iwasspock Reviews

Dune: Part Two (2024)

Yawn yawn yawn

[4/10 · 3 March 2024]

As usual with Villeneuve : brilliant scenery But that alone does not make a movie CGI and superheros are not enough to make a movie great .

Acting does , twists , unexpected scenes , captivating shots , thrills and a good script.

1 hour into this second part and I was already looking at my watch . Not a good sign.

This part 2was pretty boring .

Christopher Walken was pretty lame for being portraiting an Emperor.

Not alone him , but also the rest of cast with a few exceptions didn't do it for me .

Only Austin Butler came across as , finally someone to wake up to.

And then it seemed to me that a lot of scenes were cut since some scenes were left unexplained such as how did the Harkonnen get info on Paul his uprising .

Also : blue eyes , then no blue eyes , make your mind up.

The whole movie was also pretty dark , no HDR , no light at the end of the tunnel and a pretty stupid ending.

Star Trek: Picard (2020–2023)

Meh meh meh

[4/10 · 3 January 2024]

Let's not pretend , season 1 and 2 were pretty crappy . I don't know on which planet those writers were at the time and what they were smokin', but it was clearly on a level of non-intelligence.

I score those two seasons at 3/10 . Meaning 1 point for production, 1 for pacing and 1 out of 2 for strong caracters.

Production is not really suprising since if I count the number of producers for this vehicle , it could have been Tribbles.

Story was zero points , same for acting ,emotional impact ,original , sympathy with players.

Now , season 3 . Somebody has obvious smashed his fist on the table and gladly gotten those writers of their cloud of pot .

Story gets 2 points this time , acting 1 . Total 6/10.

Originality , sympathy , emotional impact still don't do it for me.

And there are so many mistakes and stupidities.

Here are a few : Picard as Admiral is on the bridge with Riker as Captain and Captain Liam Shaw as Captain . At a certain point Shaw gives an order , to be overturned by Picard pointing out he is higher ranking and thus gives another order which is accepted by Shaw . Later in the same episode Picard gives an order to be overturned by Riker because he is the acting Captain ! And Picard stands down . Ok boys back to school here .

On another occasion they go to this old Space station where Geordi is in charge of kind of a museum where all the old starships are present including a Klingon Bird of Prey . To escape from some enemies two rookies are able to steal the cloakin device of the Klingon ship , place it on their Starship and activate it . So what ??? As if that Klingon ship being there for years and years was never investigated neither the technology was used for the present starships ? Common !

The acting then : Ed Speleers as Jack Crusher is bad , really bad . All he can do is lower his head and turn his eyes in two directions.

Michelle Hurd as Rafaella : makes me nervous since the last time I saw Danny Kaye perform.

The stand-out performer is Brent Spiner.

Sol Rodriguez gets points of not overacting.

Jonathan Frakes stays true to himself and his caracter , much so Michael Dorn.

Most of the rest are overacting and are little convincing.

So all in all , a very bad start with a decent ending.

Making it 3 point , 3 points and 6 points , or 4 in general.

Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (2013)

Boring copy of Bitter Moon

[1/10 · 11 December 2023]

I had high expectations . But those were within half an hour into the movie quickly going downwards in such way that I got up for making coffee without even putting the movie on pauze . Yes , that's how boring the movie is , how slow it is . The acting is also pretty boring . The actors don't seem to be involved at alll . The tone of their language remains without any emotions.

The connection to fly fishing is pretentious and supposed to be artful and shows how full of s*t many of those art people really are.

The movie copied also some ideas from Roman Polanski's Bitter Moon, except that that movie was far more engaging and had some better acting . As for a pure sex movie there are better outputs such as Les edades de Lulu or some of Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Save yourself some time and skip this movie.

Clash of the Titans (2010)

Hollow Clash

[1/10 · 28 November 2023]

I really feel sorry for all those actors and all those who put effort in this movie to end up in a product that does nothing emotional.

Not one single actor makes me feel involved in this vehicle of special effects . Big names don't deliver or play cheesy and get stupid lines.

This is really a bad movie.

I saw it in 3D and even that could not impress.

