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Reviews
Spaceman (2024)
So Many Skinny Humans Rating These Days
Old School Sci-Fi connecting imagination, philosophy and the human psychology. Don't make a mistake about it, this is what real Sci-Fi movies are about!
There are no explosions needed, no weapons! I can't describe how refreshing it is to watch a movie once in a while without explosions or weapons beeing used.
Certainly there are similarities to Moon or AdAstra and the less known but brilliant Mission ISRA 88. But it doesn't need to hide at all.
Spaceman is an intriguing and thought provoking adventure for the mind with an Adam Sendler who is pushing himself out of his comfort zone. I truly appreciate him doing serious movies even if I believe someone else could have taken this story even deeper through a more nuanced performance in the likes of Sam Rockwell. Paul Dano's voice is spot on! So calming and sounding so wise in a strange way.
Spaceman will be one of those 6.5 rated movies in the near future, illustrating the beauty of art and how it always lies in the viewers eyes. So you can give it a try if you like slower paced, dialog focused stories.
Poker Face (2022)
Cobbler, stick to your trade!
This is an amateur work. The storyline comes off like ChatGPT 3.5 wrote it. No atmosphere, building kit characters and development paired with uninspired acting. The title and premise is actually pure clickbait. Maybe I expected too much, but here I should have trusted imdb and saved my time. Russel, I always liked your performances as an actor, but you've lost your way here. The story goes on for a full two hours and I want to believe that it probably even sounded good in Russel's head.
I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with the required number of letters for this review because the film is so empty that it practically doesn't even offer any scope for criticism. Cobbler, stick to your trade!
The Bear (2022)
A pearl in an ocean full of crap!
The bear is a wonderfully authentic story about a master chef whose mind balances between ADHD and bipolar disorder.
Jeremy Allen White is simply phenomenal. An incredibly talented actor whose performance truly brings the main character Carmy to life and makes me as a viewer feel every emotion. J. A. White brilliantly embodies the constant mental tornness, the everyday distractions he is confronted with, the confusion of other people's lives in which he inevitably becomes entangled and, above all, the struggle to deal with all of this given his condition.
This inner pressure, the misleading feeling of having to please everyone, even if it comes at the expense of his own well-being, is something he manages to convey with just his facial expression and the way he plays with his eyes, so that I believe he has a great career ahead of him.
That beeing said, the story and the character touch me very much because I personally live with the same or very comparable condition and I can relate to many situations. It's very tiring to maintain self-control, not to let go, to stay on track and not lose focus. At the same time, you have the ability to deal intensively with various topics or activities. Entering a flow mode that goes to extremes. Mastering or at least reach a high level in different topics. But life, the relationship to other people and this world dominated by administrators rarely accommodate this lose way of life, which is beautifully conveyed through the story of The Bear.
Highly recomended.
Invasion (2021)
Could Have, Would Have, Should Have
I gave the series time because the potential was there. I overlooked the countless gap-filling scenes or even gap-filling episodes. But things just keep going downhill and S2E4 was the last straw. Trying to fob off the viewer with such inconsequential episodes is almost cheeky! Hardly any character is lovable, except at best the soldier. The same applies to the acting performance. Only the soldier delivers, the rest are below average. The Japanese woman's character is downright annoying. An interpretation that is thoroughly unlikable. Why does she have to act pissed all the time. Same goes for the mother. The character is designed as if she were acting in the walking dead world. The plot development is only advanced minimally per episode and the series mutates into a children's road movie. Total lack of creativity using ideas we saw 30 years ago in Independence Day or Falling Skies.
They should have made a Movie out of this story. They could have used the 5 to 10 min substantial plotparts of each episode and it would have been an entertaining 2 hour flick. But in this form it is just infiltrating my time!
Black Mirror: Beyond the Sea (2023)
Exceptional Premise & Outstanding Performance but ..
This Black Mirror episode was very intriguing thanks to the creative premise and fantastic performances by Paul and Hartnett.
First I want to address the folks who believe there is no reason to send the humans to space instead of the replicas. Well, if the link breaks down and no connection is possible the whole mission is finished. Indeed the writers failed to stress out the importance of the mission!
