in the movie, but only few people take it). So the question arises.. what exactly is the point of Noe to make such an extreme brainwashing propaganda? He has done multiple drugs featuring films... oh wait, or is it multiple films featuring drugs (and sex, of course, he has an undeniable unhealthy obsession with both) and I assume he has at least elementary knowledge about their effects (although does he really? maybe he's just this ignorant/unintelligent). So he does it fully consciously. Why? Because he assumes the general public knows sh.t about the topic anyway?

His previous movie, Enter The Void, was better, and, if not for the last 20 minutes, it could've deserved even a 9. If only it would conclude that most of the film was a hallucination, not a Buddhist pseudo-philosophy. Since then, with "Love" and "Climax" he has only deteriorated.

The general public actually knows how people act of LSD. Crowds of hippies during large concerts in the 60s showed that. People relax, chill, get dreamy, talk, seek closeness (this is the one and only remotely close aspect compared to the reactions in this movie), concentrate on what's going on within their heads without much external activity, sometimes do dancing or singing or just perform normal day-to-day actions. Here you just have a mass psychosis/hysteria. Nonsensical. Also, who instills LSD with eye drops? It's not ibogaine, you ignorant Noe.

And, apart from the drug part, there isn't mush in the movie. Is every movie of Noe about sex, drugs and almost no plot?

Have a Good Trip (2020)

We don't need this superficial woo-woo comedy

[4/10 · 14 May 2020]

First of all, I'm pro-psychedelic availability and use.

I could recommend a whole lot of good to superb docs on the topic of drugs. In chronological order: 2001 Shamans Of The Amazon, 2006 Cocaine Cowboys, 2007 The Union: The Business Behind Getting High, 2008 Cocaine Cowboys 2, 2009 NatGeo Explorer S24E05: Inside LSD, 2011 Magic Trip: Ken Kesey's Search For A Kool Place, 2012 The House I Live In, 2013 Neurons To Nirvana: Understanding Psychedelic Medicines, 2014 Cocaine Cowboys Reloaded, 2014 The Culture High, 2015 The Sunshine Makers, 2016 Orange Sunshine, 2017 America's War On Drugs (must see), 2017 Trip Of Compassion, 2019 Dosed, 2019 Fantastic Fungi, 2019 Journeys To The Edge Of Consciousness, 2019 The Mind Explained S01E05 Psychedelics, 2019 The Nature Of Ayahuasca. Also VICE's Hamilton's Pharmacopeia series (must see).

This is however is extremely superficial & bland in comparison to other ones. It doesn't provide any particular knowledge, is wrong multiple times, promotes Chopra who is probably the least intelligent person in the whole scientific community, consists mostly of short meaningless insertions of comment and weak humor, mostly completely inaccurate visual effects.

Charles Grob saves a bit of rationality within the movie, Sting offers some relatively sensible comment, in the extent he can in those short commentary bits. In general, the strongest part of the entire doc is that it was able to gather some personalities that most of us were unaware have used psychedelics and get them to 'come out'. But most of the rest is just pure pointless garbage.

Philomena (2013)

It's a solid movie with a bit of moral controversy near the end

[8/10 · 10 January 2018]

What I mean by moral controversy is part in which Philomena forgives the last living nun from her times the atrocities that she's responsible for, giving "a good Christian example". The problem is it's nowhere near a good example. In the end she decides that the story of her life should be published which obviously is the only right choice, but the sole fact of doubting it wrong. Just the same as we would not want any pedophilia case to be covered, we would not want the same to happen with practices from this movie that involved conscious murder by negligence (at childbirth and others), human trafficking, virtually slavery, covering up all of these, which relates not only to the past, but also to the present part of the film's storyline. For every such incident that will successfully get covered, another one will be enabled somewhere else. Just the same as the recent exposing of sexual harassment leads to less incidence of it in the future. Also, let's remember it's far from only about Philomena. She has no right to make a decision about tens of women and children only by herself. She's only one of many. What happened there is a wide practice regarding multiple individuals, including many who cannot make a decision for themselves (about potential forgiveness), because their dead and even if all would, it's still a matter of state interest, because it's about the TRUTH and PREVENTION.

Dark (2017–2020)

A great show for intellectuals, masses may get overwhelmed

[8/10 · 8 December 2017]

Yes, it does remind me Stranger Things. For now I've rated both with a 9, but in a case of ST it's a strained 9, here I'd rate it 9,5 if I could. It also reminds me of 12 Monkeys by Syfy, albeit this one is 2-3 levels above it.

I adore the Nolanslike complexity and a bit of focus you have to pay to keep up with the story. I'm sure there will be people who will say it's too heavy and difficult for them to grasp, so if you're a fan of low-demanding action movies, comedies, horrors, melodramas etc. there's a chance you won't like it. Some will probably also not like it's in German and you have to read subtitles or listen to English dubbing.. terrible! The audio is great. The cast is done perfectly, which Netflix seems to master every time. The story isn't obvious and predictable. It is very arresting. I watched/listened to both the intro and outro of every episode. Can't wait for the plot developments in the second season.