For me it lacks soul . Even a movie the likes of Gods of Egypt which more or less is in the same league is far better . Better in special effects , better in the story , better in putting down caracters , you get more involved even if it is still not a great movie.

Righteous Kill (2008)

mediocre

[5/10 · 21 November 2023]

Let's face it , Al Pacino is not such a great actor as so many tend to believe . He always plays about the same and is nowhere in the league of someone the likes of De Niro . But hey , at least he is better than Morgan Freeman who turns up in nearly every movie and just does not act at all but stays himself.

A thriller ? Hardly . Suspense : none . Surprises ? Only one that for some will be no surprise. Mistakes : the endscene where the female caracter vanishes in thin air. Stupid scenes : the 10min endscene , cheesy , predictable .

On the whole it's a bit of a poor movie with actors who have much more potential in their bag . Lucky it was only about 100 min long.

Ford v Ferrari (2019)

Another bad movie on racing

[1/10 · 18 November 2023]

Cardboard acting , cardboard script , cardboard directing.

This movie is pretty bad . Practicly all of the actors with a few exceptions act pretty bad . Sometimes it seems as if they were never into the movie . They act as if ' oh I have to do a scene , then pick up the kids from school and make dinner also " .

Most of them over-act their character and then we get on top typical stupid scenes like the little boy or wife listening to the radio in a total stupid way.

This is not the quality to expect like something as Apollo 13 where the acting is normal instead of over-acting and putting down stupid characters and scenes.

Ever seen a racing driver riding next to each other and facing each other on full speed .....well reality is far away in this output.

We also get some music that does not fit the year in question.

And all this is pretty much the fault of the director .

Solaris (1972)

Typical art project that fails

[1/10 · 15 November 2023]

Start of the 70's was a gift for either musicians with a progressive repertoire or movie directors . They could do everything , even their own crap would have been accepted as a piece of art.

We had Pasolini , Nicolas Roeg , Bertolucci, Loach,Truffaut, Fellini, Herzog and the list goes on.

Some of those movies were indeed great .

However this Solaris is for my personal taste really bad.

My stomach can take some slow scenes the likes of Kubricks 2001 , however in this vehicle they are a bit too much of the good , or rather the bad.

Numerous scenes are either useless , without real meaning and take too long.

The movie drags on and on and on.

Take it for granted that the first 2 hours nothing really interesting is happening . After 2 hours we get maybe 15min of a bit acceptable scenes to go back to 30 min of nothing.

I'm pretty amazed that I could sit this through , being though not in one take .It took me 2 days .

At least Kubricks 2001 had a lot of interesting scenes & photography on a level not seen till that period & a storyline.

This movie however was a waste of my time.

Beyond Skyline (2017)

Be my guest

[1/10 · 2 November 2023]

You wanna complete your list of top worst movies ever . Be my guest and watch this.

For the first time in my life I feel sorry for the producers to have given this to a crap director.

If I could have given a minus star, I would have . So this lowest rating is the best I could do , and goes to the CGI.

The storyline is so badly developed . Things happen and little or no explanation. It is as if the director just pushed a button and said ' and now you have to do this and everybody nodded and did the expected without asking questions.

The mistakes : by the dozen.

Big big big explosion at the beginning , and when one gets to the surface there is nothing broken.

They are in the underground , protected . But I would suppose that at the same time a few thousand others would be in a similar situation , no ?

Brains are taken from humans , and of course only 1 or 2 of those thousands seems to remember his previous life .

We get a John Wayne with a pistol that never needs to be recharged to take on far superior Aliens , and call him the same time a John McClane for that matter.

Utterly stupid situations of one man who saves humanity.

Ok.... I stop now ....and spoil myself by watching Eric Cartman singin' In the Ghetto in order to have seen something good this evening.

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Not so great as expected

[2/10 · 23 October 2023]

The story in itself is interesting , even very interesting. The acting is good as expected , though not on the highest level.

At some instances I thought this was a Paul Anderson movie. Some elements from Magnolia came along as well some elements from Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower . Though honestly both of those movies are far superiour .

The movie is too long and could have been edited to 2 hours .

Not only that , the focus it too much on DiCaprio.

We also get little insight on how the Osage are reacting on all this mess .