It is one thing for the astronauts to lose contact to their families and another failing to continue the mission at all if the link to the avatar doesn't work any more. So again, it was crucial to stress out the importance of the mission in order to fill this plot hole.
The very same reason applies to the ending. Both astronauts seam to be aware of the importance of the mission, but the viewer not so much. Hence the reason, Hartnett's character pushes the chair for Paul's character to sit down and continue.
That been said, I did not like the end because thats a much bigger plot hole than everything else. Why would he kill the family of his partner just to make a point. It's an absolute rubbish exit only written to create a shock. Hartnett's character was a loving father and it's incomprehensible why he would do that. Sure it's tough to find a good ending to this situation but slaughtering the family of your co-astronaut is simply way over.
However, the atmosphere and especially the performances by the actors kept me engaged which makes the episode above average compared to some other uninspired episodes of Black Mirror.
These Final Hours (2013)
Time truly is relative, isn't it?
This film has unimagined depth, excellent acting and most of all, the hardest thing to pull off, atmosphere. As usual, such an extraordinary work of art can usually only be achieved if the author himself directs his own film. That's the reason why I usually make my film consumption dependent on this requirement. I'm less likely to be disappointed, just like in this case.
The main character doesn't run to solve any technical problem, not to fulfill the usual cliches or to reach a happy ending bunker. The main character runs for meaning, for spiritual purpose! It doesn't matter if it's 12h or 80 years, it's the meaning we long for.
Moonfall (2022)
Roland, please retire!
Roland Emmerich has done it again! Every single movie he makes is worse than the one before, with Moonfall hopefully beeing his last! This movie is an insult to every Stargate, ID4 or even Day After Tomorrow fan.
It shouts in your face that he did not even try to put effort into characters or even one single dialogue. The whole movie is like a bad written comic and the atmosphere has no connection to what is happening. Acting is a desaster, but you can not even blame the actors, since they have been given nothing to work with. Still, Halle Berry is a shadow of an actress.
It is quite sad, because an actually interessting theory was turned into utter nonsense of a plot. My impression that cinema is in a brutal bear market got confirmed again!
No Time to Die (2021)
(No) Time To Die
I will keep this one as short as I can with little unimportant spoilers: So in the Hollywood world of today, you are allowed to write the script for one of the most famous and iconic cinema-hero-movie-franchises on the basis of writig a couple of TV-Show episodes?! Never written a movie script and then writing for a 200Mio. Production with deep character and plot complexity?! Seriously?
Clearly Hollywood has given up its audiance entirely! They simply dont think you need to be challanged by a story at all.
So they make a stirred, not shaken plotline, which is all over the place and pointless. To much individual stories glued together with no real conection between them. It kind of seems the begining and the end were a given and it was about how to make a 90min TV-Action-Melodrama fitting in between with some guy coincidentally called James Bond.
Character development not needed anymore. Changing their mind all the time and who they work for but you never find out why. Actually nobodies motivation gets clear at all. A Bond villian that has absolutly no edge, no deepness whatsoever. No real ideology, no special skill, no truly explained motivation (is it money, power or simply revange?) and not even coolness! Its just a guy with skin irritation and a couple of slow lines. And basically he couldnt care less about James Bond.
The crazy scientist is even worse (B-movie level!). Bond himself, different person, telling Ana de Armas to turn around when changing his dress, seriously? This is the joke James Bond would make in this situation? Really?! I remember James Bond not giving a **** about who, where, when or what, which is the essence of James Bond. Millions of men out there nice to the bones, go to cinema to see a bad ass hero and not one more Mr. Nice Guy! What for gods sake happend with the man getting his balls tortured by LeChiffre while laughing to his face?!?!
Action at the beginning is Bond how it was ment to be, later B-Movie carchase. Why? You had so much budget!
So 4 Stars for the opening action sequence and general effort but if future doesnt create new writers, directors and producers with courage to not follow the mainstream rivers of todays filmproduction and instead go their own ways, well then, Cinema, Its Time To Die!
The Grey (2011)
The Grey - Not just a film, but a tribute to millions of men
The Grey - A philosophical approach
I saw this film in theaters in 2011 and a few more times since then. Even then I thought the film was extraordinary. I didn't really know why. 10 more laps around the sun I consider this film to be a highly underrated masterpiece! Liam Neeson in his parade role and Frank Grillo with a lifetime performance.