The Newsroom (2012–2014)

Sad the show is exactly what it protests against

[6/10 · 22 November 2017]

I strongly agree with the leading motive of the series about how the news should stay faithful to telling the objective truth, abstaining from cheap journalism and political correctness. Generally they should consist of intelligent professionals doing good job, without showmanship.

Unfortunately, the series itself is almost as opposite as you can imagine to this. It does not depict the work of journalists in a realistic way. It's all fake for entertainment purposes. Their work is unrealistic, the dialogues are as in a Marvel action movie, every character seems insubordinate, neurotic, childish, not very smart, irrational and showman-like.

Sorry, I really wanted to like this show. I've recently watched Mindhunter and the realism/accuracy difference between the two is very visible.

Game of Thrones is great. First season of True Detective was great. Westworld is solid, but generally HBO lost it's leading position is show production, at least in the drama category, mostly to Netflix. And hopefully the coming Witcher will match GoT.

Get Out (I) (2017)

It seemed soo solid until the middle of the film

[7/10 · 27 October 2017]

It's sad, because the first part of the movie deserved a 9, but then it got only worse and worse. It's very solid technically, has good acting, nice audio, the main idea is a definite plus. On the other hand the special effects are weak (like blood or flames) and the second part of the scenario is terrible.

• the car which is used for the initial abduction is playing a loud music, which I don't really believe is the best way to imperceptibly kidnap someone - there's an open door out of nowhere leading the main character to finding the box with photos simply waiting for him; the servants are steered by their grandparents so I guess they didn't leave it there for him - they 'kidnapped' the main character with his friend knowing his new girlfriend.. I mean is this supposed to be the first time they act to stupidly? or am I somehow supposed to believe they acted this way many times in the past and no one has noticed their friends/family missing? - they could have hypnotized him at the start, but of course they've waited until he'll start to be problematic, they could've kept him inside the hypnosis, but of course they didn't - oh.. they didn't think he can use the cotton wool to plug his ears.. and of course there's no monitoring, no checking if he really is unconscious.. - then a guy who had a liter of blood flow out of his head is resurrected and attacks the main character.. of course he could get any weapon in the meantime, but he attacks him with his bare hands! - then the main character drives away and his girlfriend who has not heard the roar of the engine, did hear him hit the soft body of a grandma.. and of course she could quietly approach him and shoot him from up close, but she starts some shooting practice from far away letting him run away.. of course he doesn't run away into the woods where it's harder to get shot, but run by the road where he's in the open.. then she doesn't notice the flash in the darkness (!!!) of him doing a photo and for some reason gives away her gun - the character of his friend from Border Guard seems like some help for low intellect people, because all that he does is prompting the viewer (during phone conversations) what is happening in the story, if they're unable to see it themselves - another movie about the supposedly intelligent people who cannot even act elementarily cautious

Well, in the end even the title was already a spoiler. And generally it's quite predictable. You can anticipate the hypnosis, the complicity of his girlfriend etc.

It's a perfect film for a revolution in democratic societies: - blacks incited against the whites - conservatists against Obama supporting liberals - common folk against evil intellectuals + conspiracy theory feeding

I rate it 7 mainly for it's 'reflective value', but it had so much more potential.

War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

A perverted message without credibility

[6/10 · 23 October 2017]

I was expecting a 7-9 rating after the first 1/3-1/2 of the movie. Unfortunately it got worse and worse with time.

The monkeys worry about leaving the forest without alarming the soldiers even though they practically have 1 base and maybe 1-2 expeditionary bases at single points, kilometers away from each other.

A girl lives with her warden, maybe father. He takes care of her even though she got sick for some monkey illness and he risks the same. He meets a couple of monkeys which point guns at him. He tries to kill them before they kill him, he fails. The girl sees his body, does not care at all, whatever. The next day or a couple of days later one of her warden/father's killer dies, which makes her incredibly sad and crying.

There are some soldiers in an abandoned base. They guard hundreds of intelligent monkeys with the use of a single man. A man who does open their cage and walk into it, full of monkeys. He doesn't even need to be pulled below the ground, he can be incapacitated at any moment, like from behind or whatever.

The base is constructed in a way that some single ill-thrown cigarette butt can make the whole place explode.

There's like 30 cm of soil between the ground of the base and some sewers below it. No one falls there even though if it can be easily dug up with hands from below, it would be easily destroyed with an adult mans weight, but whatever.

There's some assault at the base. Even though the attackers do have some long range tanks/howitzers/cannons they just send their air forces first to be shot down, which they are, with almost every missile reaching its target. Then they just mindlessly storm the base with no cautiousness.