I think this is a missed oportunity to tell a story seen from the eyes of the Osage themselves instead of this constant focus on Ernest.

Scorcese has made better movies.

Transit (I) (2012)

Bad editing

[1/10 · 17 October 2023]

If someone thinks that a movie might be super by an edit done in such a way that the camera goes from A to B in just a few seconds and having a slightly dramatic filter ...you're wrong.

Avoidable at all costs.

Even B-movies are sometimes better than this outcome.

It's predictable , the acting is nothing special.

The director is to blame for the editing and the camerawork.

Clearly a director who had more focus on how the whole should be presented instead of putting effort on a something that can be watched without time and time again edit cuts goin' from face A to face B.

Save your money and time and don't watch it.

Tenet (2020)

Writers on blue and red pills

[3/10 · 14 October 2023]

Finally seen this movie and it did not impress me at all.

I think the writers were on blue and red pills at the same time when they wrote this on first sight interesting story but screwed it up by making it so complicated to follow . We get a ton of stupid dialogue the likes of recent Star Trek outputs where one thinks that if we put in a lot of SF stupid tech talk it will be interesting . Is it not !

Given that , some shot scenes are done like no-one has done before but due to the complicated storyline it gets confusing.

At least we get Kenneth Branagh as a villain acting as if all the Bond one's are pussies.

Next time sir director , instruct the writers to explain some things a bit more normal . Not everyone in the audience is an IT or SF nerd.

Madonna: Rebel Heart Tour (2016 TV Movie)

unwatchable

[1/10 · 23 September 2023]

Tried this , but after 15min I had to stop . The editing is so bad it hurt the eyes .

Shots are stitched together so random and you get different shots at rates of nearly every few seconds .

If that director or editor was not sacked , then Madonna herself it to blame to put out such a disaster of something unwatchable.

Also not understandable she is trying to move over the stage on high heels which obvious hinder her in any quick movements.

A shame that this maybe good tour is thus destroyed by an output on disc where the editing and directing is as bad as one can imagine.

This could have been something good.

Nobody (I) (2021)

Mixed bag

[4/10 · 6 September 2023]

The usual revenge/action movie . It starts rather ok but gradually goes down the drain with predictable situations.

It gets to the rediculous when the Russians enter his house with instructions to capture him alive , but start shooting at him. It gets even more stupid when being in a bmw trunk and opening it , because such a car is giving a warning for an open truck , as most cars do.

And the ending is even more ludicrous when bullits fly around , body's die in the dozen and of course the main caracters stay alive and well.

The scene with Christopher Lloyd in his chair with a shotgun under a cover was as predictable as 1+1=2. Same for the end scene wanting a cellar in the new house.

This is merely a John Wick copy , but alas not as good.

A Sound of Thunder (2005)

Is this real ?

[1/10 · 26 January 2023]

Don't know what Peter Hyams was thinkin' of . Either he lost some marbles or this was done by someone else . What was I lookin at ? A parody ? A drama ? Was I supposed to laugh all the time ?

In music terms I would see this as a Frank Zappa at his worst .

What do we get ?

We get Jurrasic park meets 50's SF , meets Star Gate , meets Star Trek , meets Day of the triffids ....what a mess .

The CGI is at times sooooo bad that you wander if this was done on purpose . The astronaut suits could have come out of 50's movie the likes of Forbidden planet or so .

At some point I wondered if this movie would end with someone of the likes of Groucho Marx closing with a " That's All Folks " and a wink .

Would I find this soooo bad , that it becomes good ? No ....is doesn't . It's a movie but not as we know it would Bones have said .

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

Thank God it is over and out.

[2/10 · 15 January 2023]

Sometimes I didn't know what to do , laugh my socks of or just weep. The dialogues were just bad . The action scenes ridiculous and totally not engaging neither do you feel any kind of real tension. It's just action for the action. Linda as a macho didn't work for me either. Then you have those copy/paste scenes from the skull , the truck , the highway or bridge ,to end in a very bombastic airplane scene so over the top that you start laughing . The terminator falling on a shed is copied from a Bond movie with good old Jaws. There is only 1 single scene worthy to watch and that is when Arnold is sitting outside his home and says " and I am pretty funny ".