The film matures with age and it is a poem about the average man in today's world. In truth, it is not about a struggle for survival in the icy wilderness fighting wolves, this is just the part that is supposed to entertain. This film is a single metaphor and tribute to the garbage man, the coal worker, the soldier, the janitor, the truck driver and warehouse worker, the mechanic, the construction worker and, of course, the oil production worker himself as well as millions other men who does the dirty work out there so that we have time here to review this film.
Men with daughters and sons whom they hardly see, but for whom they sacrifice so much, out of the need to do so. Whereby the wolves to me, are the manifestation of the unexpected suffering that can overtake them every day at any time while doing the above dirty work. From a physical and psychological point of view, facing the constant pressure and at times hoplessness. Stand up and stare back into the eyes of the unknown dangers of everyday life.
All characters can even be seen as one man, in different phases of life, who can be hit by inevitable stroke of fate or death for different reasons. Be it out of courage, cockiness, carelessness, ignorance, giving up or even simply bad luck. All the Oddways of life.
It is a film with so many layers that it would go beyond the scope describing them all. Mortality and the awareness of your own mortality are two completely different things. It's about faith and in it's core about the very meaning of life. What is it that lets you go Once More Into the Fray? ... repeat!
Sunshine (2007)
Kaneda, what do you see?!?
What enables us to live? What separates us from the darkness of endless space?
What is the only true source of energy for all physical existence? The Sun!
The ancient culture of the egyptians knew many gods, but the most powerful of all was Amun-Re or better known as the sun god Ra. Throughout all history you will find examples of sun worship. Rituals or even sacrifices to honor the only true (physical) god.
Why am I writing this? Well, from many user reviews you can read about how absurd the 3rd act of the film is and I would like to offer an alternative view to it. The drift into religion is by no means as absurd as many reviews suggest. The sun has been a highly religious object for the overwhelming part of human history, which has been forgotten in our modern era. However, our oh so modern world is without the sun, nothing. Literally. Keep that in mind when watching Sunnshine.
And still, as big and majestic it shines, you could never touch it. Even if right in front of it. What is it made up of other then gases creating energy/light through fusion and we're circling it. It's just light, but still you would turn to dust if too close.
Kaneda, what do you see?!?!... sums it all up here for me. One of my all time favorite scenes.
This movie about a space crew on its mission to reactivate our dying sun is monumental. The intensity exceptional. The acting on point. (I like to stress out that this to me is a lifetime performance by Chris Evens as the rational pilot). The direction superb. Yes, the story might have some holes, but which one doesn't?
This is an evergreen movie that has such power in putting the viewer and his existence into perspective. Manmade climate change, don't make me laugh. A cough by the sun, and everything is history.
The Expanse (2015)
If this is not a 10, what is?
I want to keep this short: This is a 10! It's as simple as that!
Put aside everything about the extraterestrial components of the story. If you ever think about how the future of mankind in our solar system could look like, I mean REALLY think about it and you want a realistic answer on that, then you should just wach this!
This is by far the most realistic depiction of a possible (maybe not so far) future of mankind ever written so far. History doesn't repeate, but it sure rhymes, because it doesn't matter where humans go or how much new technology they develop, human nature won't change! This fact is so well illustrated in this series.
The story and characters wrapped around this image of our future for Entertainment purposes are interesting and captivating!
What else is there to say for Sci-Fi lovers....?
Prospect (2018)
Months after watching I still reflect this...
This is superb Sci-Fi writing, period! I can only try and explain, why I still catch myself thinking about this movie every now and then, like in the very moment before writing this review.
The story is so realistic and beliveable, that it actually could have happened in a future far, far in the past. And maybe it did, who knows.
Fantastic performances by every single actor. On point, no overacting or behaving like you would't expect people to do in the described circumstances. Especially Pedro Pascal presented his talent. The characters had such deepnes, which the writer was able to create with so little but profund information, which is transported in such a subliminal way, that you don't even realize it in real time, but more subconscious.