In general, even though I am a liberal, the movie feels like some radical left-wing propaganda. Our race is worse than the other race. Men society is worse than a mixed society. White society is worse than black society. Our society is devoid of even one compassionate person, unlike theirs. Our race deserves total extinction regardless of whether you are a part of faction which does care for human life or a part of one which doesn't.

Even the forces of nature will trigger at the right time to exterminate our race. Well, why even bother to shoot these two hours of film if they could just start with the avalanche destroying all humans? Why not use the same tactic in other war movies? An snow/rock/mud/sand avalanche destroys one side of a conflict and you don't have to bother with all these technicalities, right?

The Handmaid's Tale (2017–2025)

Deliberation about the nature of this series' story.

[8/10 · 11 July 2017]

The gap between the most and the least intelligent humans is not much smaller than between the least intelligent humans and the smartest animals. Intellectuals are always a minority. Intellectuals meant as a group of the smartest people globally and natively, not as people who work at offices. Meant as at most upper 20 percentiles, if not 5-15%. Intellectuals always need at least partial support from the less intelligent people to uphold a stable and humane society, not letting it be torn by savage external forces, or internal ones. The most educated, high IQ societies members, scientists etc. Support for right-wing 'values' like religion, intolerance, inhumanity is always very low in these groups. And wars, terror and repression happens mostly in the name of gods/religion, fatherland or misinterpreted honor.

About these other reviews where people rate the show low and say it's not a reliable, plausible story or it can't happen in a Christian country. Guess what, it was real in the past and can be real again. And where I live, Poland, it is more and more similar with every day of current government rule. They've taken over the Constitutional Tribunal and are in progress of trying to take over the Supreme Court. They've taken control over the Prosecutor's Office and use them for political needs. They've expelled most of the skilled army officers and replaced them with their passive but loyal ones. They're creating 'territorial defense armies', which are supposed to consist of weakly trained but loyal citizens, mostly hooligans and religious fanatics and suck the budget of traditional army and weaken it. They limit the civil liberties, they remove and carry people out of demonstrations, as it was during the pre-'89 soviet occupation. They use the topics of terrorist attacks and refugee crisis to spread intolerance and hatred, in order to gain more power. The country which has gained popularity for its Nazi opposition and later for beginning the Soviet Union thaw now has to be taught by Germans what tolerance it. They're the third worst government of Europe, after Erdogan in Turkey and Putin in Russia. They model themselves on them, the difference being it's an authoritarian secular rule in Russia, Muslim in Turkey and Christian in Poland.

In vitro has its limits and it's not approved by the Church, so the argument the story is obsolete because of it's existence is also missed.

The mass infertility itself is obviously not very credible, if there won't be any biological or chemical mass destruction weapon used.

Overall, coming back to the series rating, it has a great reflection inducing value, which I find it's best advantage. Although it's implementation seems to be quite boring, dragging on and I would expect Netflix or AMC to handle the series more effectively.

Utopia (I) (2013–2014)

Nothing makes sense in this series.

[6/10 · 11 July 2017]

A virus which only lets 5% of people be fertile leads to either the annihilation of the human race or the dystopian reality of 'Handmaid's Tale'. For some moronic reason they're talking about stabilizing world's population at 500 million people, but either it's not hereditary and it will only work for one generation or it is hereditary and the population will be decreasing permanently. Sustaining billions of humans also isn't a problem even if oil and similar sources run out, because it's not a problem to run the whole energy supply with the use of renewables. It's just about corpo-political will. Uruguay did switch to 95% of clean energy in 9 years, for example. Of course the overpopulation will become a problem one day, but there's no reason not to simply limit the number of children you can have. China did it and survived. It even grew to economic superpower in the same time. It can be decided that you can only have a single child and you can randomly select people who can have more. Or it can be based on some kind of IQ score, for example, with the lower half being able to have 1 child, so that no one would be excluded from the possibility to have offspring, and the higher half being able to have two children and the smartest ones maybe 3 or 4. 1/3 or more of the people will not want to have any children either way, the same as it is now. Developed countries have stable fertility rates or even negative. Developing countries have positive ones, the same as developed ones once did, but will have stable ones once their living standard goes up.

This show is simply trying to sell an idea which is completely incredible. It would be easier to watch if the show would state that some insane group of radical imbeciles fell for it, but it is also suggesting some smart people did, which is just idiotic.

Why would a man who changes sides and decides to oppose his fellow madmen, put a virus he's now against into his daughter? It also does not make any sense.

A guy whose eye is gauged out and father killed approves people who did it, even though their killing spree methods are a separate thing from their ideology.

A girl who wants to kill Mr Rabbit changes her mind, because her father is alive. Like these two are in any way linked. She can track him down with a phone, but whatever, not that anything makes sense in this series.