Cell (I) (2016)

1 DB

[1/10 · 7 December 2022]

Not sure , but thought something like a production by 150db . Well in such case make it 1db . Comes to me over that people like Samuel L. Jackson did them a favor to star in this vehicle , or just wanted to aid the production team . Alas , the movie is not worth seeing .

John Cusack plays without any interest , and some other follow him in his non-efforts . The settings are bad , the editing is bad . And I didn't know what to do , I was laughing at all the mistakes in this movie . And if you think that you'll be scared . Forget it . Forget it to have some scary scenes like in I am legend with Will Smith . Though that movie is not perfect , at least it does scare from time to time .

This one is a bummer , to forget asap.

Deep Impact (1998)

Deep Slime

[1/10 · 2 December 2022]

What a load of slime this movie was . Regardless the fact that I don't like Morgan Freeman because he can't act ...he just always plays himself and has been more on the screen or in docs or wherever than the pixels on a 100inch screen....this movie is bad.

There is so much slime goin' on that it could generate a thousand nuri massages.

The music : slime . Numerous scenes : slime . The artificial lighting is done in way 50's movies were done. The scene where the neighbours come out to give respect to the young fellow who discovered the comet : slime. The scenes at Nasa with the families : slime . The acting was not bad , but not really good either apart from Duvall who honestly also plays rather his same role.

Going into the technical isn't needed since it would take several pages to indicate what is wrong.

If this movie were done by a 18 year old , I would say good job . But it ain't , is it .

The Raid: Redemption (2011)

Over the top violence.

[3/10 · 15 November 2022]

There are actions movies and action movies . There are those where the violence becomes rediculous and funny ( Machete kills ) , those where the violence becomes creepy under the skin unbearable ( I saw the devil ) , those where the violence is justified revenge ( old boy ,taken ) and here we get violence just for the sake of violence.

The camerawork is pretty good and the fighting is also nicely done . But don't expect a lot of logic in this fight between good and evil . There are numerous scenes that are totally stupid and which wouldn't happen if this was the real thing.

Also pretty obvious from the start who is the one who can't be trusted.

It's a movie where you'll have to turn of your brain and just enjoy the pace .

Trainspotting (1996)

Disappointed

[5/10 · 10 November 2022]

Only watched this movie recently . Don't get the hype about it . I was bored half of the time. I didn't care about anybody in this movie . All losers with no substance , no real life . And on top you get a crazy violent character . Seems to me that the director had this idea of ' lets put some crazy characters and scenes and stitch them together ' . It doesn't work most of the time . This is by far not as good as f.i. Lynch his Wild at heart or Kubricks Clockwork Orange.

The acting is all right , but don't expect anything wow.

Maybe at the time this movie stood out in the rest of the outcome that year. For me it is overhyped.

Stick to the music from this movie on vinyl or cd , at least that is worthwhile.

The Wrestler (2008)

Sublime

[8/10 · 9 November 2022]

If you are like me , and tired of these stupid hero-blockbuster movies with more CGI than actual reality , missing any caracters , bad acting before blue-screens , stupid scenarios , overpaid actors and directors , in short productions that only care about money . Look no further . This movie is a relief and the opposite of all above.

Mickey Rourke likes to play the anti-hero , just check his portfolio , and I like this . More actors should do this.

The movie itself gives us a slight insight in the world of wrestling , though not too much details. Mickey plays too perfection someone with a very lonely life who wants to change but ultimate fails in his efforts.

The way it is filmed is also nicely done , it is not documentary style but feels sometimes that way . It's directed in a way that it doesn't feel to be directed . Few directors can do this.

It's a must see movie.

The Great Wall (I) (2016)

Zhang Yimou , really ?

[1/10 · 6 November 2022]

Oh boy , where to start.

Zhang Yimou just went downhill with this one.

Though he made a few very good movies , this one it total crap.

It is not because you have the biggest budget ever , the biggest workforce , a CGI team that does not know how to stop , that you are creating the best movie.

On the contrary : the worst acting , laughable CGI, actors that run around like chickens without a head.

A second rated spagetti western is even more to be enjoyed than this total disaster of a movie.

People that rate this 10 have prob never watched a movie in their life or have no life at all.