Very seldom I've seen the main character like the young woman, reacting so rational and natural in a movie. I can't think of anything I'd done different.
I believe the reason why this movie fascinates me for so long, beside the fact of the magnificent world-building as so many reviewers have stated, is that it is an extraordinary well depiction of human nature. In almost every sentence and dialogue about things, the characters have done, events that comprise this universe, this typical human behavior is shown. This is exactly what makes it so believable in the end. It makes no difference where, who or when everything happens. Times can change, places can change, climate can change but human nature never does and probably never will!
Yes, there truly is something melancholic to this fundamental fact and this movie manages to transport this message in such an unbiased way, that it will always have a place in my memory.
An absolute must wach for hard Sci-Fi fans and still a great story for everyone else.
Arrival (2016)
TRUE and PHILOSOPHICAL Science-Fiction
This is exactly what I want to see when paying for a cinema ticket!
Denis Villeneuve is a true visual artist, with high creativity and deep understanding of the power good pictures/shots can have. He takes his time to take the viewer into the moment and let him feel the imagined atmosphere as good as possible. (I'm really looking forward to his interpretation of Dune!)
I must point out the incredible and majestic one-take shot of the protagonists arriving to the place the ,Arrival' happend, in which Villeneuve presents us in an over 2min long, no talking one-shot, one of the (in my eyes) best ,First visual Contact' scenes ever made. Captivating sound and atmosphere! Brilliantly executed!
This rather calm Sci-Fi movie is low paced with a lot subtile elements. The storyline itself is actually not complex on the surface, but has a highly complex and philosophical idea in its core! This makes it a multiple watch movie that demands way more from the audience than the average flick.
It has good but no groundbreaking performances by the actors, but built in an all around great atmospheric environment, they are believable as well as their behavior.
All together a MUST for experienced and demanding Sci-Fi watchers and a fantastic opportunity for everybody else to see a movie from the true genre of Science-Fiction!
Upgrade (2018)
Simply STUNNING low budget Sci-Fi! High Level Filmmaking!
This is a gem! Belive the good reviews. You are reading a review from a lifetime Sci-Fi watcher who has seen everything in this Genre thats worth watching.
The mind that has brought us SAW (maybe you remember the moment this guy awakens in the middle of the room, brillant), delivers a fantastic mixture of AI-Philosophical-Sci-Fi-Action-Thriller, subtly wrapped in Comicstyle-Visuals, with a truly great performance by main actor Logan. All of this with a ridiculous low budget of 5mio.$!!
THIS is filmmaking quality at high level, writing a terrific storyline, with no unnecessary prolonging of the story and not beeing afraid also ending it with a thought provoking climax.
You are in touch with the main character from the beginning on. With only a few scenes and specific information provided you get a good glimpse of who he is as a person.
It is true. It has a lot of Black Mirror, Outer Limits etc. in it and also a good portion of the Venom-Idea, but combined in a surprisingly good, entertaining and thought provoking manner. Sound creating a great atmosphere, Visuals and Camera with low budget creativity (especially astonishing), with sets chosen being simple but incredibly believable. All around a movie where >50 mio. productions can cut a slice from.
This 90min. Flick is highly recomended!
Away (2020)
For everyone who has seen a couple of movies/series ...don't waste your time
After thousand movies/series seen I think this is actually my first written review here on IMDB. After watching 5 episodes (last two fast forwarding) I couldn't help to write and warn everybody who has little expectation to be intellectually stimulated or at least entertained when watching a movie or series. PLEASE stand away from this one and do NOT WASTE YOUR TIME.
This storyline must be written from someone who has not seen much movies/series before (no matter what Genre) but probably a lot of DALYSOAPS.
Even if I am a Sci-Fi fan and do have some expectations when a story is set up in space, that it at least tries to be somehow realistic, I still understand that this can also be used just as the frame, like in Solaris or just an abstract tease of the unknown like in Contact in order to bring philosophical thoughts to a viewers mind.
But Away is complete nonsense! The only reason I'm not rating 1 Star is, that there sure is even more television garbage produced, especially by NETFLIX I really need to cut this off
This type of series really make me think who is giving green light on huge budgets to be wasted like this and even more why I don't try to send some script to Netlfix