The characters can't simply e-mail the info they have to everyone to alert people, even at the very start of the story. It's not 19th century where it was hard to pass an info. Their enemy is supposedly a limited number of folks without many high figures (one minister?), but they're somehow able to know everything and silence everything. No one is interested in their killing sprees. In general there's some kind of problem with information transfer in this series. In most cases no one passes the crucial information to others or does it late enough for it to be a problem. It's like watching the new Prison Break, both with senseless, half-baked stories.

The visual effects are one of the worst I've seen, the credibility of events is awful, the acting is mediocre. It's hard to believe it's a 2013 show, maybe if it would be created in the long gone past, it could be at least a little more credible.

And a typical rubbish ending with history coming full circle and a rebirth of the evil/danger.

One of the biggest disappointments in terms of average rating vs real quality. I'm only giving it a 6 for reflection inducing value, because most of its aspects deserve less. Maybe impressive for naive people, but cheap for smart ones. If you're an intellectual who enjoys elaborate psychological drama/crime, you won't be satisfied with this title. If you just want a cheap conspiracy theory with Illuminati, evil politicians, scientists, big pharma and vaccines and you have nothing against mediocre execution of the show, then you might enjoy it. As one the characters states at the end of the show - "Well, there are bad people in this world. People, who need to control others." If you're the type of person who likes to see it this way as a part of conspiracy, that's a show for you.

FLCL (2000–2001)

Kitsch sold as parody

[6/10 · 3 July 2017]

Well, I simply had to write a mini-review of this. I don't consider myself an 'anime fan', although I've seen around 30 of them in my life. I value ones like Death Note, Monster, Berserk, Hunter x Hunter, Shingeki No Kyojin, Hellsing Ultimate, Baccano etc. This one, it just does not convince me.

It honestly was extremely hard for me to watch. Even though it only has 6 episodes, I was struggling to continue through a single one of them. I had to watch it in around 8 sessions and I usually watch multiple episodes at once. I am aware it's meant to be a parody, but it simply doesn't convince me. I agree that the visuals are superb even for current times and probably genius for back then. The music is also above average. But it only makes me more irritated. Because both the visuals and great audio could be used back then to tell us some original story. A real, new story. Not some kitsch random set of scenes supposedly aimed to be ironic. I do not agree about it being 'the essence of growing up' or a sensible parody of anything. I can see the references to Neon Genesis Evangelion, but a creation which is not sensible itself can't be considered a good parody either.

I know there will be many who'll disagree. But I wanted to warn the ones who expect a real story not to count for it in this series' case. The title is quite adequate - coolly form and fooly essence.

John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

Visually impressive load of complete crap.

[5/10 · 11 June 2017]

The acting is just sufficient and the visual style is impressively elegant. That's all good you can say about this film.

The story is terrible, the characters are terrible, the CGI is below average, the physics / trajectories are terrible, the credibility is simply zero. It was quite 'adorable' how he always stops to reload in the most open area, how he's getting just the right time to reload between enemy waves, how shitty these enemies are with everyone aiming for the vest and with no single sniper who could put such an idiotic assassin with amateur skills to sleep with the first opportunity. This is a classic Seagal style movie with improved style/graphics. Probably only a fan of Seagal/Van Damme/Deadpool/Furious series could rate this high. It's terrible even for an action movie standards.

Where has Batman/Bourne trilogies/first Boondock/early Terminators/even first Rambo quality gone in action genre? :|

Moonlight (I) (2016)

Not a crap, and not a masterpiece.

[7/10 · 28 February 2017]

So I was hesitating whether to give this movie an 8 or a 7, but decided this way.

First of all, I do not agree with all of these reviews saying it's complete bullshit you can bore yourself to death or anything like that.

But from the other side it certainly does not deserve for a best movie award and is so obviously a consolation prize for the black community after last year's disturbance. Last year a much better movie, Straight Outta Compton, was skipped by the Academy almost entirely and now they simply wanted to somehow redeem themselves or simply get some peace from the racism accusations.

Speaking about racism.. there's not a single white person in the whole movie, obviously if that would be the other way around a white producer would be accused of racism, but it somehow is okay in this case. And it has to be stressed that there's 72.4% of white people in US and only 12.6% of black people. These stats may differ for Miami or Atlanta, but still it's much less probable you won't encounter any white person than that you won't encounter any black person. And there simply is none in this movie - no one in the school, no one on the streets, no one on the public beach on in any other situation.