Let me grab back to Curse of the Golden Flower and watch the greatness of Zhang Yimou and forgive him for this outcome.

Quantum of Solace (2008)

2 good scenes and the rest is garbage

[2/10 · 28 October 2022]

Don't know why Daniel even keeps on goin' in this Bond-garbage-land . Must be the money and nothing else.

Let's face it , good Bond movies are very sparse .

This one is one of the worst ones in the franchise , and thankfully it only clocks at around 1h40min.

This is not a movie , it is just a collage of scenes sticked together by a 6 year old child .

The use of the camera for the action shots is a total mess . The editing is a total mess , the Bond-song doesn't fit - sorry correct this , as the movie is bad a bad song does fit .

There are only 2 scenes which are worth to be seen , namely the scene of Bond drinkin in the bar , and the scene between Bond and the girl talkin' about the reason of their action. That's about it . Those are the only scenes of maybe 5min in total where people actually talk to each other . The rest is utter crap , totally unreal scenes/action and full of mistakes .

Just utter shamelessly garbage . It makes a movie such as Machete Kills even more to be enjoyed, that says a lot.

Thankfully there are the books , and those are more thrilling than about 10 Bond movies combined , and have more tension which this movie also completely lacks.

Automata (I) (2014)

Better than expected

[7/10 · 26 October 2022]

A bit of a mixed bag .

We get I robot mixed with Blade Runner atmosphere and maybe also a bit of District 9.

In I Robot we got a cop , now we get an insurance investigator.

The pacing is good , the story is more than good enough , the acting is okee , the settings are very good , the photography is nice.

Sadly at around 1:20 it all goes a bit downwards with typical cheezy predictable scenes. The shootout at the end could have been better handled and misses enough tension - there is not enough build-up, a better score could have helped here.

But, at least the whole thing is better than most Hollywood SF crap such as The Martian , and we get some scenes which were not predictable.

The Martian (2015)

Total disaster

[1/10 · 25 October 2022]

Was this really a Ridley Scott ? The one of Alien etc....one would doubt this to the full.

I have a ton of SF movies and this one is most certainly in my top 10 of worst SF ever.

There is nothing wrong with the idea of the story , but the execution of it is really bad.

Lets begin with the start of the movie . Within less than 5min something bad happens . I was thinkin watching a Star Trek movie because they always screw it up with the start . You don't get the time to be introduced by the characters at all.

Then there is the acting. Jeff Daniels: bad ,Chiwetel Ejiofor : bad , even Sean Bean is bad . It is as if no rehearsals at all were done . Ok boys lets do it in one or two takes .

The editing is sometimes bad .

The cheezy scenes of people watching the show is bad.

Nasa is totally a farce in terms on how it is projected. Especially the scenes where Daniels is giving his speeches or the meetings.

The crew of the Ares III only has young people : also not likely at all.

A young astrodynamicist is able to come up with an idea as old as the universe and NASA can't ?. Who wrote this stupid script ?

And the movie is very predictable.

The music does not fit . It is as if someone had this idea : " Oh lets do it like Guardians of the Galaxy and put in some pop-songs " . The difference however is that GOTG is a funny/sarcastic/action movie whereas The Martian is supposed to be serious.

Matt Damon : has some good moments , but those are preserved for the last half of the movie and then they are already not that great at all.

So anything good in this vehicle ? Yes : the photography and camerawork.

But that is about it.

Bad , really bad.

The American (2010)

Good ideas , but very predictable.

[7/10 · 21 October 2022]

This could have been a very good one , because the acting is pretty good from nearly everyone, the setting is good , the camerawork is good , the colours are good , the music does not intrude , and at least the action is realistic if compared to those stupid Bond movies with over the top action.

So what is not so good, you say ?

Well , for starters it is very predictable . Immediate obvious that the one who gives instructions is the bad one and will try to kill our good George. Same goes for the hit-girl. Even the romance is predictable. And the ending with the butterfly : I saw this commin' from around the corner.

And there are a few severe mistakes as well in the story .

Such as the accident with the motorcyclist & no police to be seen to investigate whereas Clooney to be the sole stranger in town and as new resident should be the first to be investigated.

So in short : could have been much better.