Next, these three parts of the movie are far too incoherent. We definitely miss too much and especially the third part is not very credible as a continuation of the first two. So a skinny guy who spends his time reading books, watching TV and hates drugs because of his mother, he's kind of intellectual introvert, then becomes a complete opposite, because he spends some time in a prison. Hmm. And how much time did he spent in that prison? He hit his colleague with a char in the classroom, it was his first ever misconduct, he did it as a response for his bullying (which he would probably testify, because why not), his victim probably didn't get any serious damage from that and the movie suggest like he would go to prison for years for that.. and they haven't even bothered with hiring some similarly looking actor (face) to the younger versions of his character. The body can change, but building muscle doesn't cause your face to change for an entirely different type. He's like Ed Skrein in one episode and Michiel Huisman in the next.

The characters are not deep enough.. what do you really learn about the main character throughout the whole movie, apart from the fact that he's black and gay? The same about others, we simply have some shallow roles - the bully, the crackhead, the surrogate mother, the father you never had, the boyfriend.

The movie is far from dynamic, and believe me, dramas, heavy psychological movies etc. can be dynamic when they need to, but not in this case.

It also doesn't depict anything specific. It seems to be a primitive mix of most of the motives that usually give you a movie award.

I haven't yet seen La La Land or Manchester By The Sea, which seem to be the other most appraised movies this year, but I doubt they won't be better. Captain Fantastic seems to me the best film that has been skipped by the Academy this year. It's better than the Oscar nominations I've seen so far - Moonlight, Hacksaw Ridge, Arrival, Hell Or High Water.

Arrival (II) (2016)

Reflection inducing, but screenplay and science are weak.

[7/10 · 5 February 2017]

Checking first 4 or 5 pages with reviews I've only found ones with a rating of 9 or 10 and 5 or below. That's ambivalent..

I've rated the movie with a 7, because of it's reflection inducing values, very nice special effects, not bad music and acting. But the screenplay and directing are this movies weak sides. The scriptwriter is supposed to make sure everything makes sense, is reliable, logical and error free. A director is responsible for controlling all of that and suggesting some changes for the better, but they both failed completely.

The first problem is the incoherence between the suggested high level of intelligence and development of the alien race and what we see in the script. The aliens arrive, but they're like children - unprepared, not knowing what to do, not knowing how to communicate, with no initiative. Humans which are supposed to be a less developed race have to teach them communication, just like dealing with some autistic children. Of course it even takes time before they start to understand the difference between "human" and an individual name.

From the other side we have humans which choose just two people - one quite random scientist, who's in the middle of his 40s instead of some experienced expert and one linguist. No one else is needed. Well, they theoretically have some "teams", but obviously these teams don't do anything at all. And this best linguist also doesn't know how to start a conversation. She even teaches in school, but she can't figure out that it might be a good idea to for example link images with words to teach these aliens instead of writing them words and trying to explain what you mean by chaotic other words and gestures. It's good these aliens are at least available to see, which really isn't that obvious.

The aliens can open the hatch only once per 18 hours even though they possess an advanced technology and it seems the area where they stand is sealed, so there's no real reason for this interval.

The aliens have chosen to land on 12 different locations even though their aim was to simply transfer their language thus allowing humans (or some of them) to perceive time differently which is supposed to help them and earn their help in the future, but hey.. why did they needed to land on these 12 locations instead of one? There's no answer for this. The same as why can't they help themselves if they have 3 thousand years for that? Are humans more capable of developing some helping skills during this time than they are? Doesn't seem to have sense.

Then we have the political motive. We can see China and Russia as these primitives who can't be patient enough to conduct any peace talks, but want to use force since practically the beginning. And I could even agree with that a bit, because in general the more liberal and democratic a society is, the more likely it is to use peaceful and rational approach and the more autocratic and conservative a society is the more likely it is to use violence and coercion to solve it's problems. But still it's quite "propagandish".

And they don't even have the The whole parenthood motive is very weak and seems to be added just for inducing people's emotions and thus making the movie's rating better. And does this scientist guy really seem like a person who abandons his family "only" because he knows that his daughter will die in the future?

But the worst of all is this destiny motive. The movie clearly indicated that you cannot change your future, regardless of whether you know it or not. Destiny can be somewhat understood as long as you don't assume you know your future, because hey.. from the future perspective everything you've done in your past could only go one way. Life is not a PC game, where you can make a save, then try out a couple of future outcomes and go on with the most preferred. But it gets complicated once you assume you know the future. The theory that you would still be incapable of changing it is one of the most laughable science assumptions. The aliens can't prevent their future problems, the min character can't choose to have a healthy child by prenatal diagnosis.. hell, these highly developed aliens don't even have a prescription for cell regeneration (and thus preventing aging and most of the diseases) even though scientists all agree that it should easily be achievable to crack it before one millennium, maybe in few centuries. If it's written in their bubble-language that ten years from now you will choose to go right at the crossroads, you'll have to go right even if you'll know it and you'd prefer to go left. It reduces life to a massive puppet show.

Okay, there was more I noticed during the watching session, but now it's all I remember. It's definitely very far away from a "sci-fi masterpiece" some call it (I really pity for their lack of analytical thinking and scientific knowledge), but from the other side it's not as bad as some no-life haters say and it should be able to induce some more thoughts than usual in most of the viewers, which is good.

Westworld (2016–2022)

An alternative view on the story

[6/10 · 14 December 2016]

SPOILERS AHEAD

The series is about a murderous psychopath Robert Ford who's trying to realize his dream of mass murder with the hands of robots in the name of robot consciousness. Thus, 1st season of Westworld could be considered an intro towards the reality from the movies of Matrix or future in The Terminator, where humanity is reigned and oppressed by robots.

I find it important to stress that this Robert Ford guy does not liberate anyone's mind, because he creates consciousness out of it's lack, and not liberate already conscious beings. So were talking about a group of feeling, but not self-conscious creatures (similar to, let's say, low level animals like ants, flies etc.) who get "leveled up" by this Ford guy to the conscious level, equipped with guns and sent to kill everything around them. So before you start to consider the people gathered at the end as bad and Ford as good, think again. You probably would not want some mad scientist somewhere out there to make some flies conscious out of pity for them, arm in micro-guns and then sent out in the world to kill your human family. And this Ford guy doesn't care if his creations kill some brainy scientists, wealthy investors, security laborers or random people visiting. And no, not all of that guests were coming to kill and rape, but obviously the story simply concentrated on these ones. And even if all of them would go there to kill, I guess you are not as much concerned about killing a fly, because it doesn't have a human face layered on top.

So beware.

Life Is Strange (2015 Video Game)

A review and a couple of notes on the ending.

[9/10 · 1 December 2015]

These are HEAVY spoilers in here, so you DON'T want to read this if you haven't finished the game.

The game was great overall. Although it had it's minor drawbacks, it was very likable and emotional and can easily compete to be the best adventure game. Sometimes it was a bit monotonous, but not dull. The graphics was OK. The audio was great. The story is also quite impressive, although, of course, it's addressed to young people mostly. I was a bit disappointed because of how little the choices had it's consequences (although the game was implying the will be heavy) and that the photos we have made throughout the game had NO IMPACT on the ending. I thought that we will have to decide which one is the best and which one we want to use to win the photo contest or something, but they just didn't affect the play-through in ANY way. And as for a game which often offers us movie cut-scenes the endings were also short and a bit disappointing. They could last for at least 5-10 minutes. The "sacrifice Chloe" ending was a bit longer, but the other one was extremely shortened. I mention mostly the weaknesses of the game, but that's because it's easier - there's less of them. Overall the game was great and satisfying.

But I want to make a comment on the final choice.

If you played the game carefully, then the game was very clearly showing you all the people who you will kill by deciding to save Chloe (everyone in the Two Whales Diner and behind the windows during the nightmare with frozen time; all these people write you comments in your diary and through text messages and by words in the last parts of the game complaining why do you have to kill them all of your own egoism).

So, although it definitely was painful, I decided to let Chloe go. In the end it was what naturally was supposed to happen. And it did happen also because of Chloe's carelessness, which we see so many times throughout the game. If you know someone is a bit psychic, neurotic, aggressive, on drugs all the time and dangerous and you still decide to meet him, shout at him and threaten him, them you have to assume you can find yourself in danger. And Chloe was not a very thinking type, which she proved many times.

It was the only moral choice. Even Chloe herself understood what has to happen. And Max was already somehow "prepared" for Chloe's death, because she had already let her die in the alternative reality (euthanasia) and she had also seen her die a couple of times during the game, not being sure whether she will be able to "resurrect" her or not. So she had time to accept that. If you save the town, then you (Max) are the only person who suffers because of this choice. If you save Chloe, then you condemn both Max and Chloe to suffer to the end of their days of being responsible of killing thousands of people (let alone tell you that if anybody would know you would get 100 x lifetime sentence). They would never be able to forget about it.

And all those people? You have been saving them for the whole game.. now to let them all just die because of you? One of your two best friends, Warren. Kate Marsh, which you saved from killing herself (assuming that you did). Joyce, Chloe's mother, who is your everyday hero. Frank and David (assuming you didn't kill Frank), who maybe weren't perfect, but in the end turned out to be good men. Samuel, Alyssa. Your other school colleagues. And thousands of other people. Many of them being perfect fathers like William, perfect mothers, sons and daughters, friend, life partners. And you decide to condemn everyone in Arcadia Bay, either by killing him or letting him suffer for the rest of his life because of his lost kith and kin.

You can't even be sure that you will be with Chloe in the future. Of course they both declare it, but you know how life is. People declare such things many times and they really do mean it. But it still doesn't have to happen this way. After a couple of years they may no longer be so close. They may land in different places to live their life and so on.

I know that the game shows you the six days during which you mainly hang out with Chloe. But Max does have a life without her. She had lived without her for the last five years and she was OK. And honestly? Although she was feeling bad about it, she wasn't even in hurry to contact with Chloe after her arrival in Arcadia Bay. If she wouldn't meet her by chance in that bathroom or later on the parking lot she would even probably not contact with Chloe during these six days. So where's the logic behind killing all those people just for Chloe?

I just hope that the people who chose to sacrifice the island will never be politicians and never vote. Because if you're likely to kill the whole society to save your single friend.. well, that reminds me of the worst episodes of the world's war and cruelty acts. So.. yeah, I know this is just a game and it's more "romantic" to always back your closest friend / love, but you really should think about yourselves and rethink your philosophy of life.

A Wednesday (2008)

Definitely disappointing.

[6/10 · 10 November 2015]

Oh, this was a hell of a bad movie. I let myself be misguided by the good ratings.

The music was probably the only positive in this movie. The special effects were horrible. The bomb blowing up at the airport scene? Oh my.. something like this could only be created in India. There was some guy who got scared by a man threatening him on the phone, but it seems it was an "out of the story" scene. We have some bully-policeman, who beats everyone up. Well.. I'm not surprised why India is still in the place it is if the locals approve that. There's only one step from being fond of a character like that to using the same methods in one's real life. And then we have husbands treating wives like this, parents treating children like this etc. And these children later grow becoming terrorists. The bully gets shot by the other policeman and no one cares that it's a bullet from a police gun. Well.. I suppose the viewer should assume that all the police is corrupt and will cover that. An the end the movie is not credible for also one simple reason. No government fulfills terrorists's demands. If they would, anyone could simply demand something and expect it to be realized. So.. NO. It's just another unjustly high rated pseudo-moral movie from India.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

This is a shockingly weak action movie.

[6/10 · 31 October 2015]

I really expected something much better. I've seen some of the Guy Ritchie's movies and honestly each one of them was better than this. I'm not really sure why does it have such a high rating like 7.6, because 6, which I give it for entertainment values, is already overrated. The movie does not thrill or hold in suspense. The acting is okay, but surely not above average. I expected some good humour, but it was also very lame. The story is really weak, like from a Van Damme or Seagal movie. There are a couple of moments when the form of the film shines, but the content never does. And the worst of all is being (or, in fact, not being) realistic/authentic/credible. I don't want to waste my time for listing all the specific examples, like I usually do, but I just want to spare other people wasting two hours of their time. Almost none of the fragments of this movie hold together, have logical sense or is coherent. This is just one of the worst "classic action" movies I've seen lately. It's even worse than a typical Bond movie.

I don't recommend it to anyone who expects some level out of a movie, even if it's just an action movie. Don't count on me to see the next part ;)

Ex Machina (2014)

Promising, but overall disappointing

[7/10 · 3 October 2015]

I very much like the theme of fantasy, sci-fi and cyberpunk. For some time I was expecting to give this movie an 8 and if it would present something extraordinary, even more. Unfortunately, I was reading this movie like an open book 30 minutes in advance. And that is never a good thing. It's a low-budget movie, which is all but original. Why? Because it represents the most cliché motive of sci-fi, which is an artificial intelligence rebelling and taking over humans. It's dressed in a more emotional and delicate layer than most movies of this type, which most often look like The Terminator. But in the end it has nothing to offer instead of this one motive. It also is full of major logical flaws, which I hate in movies and if you are a director you just have to make sure you omit them. Some examples: - the mastermind/creator of the AI is intelligent enough to do it, but he's not intelligent enough to get some good precautions. The whole house is controlled with a single pass-card, so if he would damage it or miss it, he would get stuck there. He's surrounded by his AI all the time (the servant Asian and Ava from time to time) and in reality he could be disabled by them at any time. He gets drunk all the time, he's not cautious. So honestly there's no reason for this AI's to wait until some guy from outside helps them. They could kill their creator from surprise AT ANY MOMENT, get the card from his trousers and go out. Which leaves this movie without any real sense or logic, I'm sorry.

The director wanted to make something original, but he just failed. I give him 7 for the effort and for showing this king of movie in a more emotional way, but in the end the movie has disappointed me.

Southpaw (2015)

A really disappointing one.

[5/10 · 22 September 2015]

I started to watch this movie hoping that it can be a good fighting film, but it didn't fulfill my Hope.

We are introduced to a world champion who won 44 fights and who CAN'T DEFEND/BLOCK AT ALL. Well.. it doesn't need much comment. They didn't even bother to show any single block in his first fights. No one who has ever seen or especially if you are interested in boxing fights can treat it as something probable. Box is mostly a game of tactics and technique, where most of the punches are either evaded or blocked. Very many punches reach their target. Unlike in this movie. So he gets to the top again by.. learning how to use a block. Woow. And they even invented some crazy way of covering your face by raising your shoulder. Yeah.. it's a really great way to do that. A pity none of the real boxers uses it. Probably it's because it doesn't cover the face at all and the only effect of it is that you can't use the arm you raise to effectively punch. So it's just a movie bluff. There are many other things.. he's given a title fight immediately after his ban is over. Some addicted woman is pointed with a gun by the main character and she takes a newborn to cover herself.. yeah, that's also a probable reaction. And many other small things.

In the end, the movie is just very predictable. It tries to aspire for a good "fall and rise" movie, but it fails. The only things this movie is "good" at it some street rap music and naked chests to attract female audience. A pity.

Now You See Me (I) (2013)

A six for entertainment value, but no more.

[6/10 · 13 August 2015]

For a long time during watching the movie it had it's chances to get, let's say 8. But in the end I can't give more than 6 and I treat everything below 7 as not exactly worth watching.

But why? We have an opportunity to watch a VERY unrealistic movie. At the end we here that the man behind this was "planning every smallest detail" for years. Yet something like this could happen only in a movie. Let's look at only a couple of examples. The chance that Jack Wilder would reach the bridge at the exact minute or even second (if at all) to switch the vehicles would be zero in reality. The tricks with "teleportation" near the end were, of course, not possible. You can't just relocate tens of meters within three seconds or to the roof of a near building just like that. There are limits to what illusion/magic can do and that's why these things are not explained in the movie. The police arrest Thaddeus Bradley only because his car is loaded with loose banknotes, which could have been placed there but anyone. Yeah, let's hope police won't ever work like that in real life, because throwing a murder weapon through your window by a criminal would equal you spending rest of your life in prison, and packing a car with loose banknotes under the roof isn't exactly the best way of stealing money. There are many moments like that. There's just a difference between believing in something you don't understand how it was performed, but it was possible by the laws of physics and probability, and believing something that just didn't pass the laws of physics and probability.

Another huge flaw is the morals in the movie. The main character pursues Thaddeus Bradley and puts him into prison for probably many years for a crime he didn't commit in revenge for what? For exposing his illusion/magic tricks, which he believes led to the death of his father. Yeah, it's like you insult some guy, he commits a suicide and you're supposedly responsible for that. It's like some law from third world country where you're sentenced thirty years of prison for lèse-majesté or religious feelings offense. If the main character really believes that Bradley is responsible for the death of his father then it means he's mentally ill and should spend the rest of his life in a mental hospital, for the sake of other people's safety.

It COULD have been a good movie, really. It's just a pity it is not.

Mr. Robot: eps1.5_br4ve-trave1er.asf (2015) Season 1, Episode 6

First episode was very interesting, but in the end - it's not worth watching

[25 July 2015]

13 minutes of this episode was enough to part my ways with this series. Of course, it wasn't only this 13 minutes, but also most of the previous material. Right now I'm shocked I've lost so much time for this. After the first episode I really hoped it can be some good modern reality series. But it's just a very weak modern reality series. Almost every scene is very weakly played and doesn't make logical sense at all. I give the whole series 5 rating, end watching it and advise other to do the same. There are so many better series and other activities that it just is an abomination to watch it.

Mr. Robot (2015–2019)

This really is getting dumber and dumber.

[5/10 · 17 July 2015]

One episode ago I was myself thinking "the series is not perfect, but come on, there are so many hateful comments and too low ratings". This time I wonder myself whether even to continues watching this. It's just became weak in every way.

The corporations have no real security. Agirl can just enter the workplace, power on some computer and install the virus, without ever needing to register her presence. Half of the episode is spent on some high visions. The biggest corporation doesn't have a backup of it's data. The greatest hackers are some young emo problem-dealing teenagers. No one knows what a rootkit is in a security company. Well.. if you've watched it, you surely are aware of many more I don't have time to mention.

The only way I see for this series to have such a high rating is that today are the times when anti-corpo and anti-capitalism topics are so on top and there's a great number of anti-system people who like that kind of series, even though logically it just sucks.

End of Watch (2012)

I really don't know why the average is so high, I'll tell you this..

[4/10 · 28 January 2013]

I've seen very many movies and this is one of the most overrated I know. Really. The plot is about the work of policeman. Is it? Or maybe it is like a rap song, about nothing, and only street people like it? Because it's hard to imagine another profile of a person, who values this movie. It's a vast mound of logic mistakes and moments in which you watch it, think "Are they serious? Do you really expect an intelligent person to believe something like that?" The shooting scenes, the fire scenes, the camera motives etc. Is there any message from that movie? I don't know. Don't believe IMDb ratings maybe? After the shooting scenes, before the church I was so disappointed and wanted to give this movie 5 rating. But no. One of them is alive. Okay, in this case, 4. Thanks, hope it helps other people not to waste their time.